Right now we have little dificulty looking at journals (scientific or otherwise) from 150 years ago or more. The pages may be brittle, but the information is there. Obviously, documents thousands of years old still exist and provide priceless information to researches.
The larger goal of electronic preservation is to ensure (if possible) that the electronic data of today will have a lifespan equal, or better, to a physical copy. Right now, this is not possible, and it actually seems that the situation for digital information is worse than for physical data. Think about it, depending on whom you talk to, a CD will last 25-75 years, magnetic media have obvious limitations. Then there is the problem of technology/platform change. How can we guarantee that in 150+ years, PDF, HTML, or even digital data itself will be able to be read? We could be using quantuum computers with some bizarre storage medium taht are completely incompatable with today's technology.
A common solution seems to be to just transfer file formats to tomorrows technology as it is created, and transfer these files from the old media to new as it expires. But at the rate humanity is accumulating knowledge, we could quickly be spending more of our time changing PDFs to whatever, and then that whatever to the next whatever, and so on. Another solution is to maintain the archaic platforms of today so that our files can be read. But, however well cared-for, mechanical devices will break down in time, so that is not a realistic option.
Another possible option is to maintain write emulators for all of the platforms in exsistence today, so that they can run linux or windows or whatever on the badass machines of tomorrow. But that runs into loads of proprietary technology/patent/copyright/legal issues that slashdotters are all well familiar with. Data needs to be freely available to researchers of the future. It should be just as easy (ie, no license required) as it is to pick up a book off the shelf.
So from what I know of digital library collection preservation, the situation at present is pretty grim. We are spending huge amounts of money to rush to publish documents in a digital format, with no assurances that 100 years from now (much less a thousand), this data will be available for general concumption. We are all hoping that it will just "work out" or a technological panacea will emerge.
What I'd really like to know is this -- for all the talk of "everyone" getting free music, is anyone out there actually BUYING music, MP3 or Liquid Audio or otherwise?
Actually, yes. I've purchased tracks from Liquid Audio, and I never will again. I am a devoted fan of an extremely talented and under-appreciated band out of Colorado, and as such a fan I like to have all the material that they have recorded. So last fall they decide to release a live album, but only through Liquid Audio. I had never purchased an MP3 (or propritary version thereof), but I thought I'd give it a try anyway.
OK, there were about 17-18 tracks as I recall, and they wanted about $1.50 each for them, with the price increasing as a factor of the track length. That adds up quickly, already more than I'd be willing to pay in a store, but I'm a fan, damnit!
After downloading their player, and days of downloading the tracks on my 56k connection, I went to listen to them but the.exe for the player (Win and Mac only) got corrupted somehow so I had to download it again. This time it installed fine and played the songs, but it wouldn't allow me to burn the tracks to CD (the player software supports CD burners for one burn per track), my intention from the beginning! Liquid Audio support replied to my query that the program has to be installed and run before you download tracks so it can verify that you bought them, blah, blah. I explained about having to re-install and they gave me a line about how this was unfortunate and they would credit my charge card and let me buy the tracks again. No thanks, what a bunch of SDMI crap!
My solution was to download a utility to record the stream off of the sound card while the liquid audio tracks played. This worked nicely, and I got a CD, which I burned and the made real MP3s to keep on the harddrive. Counting the media, the process of simply getting new music from a band I like cost me almost $30 and a huge amount of time. Even if this band released somehting like this again, I don't think I'd do it. I feel ripped-off and I respect the band less now for being part of such a lame marketing move (even if it was their managers, not they, who made the decision to do it.) If I have freaking purchased an album or track or whatever, I should be able to do whatever I want with it, even burn two copies!
As an undergraduate I worked in the main campus library, full of fast new PCs with all the bandwidth they could handle. A small percentage of these machines were networked and required a student ID to logon. The vast majority, however, were simple Win 95 boxes, freely available to the public at large. Before too long, Joe Schmoe found out that he could get all the latest porn videos quick as can be, 24 hours a day, for free.
Directly in front of my help desk were 42 PCs, and by midnight every night, at least 10 of those were taken up by someone looking at porn. And we let them do it. If someone started to spank it (which did happen several times, actually), sure, then we called security over, but until then, we did nothing. They were minding their own business--looking at porn, but bothering no one. (You might not look at the pro-gay magazine on the rack because it offends you, well you don't have to look at the porn mongers screen, either). If they had loaded the hard drive with porn, then we just re-ghosted the PC and two minutes later all was as it should be.
There is no need to censor, no need to filter the internet content that comes into libraries for use by adults. (I'll agree that filtering on children's computers would be acceptable.) Thoughtful placement of the computers and good recovery software should keep everyone happy.
Granted, that was a university, where things are a little more open anyway, but I don't think it should matter. A public library should not be censoring the internet content for adults in any way, whether it is a university library or a simple local branch. Its like selectively ripping the pages out of an encyclopedia. The internet is diverse, and some people may not approve of all of it, but the good should come with the bad. The library didn't rip out the page in the Ecyclopaedia Brittanica on paganism; neither should the URL for Paganism be blocked. And for christssake, not The Onion. That's jsut about the best site on the net, next to/., of course.
On a Windoze PC you can record any audio file or streaming audio directly from the sound card itself and save it as a WAV file, using Total Recorder from High Criteria.
You have to play mix master with the levels, and you have to do all the recording in real time, but the end result is great and ready to burn to CD-R.
