Digital meets Culture

An open source validator for different file formats and Submission Information Package (SIP)

KOST-Val released by the TI/A Standard Initiative team

KOST-Val is an open source validator for different file formats (TIFF, SIARD, PDF/A, JP2, JPEG) and Submission Information Package (SIP).

It has been developed by KOST-CECO, is a Swiss coordination office which is member of the TI/A Standard Initiative team, a group of experts focussing on the definition of a specification of a Archival TIFF Format

For futher information visit the KOST-Val page in the Community Owned digital Preservation Tool Registry (COPTR).

Funtional Principle

KOST-Val complies with the following requirements.

TIFF validation: KOST-Val reads a TIFF file and uses JHOVE to validate the structure, the content, and ExifTool to validate the key properties such as compression, colour space, and multipage. These properties can be configured.
SIARD validation: KOST-Val reads a SIARD (eCH-0165 v1 ) file and validates the structure and the content.
PDF/A validation: KOST-Val reads a PDF or PDF/A file (ISO 19005-1 and 19005-2) and uses 3-Heights? PDF/A Validator by PDF-Tools or PDF/A Manager by PDFTron to validate the structure and the content of the PDF file. KOST-Val organises the different error messages into main categories such as fonts, graphics, and metadata. KOST-Val supplies only a limited version from 3-Heights? PDF/A Validator by PDF-Tools. Module J extracts (with iText) and validates the JPEG and JP2 images contained in the PDF file (depending on the configuration). It is also possible to configure whether the JBIG2 compression is accepted or not.
JP2 validation: KOST-Val reads a JP2 file (ISO 15444) and uses Jpylyzer to validate the structure and the content.
JPEG validation: KOST-Val reads a JPEG file (ISO 10918-1) and uses Bad Peggy to validate the structure and the content.
SIP validation: KOST-Val reads an SIP (eCH-0160 v1 as well as Swiss Federal Archives SFA v1 and v4 ) and validates the mandatory requirements of the SIP specification. The validated requirements are organised into groups such as folder structure, schema validation, and checksum validation. At the outset, a file format validation is performed.

The results (including information on inconsistencies and errors) are output for every step and written into a validation log. The validation steps are executed sequentially. Whenever possible the validation shall continue after an error has been detected in order to reduce the number of correction cycles.

Third-party applications

KOST-Val uses unmodified components of other manufacturers by embedding them directly into the source code. Users of KOST-Val are requested to adhere to these components’ terms of licence.

The TIFF validation module uses JHOVE and ExifTool and evaluates its output further.
For the PDF/A validation module PDF-A Manager or 3-Heights PDF/A Validator are used.
The JP2 validation module uses Jpylyzer and translates the failed tests into appropriate error messages (DE/FR/EN).
The JPEG validation module uses Bad Peggy and evaluates the error message “Not a JPEG file” further.
To extract the JPEG and JP2 images from PDF/A the iText library is used.
For the file format identification DROID is used. For performance and granularity reasons an own SignatureFile is used instead of the official PRONOM registry.

About the TI/A Standard initiative

The TI/A Standard initiative is promoted by the Digital Humanities Lab of the University of Basel, the Agents Research Lab of the University of Girona and Easy Innova with the support of many interested memory institutions.

This standard will be created in parallel with DPF Manager, an open source TIFF format validator that, in addition to the current TIFF ISO Standards, will be the first conformance checker for the TI/A new standard.

This initiative has been boosted by PREFORMA, a PCP project that aims to address the challenge of implementing good quality standardised file formats for preserving data content in the long term.

Tuesday 13 October 15:00 BST / 16:00 CET

From the Toolbox: veraPDF webinar

veraPDF is developing the definitive open source, file-format validator for all parts and conformance levels of ISO 19005 (PDF/A). The software is designed to meet the needs of memory institutions responsible for preserving digital content for the long term.

The webinar covers the work the veraPDF consortium have done so far on PREFORMA project. This includes the initial implementation of the PDF/A-1B validation model, the details on the latest 0.4 code release and plans for upcoming releases. We also discuss the integration points and extensibility of the framework to cover additional requirements on PDF documents.

