ALIA meeting

    **** Moderator's comments:   *Please* expand acronyms
    This is an international, multi-disciplinary forum and we can't
    all keep up with the alphabet soup of everyone's organizations.

Public Meeting:
ALIA Special Interest Group Preservation of Library Materials
Monday 4 December 1995
Metcalfe Auditorium, State Library of New South
Wales, 12.30 pm - 4.30 pm, $65.00, ACLIS & ALIA
members $50.00 (students $25.00)

The ALIA SIG POLM, in association with the ACLIS NSW Preservation
Subcommittee and the State Library of NSW announces a public meeting
on the preservation of library materials:

Initiatives for Preservation and Access

Speakers

    Michael Alexander, Document and Imaging Processing Manager,
    British Library, U.K.; `Initiatives for access: Document and
    imaging process at the British Library`.

    Nancy Elkington, Assistant Director, Preservation Services,
    Research Libraries Group, USA; `Collaborative preservation as
    prototype for the digital diapason`.

    Alan Howell, Preservation Manager, State Library of NSW.,
    Australia; `Report back on the Cornell Workshop on digital
    imaging for preservation and access'.

    Michael Lesk, Executive Director, Computer Science Research,
    Bellcore, USA; `Image quality vs. Image quantity`.

Abstracts

    `Initiatives for access: Document and imaging process at the
    British Library`, Michael Alexander. `Initiatives for access' is
    the British Library's name for a set of document imaging and
    processing and networking activities in which it is involved.
    The initiatives will be described.

    `Collaborative Preservation as Prototype for the Digital
    Diapason`, Nancy Elkington. In order to move past tradition and
    into new thinking about building and managing international
    collections of digital documents we need to establish new models
    for collaboration. Preservation presents us with an inter-
    institutional model that can serve as a prototype for the
    digital age.

    `Report back on the Cornell `Workshop on digital imaging for
    preservation and access'`, Alan Howell. Since 1990, Cornell has
    been investigating the use of digital image technology for
    preservation and access. With private, public, and corporate
    support, the Department of Preservation and Conservation has
    undertaken a series of projects to digitise research library
    materials and to produce high quality paper and microfilm
    replacements. From 14 - 18 August Alan Howell participated in
    the Cornell digital training workshop: use of digital image
    technology for preservation and access, co-sponsored by: the
    Commission on Preservation and Access, the Gladys Krieble Delmas
    Foundation, and the Hewlett-Packard company. This was a
    significant opportunity for a member of Australia's preservation
    community to gain first-hand, intensive, exposure to some of the
    issues, skills and knowledge needed to deal with the emergent
    digitisation challenges.  The course and its outcomes will be
    described.

    Michael Lesk, Executive Director, Computer Science Research,
    Bellcore, USA; `Image quality vs. Image quantity`. People like
    looking at pictures.  Scanning is cheaper than keyboarding.
    These two facts have encouraged many to design scanning
    projects, as a way of converting information to machine-readable
    form for access and preservation.  This does not mean that
    everything should be scanned: images are also bulkier than text
    and less easily processed. This paper will address practical
    issues in scanning and manipulating images, addressing the fact
    that technology in some areas has outrun our knowledge of how to
    use it. Just because your scanner has a 2400 dpi choice in its
    menu, that does not mean it should be invoked, for example. Our
    experience on the CORE project suggests that people can read
    images as rapidly as other forms of scientific articles, and
    that 300 dpi is good enough.  The main questions in image
    systems are bandwidth, screen display, and cataloguing.  The
    most important possible trade-off is whether fast enough display
    will compensate for our inability to search images effectively.

Speakers

    Michael Alexander is Document and Image Processing Manager of
    the British Library. He manages imaging projects under the
    Library's Initiatives and Access program, and has been involved
    in the imaging of the Beowulf manuscripts and digitisation of
    microfilm. He is a member of the Technical Subcommittee of the
    UNESCO Memory of the World Programme, and of the Institute of
    Information Scientists. He has worked as a librarian, as a
    library information technology manager and in mainstream data
    processing.

    Nancy Elkington is Assistant Director of Preservation Services
    at the Research Libraries Group (RLG), an international
    consortium of nearly 150 institutions. A leader of RLG's efforts
    to develop best practices in preservation reformatting, Nancy
    edited two publications establishing guidelines for producing
    archival-quality microfilm: `RLG Preservation Microfilming
    Handbook and RLG Archives Microfilming Manual'. she strives to
    expand RLG's preservation agenda into the digital arena, and
    sits on the National Task Force on Digital Archiving convened by
    the Commission for Preservation and Access and the RLG.

    Alan Howell is Manager of the Preservation Branch, State Library
    of New South Wales, Chair of the Advisory Body of the National
    Preservation Office at the National Library of Australia,
    Convenor of the ALIA SIG Preservation of Library Materials and
    Convenor of the ACLIS NSW Preservation Subcommittee. He has
    tertiary qualifications in conservation of books, archives and
    works of art on paper.  Alan manages an active and innovative
    preservation program at the State Library of NSW and contributes
    energetically to the preservation of Australia's documentary
    heritage at state and national levels.

    Michael Lesk is Executive Director of Computer Science Research
    for Bellcore, a US communications company. Michael is also
    Visiting Professor of Computer Science at University College,
    London. His research interests include digital libraries and
    information retrieval as well as preservation technology.
    Michael also sits on the National Task Force on Digital
    Archiving, and was an active member of the Technology Assessment
    Advisory Committee of the CPA. He says he is best known,
    however, as the author of the Unix utilities `uucp', `lex', and
    `tbl'.

Bookings

    There is no booking form for this meeting. Bookings may be made
    in writing, telephone, fax or email to:

        Heather Mansell, Preservation Branch
        State Library of New South Wales
        Macquarie Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
        +61 2 230-1559
        Fax: +61 2g) 233-3192
        hmansell [at] ilanet__slnsw__gov__au

    Cheques ($65.00, $50.00 or $25.00) should be made payable to
    `Library Council of NSW'

Acknowledgement

    Michael Alexander, Nancy Elkington and Michael Lesk are in
    Australia at the invitation of the National Preservation Office
    at the National Library of Australia and will participate in the
    NPO Brisbane conference 27-30 November `Multimedia preservation:
    Capturing the rainbow'.

Alan Howell
Preservation Manager
State Library of New South Wales
Macquarie Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
+61 2 230 1679
Fax: +61 2 232 4816

                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 9:40
                 Distributed: Monday, November 6, 1995
                        Message Id: cdl-9-40-007
                                  ***