Dear Colleagues,

In 2013, Cornell University Library received a research and development grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to design a framework for preserving access to digital art objects. We are pleased to announce the publication of a white paper that describes the project's findings, discoveries, and challenges:

The ultimate goal of the project team has been the creation of a preservation and access practice grounded in practical understanding of the characteristics of digital objects and their access requirements from the perspectives of users and curators. The white paper aims to contribute to practical understanding, management, and curation of digital assets. The documentation in Appendix A outlines the results of in-depth technical and forensic analysis of the artworks in the test bed collection. It includes a classifications document for new media artworks and step-by-step directions for configuring and running standalone emulator software. There has been great progress over the last two years in developing infrastructures to bring characterization of digital objects and emulation to scale. We aim to contribute by providing further context for the principles and technologies underlying these active research areas. Although the initiative focused on new media art, we hope that our methodologies and findings will inform other types of complex born-digital collections as well. We welcome your questions and comments.

Best regards,

Liz Muller

On behalf of the project team

Elizabeth D. Muller

Curator of Digital and Media Collections

Assistant Director for Technical Services

Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections

2B Carl A. Kroch Library

Cornell University

Ithaca, NY 14853

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607-255-9484

http://rare.library.cornell.edu/