For more information on veraPDF visit http://verapdf.org/

Session lead

Boris Doubrov, Dual Lab

Registration

https://openpreservation.clickwebinar.com/from-the-toolbox-verapdf/register

All the project's partners met at Scuola Normale Superiore

PREFORMA Plenary Meeting held in Pisa

PREFORMA partners met in Pisa on 8-9 October 2015 to discuss the current status of the project and to plan the next steps.

The meeting was hosted by the Scuola Normale Superiore and it was held jointly with the Cloud Forward 2015 Conference organised by the H2020 HOLA CLOUD project and in friendship with the Internet Festival 2015.

Several topics were discussed by the consortium, among which:

How to address the recommendations made by the EC reviewers during the first review meeting.
How to evaluate the results of the first prototyping phase, which will finish at the end of October 2015.
How to plan the second design phase which will start on November 1st and last 4 months.
How to plan the evaluation phase, which will involve memory institutions inside and outside the PREFORMA consortium who are interested to test the prototypes that are being developed by the suppliers.
How to address the issues related to the interoperability of the different conformance checkers.
The organisation of the Open Source Workshop, to be held in Stockholm on 7 April 2016.

For further information visit the PREFORMA project’s website and Open Source Portal.

Vienna, 8 October 2015

PREFORMA presented at FIAT/IFTA 2015

Bert Lemmens from PACKED, Peter Bubestinger from the Austrian Mediathek and Tessa Fallon from MediaArea presented the PREFORMA project at the FIAT/IFTA World Conference 2015.

The presentation, which is available for download here, covered th following topics:

PREFORMA challenge brief
Standard specifications selected
FFV1 for preservation
FFV1 features
FFV1 standardisation
MediaConch conformance checker

The 2015 FIAT/IFTA World Conference took place in Vienna from October 7th until October 10th 2015. This year theme was: “Audiovisual Culture, a bridge to the future”.

Audiovisual Culture is in all places and activities; and our society uses and generates an increasing number of content. The more audiovisual archives interact with society and internet, the more questions arise on how to advance, which decisions to take and how to maintain the spirit of archiving in an ever-changing environment.

The 2015 FIAT/IFTA World Conference provided a unique occasion in which archives can discuss & learn about the many challenges and innovations for archives in their quest towards the future. Different aspects of the archives life, use and potential value were presented permitting participants to grasp what has been done and what we will be able to do in the future.

Results of the panel organised by Promoter Srl involving EU projects RICHES, Civic Epistemologies, E-Space, PREFORMA and the international association Photoconsortium

From Digitization to Preservation, Creative Re-Use of Cultural Content, and Citizen Participation

On 1st October 2015, in Granada, the European projects RICHES, E-Space, Civic Epistemologies, PREFORMA and the international association Photoconsortium met in a panel organised by Promoter SRL under the title “From Digitisation to Preservation, Creative Re-use of Cultural Content and Citizen Participation”.

The panel was hosted by Digital Heritage 2015 (28 September-2 October 2015) as part of the conference programme and attracted cultural managers, ICT experts, researchers, service providers from all over Europe as well as and other European projects.

Antonella Fresa, from Promoter srl, introduced the objectives of the panel and the projects involved.

Antonella Fresa from Promoter Srl introduced the objectives of the panel and the projects involved. From the growing amount of digitised cultural heritage, open questions are raised by the change and impact they brought in any field of our society. Therefore there is the need to establish the path towards a more advanced society, that makes use of the full potential of digital technologies to foster cultural and societal progress.

Neil Forbes, from Coventry University, presented the RICHES project. Neil Forbes it the Project Coordinator.

Neil Forbes from Coventry University presented the RICHES project, providing the humanities point of view and giving an introduction about the wide context of change that the cultural sector is facing, with a particular attention to the changes derived from the introduction of the digital technologies.

Sarah Whatley, from Coventry University, is the EUROPEANA SPACE Project Coordinator.

Sarah Whatley from Coventry University talked about EUROPEANA SPACE, looking at the encounter of content providers and creative industry to show experiments and options for a real exploitation of the CH when it is offered in digital form, in various sectors.

Sy Holsinger, from EGI.eu, presented the CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES project.

Sy Holsinger from EGI.eu introduced CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES, focusing on the societal aspects and tackling the question of how the civic society can participate and engage with the digital transformation of cultural heritage, not just for fun and entertainment, but also to participate in the research activities.

Fred Truyen, from KU Leuven, presented the PHOTOCONSORTIUM International Association.