Slashdot Mirror
Right now we have little dificulty looking at journals (scientific or otherwise) from 150 years ago or more. The pages may be brittle, but the information is there. Obviously, documents thousands of years old still exist and provide priceless information to researches.
The larger goal of electronic preservation is to ensure (if possible) that the electronic data of today will have a lifespan equal, or better, to a physical copy. Right now, this is not possible, and it actually seems that the situation for digital information is worse than for physical data. Think about it, depending on whom you talk to, a CD will last 25-75 years, magnetic media have obvious limitations. Then there is the problem of technology/platform change. How can we guarantee that in 150+ years, PDF, HTML, or even digital data itself will be able to be read? We could be using quantuum computers with some bizarre storage medium taht are completely incompatable with today's technology.
A common solution seems to be to just transfer file formats to tomorrows technology as it is created, and transfer these files from the old media to new as it expires. But at the rate humanity is accumulating knowledge, we could quickly be spending more of our time changing PDFs to whatever, and then that whatever to the next whatever, and so on. Another solution is to maintain the archaic platforms of today so that our files can be read. But, however well cared-for, mechanical devices will break down in time, so that is not a realistic option.
Another possible option is to maintain write emulators for all of the platforms in exsistence today, so that they can run linux or windows or whatever on the badass machines of tomorrow. But that runs into loads of proprietary technology/patent/copyright/legal issues that slashdotters are all well familiar with. Data needs to be freely available to researchers of the future. It should be just as easy (ie, no license required) as it is to pick up a book off the shelf.
So from what I know of digital library collection preservation, the situation at present is pretty grim. We are spending huge amounts of money to rush to publish documents in a digital format, with no assurances that 100 years from now (much less a thousand), this data will be available for general concumption. We are all hoping that it will just "work out" or a technological panacea will emerge.
For more on this topic, try this link.
Actually, yes. I've purchased tracks from Liquid Audio, and I never will again. I am a devoted fan of an extremely talented and under-appreciated band out of Colorado, and as such a fan I like to have all the material that they have recorded. So last fall they decide to release a live album, but only through Liquid Audio. I had never purchased an MP3 (or propritary version thereof), but I thought I'd give it a try anyway.
OK, there were about 17-18 tracks as I recall, and they wanted about $1.50 each for them, with the price increasing as a factor of the track length. That adds up quickly, already more than I'd be willing to pay in a store, but I'm a fan, damnit!
After downloading their player, and days of downloading the tracks on my 56k connection, I went to listen to them but the .exe for the player (Win and Mac only) got corrupted somehow so I had to download it again. This time it installed fine and played the songs, but it wouldn't allow me to burn the tracks to CD (the player software supports CD burners for one burn per track), my intention from the beginning! Liquid Audio support replied to my query that the program has to be installed and run before you download tracks so it can verify that you bought them, blah, blah. I explained about having to re-install and they gave me a line about how this was unfortunate and they would credit my charge card and let me buy the tracks again. No thanks, what a bunch of SDMI crap!
My solution was to download a utility to record the stream off of the sound card while the liquid audio tracks played. This worked nicely, and I got a CD, which I burned and the made real MP3s to keep on the harddrive. Counting the media, the process of simply getting new music from a band I like cost me almost $30 and a huge amount of time. Even if this band released somehting like this again, I don't think I'd do it. I feel ripped-off and I respect the band less now for being part of such a lame marketing move (even if it was their managers, not they, who made the decision to do it.) If I have freaking purchased an album or track or whatever, I should be able to do whatever I want with it, even burn two copies!
finland, finland, finland . . . so sadly neglected, so often ignored . . . PythOnline
As an undergraduate I worked in the main campus library, full of fast new PCs with all the bandwidth they could handle. A small percentage of these machines were networked and required a student ID to logon. The vast majority, however, were simple Win 95 boxes, freely available to the public at large. Before too long, Joe Schmoe found out that he could get all the latest porn videos quick as can be, 24 hours a day, for free.
/., of course.
Directly in front of my help desk were 42 PCs, and by midnight every night, at least 10 of those were taken up by someone looking at porn. And we let them do it. If someone started to spank it (which did happen several times, actually), sure, then we called security over, but until then, we did nothing. They were minding their own business--looking at porn, but bothering no one. (You might not look at the pro-gay magazine on the rack because it offends you, well you don't have to look at the porn mongers screen, either). If they had loaded the hard drive with porn, then we just re-ghosted the PC and two minutes later all was as it should be.
There is no need to censor, no need to filter the internet content that comes into libraries for use by adults. (I'll agree that filtering on children's computers would be acceptable.) Thoughtful placement of the computers and good recovery software should keep everyone happy.
Granted, that was a university, where things are a little more open anyway, but I don't think it should matter. A public library should not be censoring the internet content for adults in any way, whether it is a university library or a simple local branch. Its like selectively ripping the pages out of an encyclopedia. The internet is diverse, and some people may not approve of all of it, but the good should come with the bad. The library didn't rip out the page in the Ecyclopaedia Brittanica on paganism; neither should the URL for Paganism be blocked. And for christssake, not The Onion. That's jsut about the best site on the net, next to
On a Windoze PC you can record any audio file or streaming audio directly from the sound card itself and save it as a WAV file, using Total Recorder from High Criteria.
You have to play mix master with the levels, and you have to do all the recording in real time, but the end result is great and ready to burn to CD-R.