The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0305 Tuesday, 20 May 2008
[1] From: Michael Best <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 19 May 2008 13:33:27 -0700
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0301 A Problem of Access
[2] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 19 May 2008 19:15:30 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0301 A Problem of Access
[3] From: Matthew Steggle <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 20 May 2008 10:30:19 +0100
Subj: RE: SHK 19.0298 A Problem of Access
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael Best <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 19 May 2008 13:33:27 -0700
Subject: 19.0301 A Problem of Access
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0301 A Problem of Access
David Lindley's question on the potential loss of electronic data is
indeed a good one, and has elicited thoughtful answers from several on
the list. The continuing viability of electronic texts is a major
concern of any scholarly electronic publisher.
David Evett's comment about his increasingly inaccessible 5 1/4"
floppies is an experience many of us have shared. On the Internet
Shakespeare site, the basis of our growing database of Shakespeare in
performance was Kenneth Rothwell's work in his _ Shakespeare on Screen:
An International Filmography and Videography_ (1990). Kenneth generously
provided us permission to use his work, along with his original 5 1/4"
floppies -- with the data in the obsolete program WordStar. Another
Shakespeare/Film scholar, Jose Ramon Diaz-Fernandez, was able to convert
the data into Word files, which we were then able to use to import the
information into our database, after some further conversion. (You can
check out our database at
<http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Theater/sip/index.html >.)
All this, however, took a whole lot of time and energy. Our main
response to the threat that future changes in technology will render
earlier forms of electronic data useless is to encode as much as we can
in a format that will be reliably modified to work on any future system.
We use the standard XML (eXtensible Markup Language) because its
structure includes information on what the encoding means as well as the
encoding itself. In Gabriel Egan's phrase, the files are "self-
descriptive." Thus, future computers and future software may need
different instructions in order to display the texts correctly, but all
that will need to be changed will be the process, not the basic texts
themselves. Changing the process will of course cost money in
programming time, so we will just have to put the same kind of effort
into keeping the e-texts current as we do into keeping libraries at a
constant temperature.
Cheers--
Michael
Michael Best
Coordinating Editor, Internet Shakespeare Editions
<http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/>
Department of English, University of Victoria
Victoria B.C. V8W 3W1, Canada.
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 19 May 2008 19:15:30 -0400
Subject: 19.0301 A Problem of Access
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0301 A Problem of Access
I think Gabriel Egan is spot on when he suggests that books are only
different in degree from other means of storing information, and that
periodic re-storage is necessary as old media degrade or become obsolete.
To be sure, digitally stored material particularly requires frequent
reproduction, both because electronic bits inevitably degrade or mutate
and because the hardware needed to recover the information becomes
obsolete and unavailable. If David Evett were to retrieve his old 5 1/4"
floppy disks, for example, and if he has the twenty year old hardware
needed to play them, he might well find that the data on them has
disappeared or been corrupted beyond use. But the problem is not
confined to digital media; even books and other durable media are not
exempt.
Archives storing old silver nitrate celluloid film have discovered that
much if not most of it has crumbled into oblivion. The American Film
Institute is attempting to salvage as much as possible, but the process
is extremely expensive and time consuming so they must make difficult
decisions about what to sacrifice to the ravages of time. Libraries
periodically throw away old books for which there is no demand and which
are not regarded as having rare book value. Some libraries microfilm
them first, but not all do and many do not microfilm everything they
chuck out. (Gabriel makes too strong a case when he says "everything
ever printed is available to us"; for example, where can I find a copy
of Love's Labour's Wonne?)
This problem is not confined to ancient documents. Ambrose Video has
issued DVDs of the BBC Shakespeare series aired only about 30 years ago.
Some of the disks are missing portions which have disappeared from the
master tapes.
Another difficulty is that reproduction in alternative media -- e.g.,
microfilm or microfiche instead of paper; DVDs instead of film -- runs
the risk of losing some of the artistic content. Film is clearer
superior in depth quality to video tape. Many audiophiles insist that
LPs produce richer and warmer tones than digital disks. That will be
forever lost when the LPs inevitably degrade due to weather or
mistreatment or it becomes nearly impossible to find high quality
styluses for the antique turntables needed to play them. As for books,
scrolling a microfilm reader or a computer screen does not provide the
same experience as turning a page.
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Matthew Steggle <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 20 May 2008 10:30:19 +0100
Subject: 19.0298 A Problem of Access
Comment: RE: SHK 19.0298 A Problem of Access
Further to the discussion of the longevity of electronic resources -
Gabriel Egan modestly omits to mention his own excellent discussion of
the topic in a 2005 conference paper, 'EEBO and the politics of open
standards', which is available online at
http://www.gabrielegan.com/publications/Egan2005l.htm.
As for the ejournal Early Modern Literary Studies, http://purl.org/emls,
we have measures in place to safeguard the long-term survival and
readability of our data. For instance:
1. We publish, not in any proprietary file format, but in HTML, which is
simple; robust; and readable with a wide range of software.
2. We maintain several 'conventional' archives of our data, including
the National Library of Canada and our mirror site at the University of
Toronto.
3. We are also archived by the LOCKSS scheme at Stanford University,
http://www.lockss.org/, as mentioned by Martin Mueller. This is a
long-term programme in which data will be constantly copied, audited,
and 'migrated forward in time', while preserving the content. The LOCKSS
scheme might be a model of how long-term maintenance of digital data can
be made to work.
- Matt
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