Finally, Antonella Fresa, who talked on behalf of Börje Justrell from Riksarkivet, and Fred Truyen from KU Leuven presented PREFORMA and PHOTOCONSORTIUM to touch two technical questions that are at the basis of the whole digital cultural heritage, namely: the digital preservation and the high quality digitisation.

Download here the full presentation.

The Panel will be hosted to the DCDC2015 Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities, in Manchester on 14 October 2015 and to the DISH – Digital Strategies for Heritage conference in Rotterdam on 7 December 2015.

a perfect occasion to present Blinkster as an ‘easy to handle’ app solution.

Museums Pilot at the EDV Tage in Theuern (Bavaria, Germany)

CC BY-SA 3.0 Jacquesverlaeken

by Marlene Scholz, SPK

From the 16^th to the 18^th September 2015 the annual conference “EDV Tage” (EDP Days) took place in Theuern, a picturesque village between Nuremberg and Regensburg. At the 27 years old event German representatives of both the cultural industry and museum professionals such as the State Office for Non-state Museums in Bavaria but also small non-profit associations got together. Under the conference subject “Media (use) in Museums” they presented different exhibition models using applications, web services and electronic devices. Every presentation was followed by intense discussions where costs, durability and extra work played an important role.

The “EDV Tage” were for the E|Space Partner SPK a perfect occasion to present Blinkster as an ‘easy to handle’ app solution. Offering the prospect of an upcoming evaluation of the app in combination with guidelines how to implement the app, SPK got a very positive feedback from the audience. Many of the listeners got interested in following the E|Space activities.

A next event where SPK will present E|Space is the “Berliner Herbsttreffen zur Museumsdokumentation” (Annual Berlin Autumn meeting – museums documentation) (12-14/10/15). The Fachgruppe Museumsdokumentation (Museum Documentation Professional Group) was founded at the general assembly of the German Museum Association in 1994. It organizes conferences at least twice a year, offering a professional forum for information exchange about questions of conventional and IT based museum documentation.

On this occasion, SPK will also start a first evaluation of Blinkster with the working group “Multimedia”. SPK is already excited about the end users’ feedback.

the Coordinator Sarah Whatley will be presenting the project in a panel at Discovering Collections Discovering Communities 2015 RLUK event

E-Space @ Manchester DCDC15 conference

DCDC (Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities) is a collaborative conference hosted by The National Archives and Research Libraries UK that explores inter-disciplinary, cross-sector approaches and opportunities to developing and widening access to the wealth of our collections through partnership and collaborative working, across the heritage, cultural and academic sectors.

E-Space coordinator prof. Sarah Whatley will talk about how digital cultural data need to be re-used at best, to unlock their business potential for fostering economic growth. The creative industry is the key stakeholder to leverage on DCH for creating new tools/services, thus generating new employment and economic rewards; but a bigger dialogue should progress with cultural institutions, for developing mutual benefitting public-private-partnerships.

Sarah’s speech will take place in a panel workshop including E-Space and other projects and initiaves on 14th October.

The renowned Scuola Normale Superiore was the prestigious location for experimenting with promotion of cultural places

E-Space Creative Marketing Workshop – event in Pisa

Organized by Fondazione Sistema Toscana, this Europeana Space Creative Marketing workshop was focused on exploring different ways of communicating cultural contents with the use of new media and will show how a greater audience can be reached by combining the power of social media and storytelling.

It has been an interactive event, preceded by presentations of interesting speakers. Antonella Fresa, the Technical Coordinator, presented the Europeana Space project and framework (download PDF, 1 Mb, video above). Then Costanza Giovannini of FST presented examples of places marketing and territory communication via the projects Play Your Tuscany and Unraveling Jordan (download PDF, 6 Mb and please see the video HERE). Later, Marianna Marcucci and Barbara Marcotulli of Invasioni Digitali presented the co-creation session (download PDF, 2.8 Mb and please see the video HERE).

[Show as slideshow]

After the presentations, participants were divided in groups. Each group was assigned a tutor and a specific theme to develop. The groups then got out the conference room and went around in Pisa centre, to collect materials (pictures, video, ..) with their smartphones around the city. The collected contents was then elaborated by each group and presented to the others. The event closed with a conclusion speech on audience engagement by Jasper Visser (dowload PDF, 11 Mb and please see the video HERE).

