Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
•
Acts as (1) a clearing house for demands for Representation Information, (2) for
collecting information about changes in availability of hardware, software, envi-
ronment and changes in the knowledge bases of Designated Communities and,
(3) to broker agreements about datasets between the current custodian, which is
unable to continue in this role, and an appropriate successor.
24.6.2.2 Final Destination
•
A set of services which make it easier to exchange information about obsoles-
cence of hardware and software and techniques for overcoming these.
24.6.2.3 Relevant Projects, Policies, Organisations, Activities
•
CASPAR (
http://www.casparpreserves.eu/
), KEEP (with regard to emulation)
(
http://www.keep-project.eu
), Planets, nestor (
http://www.langzeitarchivierung.
de/
)
•
Need for a software archive
24.6.3 Authenticity of a Digital Object
Ability to bring together evidence from diverse sources about the Authenticity of
a digital object: Authenticity is not a Boolean concept. It is in general not possible
to state that an object is authentic. Instead one can provide evidence on which a
judgement may be made about the degree to which a person (or system) may regard
an object as what it is purported to be. This evidence will be technical, for exam-
ple details of what has happened to the object (Provenance) as well as social, for
example does one trust the person who was in charge of the system under which the
object has been held. In general the provenance information associated with vari-
ous objects will be encoded according to one of a multitude of different system e.g.
CIDOC-CRM (
http://cidoc.ics.forth.gr/
), OPM (
http://openprovenance.org/
). There
is at minimum a need to be able to interpret and present provenance evidence in
a uniform way so that users can make an informed judgment about the degree of
belief that a data object is what it is claimed to be. These tools would also facilitate
the collection of appropriate evidence.
SCENARIO
A virtual reconstruction of the Taj Mahal created at the start of the twenty first
century shows that there has, 50 years later, been subtle damage caused by a
local development. The developer disputes this and argues that the digital data
on which the virtual reconstruction has been made is not what is claimed. What
evidence can and should be provided to support the claims of authenticity and
hence save the Taj Mahal? Strong techniques and support tools are needed to
allow curators to support claims of authenticity
