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Date:   2/2/98 12:00 PM

RE:     DIGITAL PRESERVATION: A new conversation


NINCH ANNOUNCEMENT
February 2, 1998



             DIGITAL PRESERVATION ISSUES: An Important Conversation

                "TIME AND BITS:  Managing Digital Continuity"
               <http://www.ahip.getty.edu/timeandbits/intro.html>


As more of the cultural heritage community understands the urgency of
digital preservation issues (how do we save existing digital material that
is already proving to be unreadable and how do we prepare a strategy for
ensuring the long-term availability of material we are now digitizing?) one
group is preparing to expand the conversation beyond the merely technical
and technological.

This week, the Getty Center will host a small group that will open a
discussion on "technology, culture, and time," that will examine the
sociocultural and economic implications of the digital preservation issues.
The ambition of the conversation is to "provide a framework for long-term
digital cultural preservation."

Those included in the conversation include the following:

Howard Besser
Stewart Brand
Doug Carlston
Ben  Davis
John Heilemann
Danny Hillis
Brewster Kahle
Kevin Kelly
Jaron Lanier
Peter Lyman
Margaret MacLean
Paul Saffo
Bruce Sterling

This project is being co-organized by the Getty Conservation Institute, the
Getty Information Institute and the Long Now Foundation of San Francisco.
The web site announcing the conversation and the issues will report on the
dialog. It also contains a very useful list of web resources on digital
preservation issues at <http://www.ahip.getty.edu/timeandbits/links.html>.

Below is the introduction to "TIME & BITS" as it appears on the web page.


David Green

===========


                "TIME AND BITS:  Managing Digital Continuity"
             <http://www.ahip.getty.edu/timeandbits/intro.html>


Introduction
 The enthusiastic and increasing use of electronic media for storing
information of various kinds demonstrates the utility of the format and its
possibilities.

In the field of cultural heritage, there is an enormous amount of
significant information in digital form. These data are vulnerable on many
levels. Because of the increasingly fast cycle of obsolescence in hardware
and software, we are at the point where the proliferation of electronic
data on various platforms has prompted some serious concerns about the
long-term protection of the data. A number of international organizations
are examining technological issues that bear on the problem, including data
types, media stability, and options for refreshing and migrating data to
ever-evolving platforms.

There is, however, an important gap in the discussions.

An integrated technical and philosophical discussion of digital archives
and their future that includes the sociocultural and economic implications
of both the problems and the solutions could provide a framework for
long-term digital cultural preservation.

The Getty Conservation Institute and the Getty Information Institute [of
the J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles] are collaborating with the Long Now
Foundation [San Francisco] to generate some strategic thinking on these
issues with important digital theorists. In February of 1998, we will
convene a small group at The Getty Center to share concerns and expertise
in technology, culture, and time.

 We will use this Web site to present certain ideas for moderated
discussion, including a summary of the state of the technological work. We
will post comments and incorporate some of them into the body of work being
collected.

 The on-line discussion and meeting should provide a set of insightful and
responsible recommendations that will chart a thoughtful course for the
resolution of problems related to long-term digital data protection,
preservation, and reconstruction.



===============================================================

David L. Green
Executive Director
NATIONAL INITIATIVE FOR A NETWORKED CULTURAL HERITAGE
21 Dupont Circle, NW
Washington DC 20036
www-ninch.cni.org
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202/296-5346                                  202/872-0886 fax

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