The workshop was realized in cooperation with Invasioni Digitali, and took place in the framework of the Internet Festival in Pisa. Digital Meets Culture was the official media partner of the workshop.

Agenda

09:00 – Europeana Space – creative re-use perspectives for cultural heritage – Antonella Fresa, Promoter srl: download PDF, 1 Mb, video above

09:30 – Communicating a territory through new media: Play Your Tuscany and Unraveling Jordan – Costanza Giovannini, Fondazione Sistema Toscana: download PDF, 6 Mb and video HERE

10:00 – Co-creation, co-design and storytelling in the digital world – Marianna Marcucci, Fabrizio Todisco, Invasioni Digitali: download PDF, 2.8 Mb and video HERE).

10:30 – Hands-on session – Elaborating creative strategies for audience development

14:00 – Co-creation session

15:30 – Presentation of the projects developed in the hands-on session and discussion

16:30 – Online marketing and audience development for cultural sector – Jasper Visser, Inspired by Coffee: dowload PDF, 11 Mb and video HERE)

17:00 – End of event

a dissemination and networking occasion to present the project to a wide audience

Civic Epistemologies in Granada

Granada recently hosted DH15, a huge event in the field of cultural heritage and digital technology, and Civic Epistemologies could not miss the occasion to be present and to network with other projects.

In the framework of a panel workshop entitled From Digitisation to Preservation, Creative Re-use of Cultural Content and Citizen Participation, the project was presented by Sy Holsinger from EGI.eu who introduced Civic Epistemologies particularly focusing on the societal aspects and tackling the question of how the civic society can participate and engage with the digital transformation of cultural heritage, not just for fun and entertainment, but also to participate in the research activities.

Learn about the results of the workshop here

30 October - 31 October 2015 in Brussels

Symposium: Preservation and Access to Born-digital Art and Culture

In the continuation of their collaborative program on Cultural Heritage in the Digital Age which started beginning of 2015, iMAL and Packed organise the first international symposium in Brussels on the issues of preservation of born-digital art and culture and their public access.

In the last decade, digital technologies have invaded on a global scale all realms of our daily life, both private and professional.  A large part of today’s cultural and artistic creations are produced with digital technologies, using them as their native medium of expression as well as their medium of distribution on which the users’ experience strongly relies.  Born-digital culture is expanding as fast as the progress and availability of digital technologies and infrastructures, and most probably will soon represent the vast majority of all contemporary cultural production. At the same time its fragility is increasing proportionally to the accelerated pace of technological innovations and its obsolescence, with new issues – or highly amplified old issues – appearing that are specific to its digital nature such as acquisition policies, software and hardware obsolescence, preservation workflows, rights management, re-interpretation,…

Facing this rising and overwhelming wave of digital artefacts that they need to archive, preserve and give access to, facing this Digital Dark Age, artistic and cultural institutions are slowly reacting and becoming aware of the new problems to solve. They require new tools and new strategies that can only be the result of substantial R&D effort in preservation methodologies and technologies as well as a profound analysis of the roles of memory institutions and of the way the challenges posed by the long-term availability of born-digital content are addressed.

This symposium proposes to share with professionals from the broad cultural and artistic sector the views, practice, vision and experience of some of the most advanced professionals working in the fields of conservation and access to digital culture. During these two days, state-of-the-art methodologies and technologies will be presented and discussed.   The symposium offers a unique panel of thinkers and doers, archivists, curators, media theorists & artists, conservators and researchers from Europe and the US working in universities, research labs, art organisations and heritage institutions.

With: Erkki Huhtamo (FI), Baruch Gottlieb & Philipp Tögel (DE, Vilem Flusser Archive), Emmanuel Guez (FR, pamal.org), Gaby Wijers (NL, Lima), Valérie Perrin (FR, Espace Gantner), Jon Ippolito (US, re-collection), Ben Fino-Radin (US, MoMA), John Langdon & Anna Henry (UK, Tate Modern), Céline Thomas & Chu Yin Chen (FR, BnF – Univ.Paris 8), Geoffrey Brown (US, indiana.edu), Clarisse Bardiot (FR/BE,rekall.fr), Olia Lialina (DE), Dragan Espenschied (US/DE, Rhizome.org), Klaus Rechert (DE, Univ.Freiburg – bwFLA), Jason Scott (US, Internet Arcade – archive.org).