Digital Project Staff Survey of JPEG 2000 Implementation
There has been recent uptake of the JPEG 2000 format, particular as highlighted in a report written by the Royal Dutch Library. This survey should help clarify positions of current usage
I am writing to solicit your help with a survey of library-related digital project staff regarding the implementation of the JPEG 2000 standard for digital images (specifically still images and not motion). We estimate that this task will take approximately 15 minutes of your time. It is available now at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=WXFAJwyRNZZilRWzrnum_2fw_3d_3d
The survey will remain active until October 31, 2008. Afterward, we will post the results via a report uploaded to our institutional repository, digitalcommons.uconn.edu.
Please note that in our report, personal information from the survey will not be revealed, and any comments used will remain unattributed unless the respondent prefers to be credited and indicates that desire in a separate email to me directly at david.lowe@uconn.edu.
Thank you for your help,
David Lowe
Preservation Librarian
UConn Libraries
Will a BBC video archive swamp everything else?
Various events earlier in the summer gave the BBC the chance to parade their plans to digitise their entire back archive of televisual material. (Although it’s interesting to note there is little info on this on the BBC site itself, particularly on its archive pages).
The plans are not new. Back in 2006, there were reports about this as well.
As often happens when the BBC gets involved, other providers are might be a little nervous about the effect of this.
With the power of the BBC brand and its related marketing strength, and the undoubted brilliance of technologies like the iPlayer, does this not mean that all users, irrespective of background, go straight to the BBC for their video content, rendering the offerings of other content providers somewhat useless?
Other content providers, such as JISC-funded projects like Newsfilm Online or InView will certainly have to work harder at persuading users to visit their site. However, compelling reasons do exist for getting those users to come.
- Comparative video - for instance, InView (due to launch in Spring 2009) is providing comparative videos, which allow users to see how different media outlets have covered the same historical event - something the BBC obviously cannot do by itself.
- Unique content- Newsfilm Online (the full version of which is due to launched on October 3 2008) will have content simply unavailable to the BBC. To choose at random - news items relating to Bird Flu, the Twin Towers attack or, from early Gaumont Screen reels, highlights from England Australia cricket matches, and also film rushes which never made it to the TV screen.
- NewsFilm Online will also provide a different editorial viewpoint, delivering content from media sources such as ITN and Reteurs, rather than the Beeb.
- Both the JISC-funded projects will be making their content freely available to the HE and FE communities, not just for streaming but to download, remix and re-edit. The flexibility to allow users to do what they want with such video clips is vital if users are to exploit the resources in as many ways as possible.
- It’s also worth remembering that the BBC, however impartial, sees the world via a British lens. Perspectives from other countries are supplied by digitisation projects by the National Archives in the United States, or various national bodies in the Netherlands, France or Norway.
- Additionally, the BBC is more news-focussed, and, although the BBC seems to represent a huge mass of content, it is only a drop in the ocean of what could be digitised and made available online.
- So for example, the Performance Shakespeare collection, which is part of Film and Sound Online and the Arts on Film Archive can focus on performing arts content not readily available from the BBC archives.
So that all goes to show there are plenty of reasons for users to work with video content beyond that made available via the BBC (which it should not be forgotten is only talking about these plans for digitisation at the moment).
But other content providers need to have focussed marketing and communications plans to ensure users are aware of this.
Early usage of the John Johnson Collection
The second release of the JISC-funded John Johnson Collection: An Archive of Printed Ephemera, a collaboration between the Bodleian Library and ProQuest, is now available at http://johnjohnson.chadwyck.co.uk and http://johnjohnson.chadwyck.com.
The project reported that “usage Statistics for the John Johnson Collection resource during the first two months since the launch (March 2008) have been extremely encouraging […] The number of sessions in this period is roughly a quarter (23%) that of the total number of sessions within UK institutions of one of ProQuest’s leading humanities databases during the same period.”
The new release includes additional content in the five categories of material represented in the collection - Entertainment, the Booktrade, Popular Prints, Crimes, Murders and Executions and Advertising - as well as improved search screens.
For example, the new Crimes, Murders and Executions category-specific search screen includes additional fields for Criminal, Victim and Crime, as well as a set of checkboxes that allow the user to restrict searches according to the sentence passed. This makes it easy to find ephemera relating to a particular crime, for example highway robbery or sedition, or particular forms of punishment, such as the death penalty.
In this podcast interview, David Tomkins, Project Manager at the Bodleian and Peter White, Project Manager at ProQuest, talk about what ephemera is, what makes the John Johnson Collection special, their partnership and the challenges around digitising ephemera.
Using Flickr for digital resources
The East London Theatre Archive is creating an invaluable database of performing arts resources, from playbills and programmes to press cuttings and photographs. It will consist of around 15,000 digital objects, taken from East London theatres.
As an extra part of their work, they have commissioned photography of some of the theatres themselves, such as Wilton Hall, the Theatre Royal or the wonderfully named Half Moon theatre.
The team have decided to put these photos up on Flickr as an extra dissemination channel. A dedicated website is currently being built, but the team wanted to test what usage was like using a publicly available platform. Usage is currently being monitored, and the team will report back as their project progresses.
Wellcome Trust Digitisation - Request for Suppliers
The Wellcome Library – part of the Wellcome Trust – is currently developing a new strategy which will include a programme to digitise the Library’s unique and significant, out-of-copyright, holdings.
Given the scale of the task – preliminary projections suggest that the size of the collection (excluding the in-copyright material) is around 45 million pages – it is envisaged that the Library will seek an external supplier (or a consortium of suppliers) to undertake and manage a large element of this programme.
The Library invites Suppliers, who are potentially interested in helping the Library plan its digitisation programme, to respond to a Request-for-Information document which sets out the current boundaries of this project.
This document can be accessed at http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/node350.html