serendipityoucity

Will Today’s Internet Maps be Available Tomorrow?
The Preservation and Archiving of the Cybercartographic Atlas of Antarctica Through Action Research

By: Tracey P. Lauriault, D. R. Fraser Taylor and Peter L. Pulsifer
In: International Perspectives on Maps and the Internet
Edited by: Michael P. Peterson and Jonathan Li
Availability: Sept. 2007 

Preserving and archiving geomatics data and atlases is a growing and unresolved problem.  The Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre at Carleton University has an ongoing interest in the more effective archiving and preservation of geospatial digital data and has actively participated in a number of forums to address this issue. The Cybercartographic Atlas of Antarctica (CAA) is a collaborative, scientific and innovative open source, open standard and interoperable distributed atlas that includes multimedia, multimodal and multisensory data.  The CAA was part of an action research archival Case Study of the International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES 2) Project.  Archival issues in geomatics, the action research Case Study process, and results are discussed and reported upon in this chapter.  The chapter concludes with some recommendations and reflections on preserving and archiving Internet maps.  The central argument is that today’s Internet mapmakers and cartographers must include preservation strategies at the point of creation not after the fact to ensure that their digital artifacts will be available to tomorrow’s users.  If this is not done effectively much of our digital mapping heritage will continue to be lost.

Here it is!  The official EU Directive on GeoSpatial Information and Data - INSPIRE - the EU GeoData Portal and it is a big deal!  This will direct EU member states on the management and dissemination of their public GeoData resources. I look forward to reading it and hearing opinions.

I do not believe Canada has such a directive or process (but i will look into it). The US has a directive process see (OMB Circular no.A-16 Revised and Executive Order 12906: Coordinating Geographic Data Access). 

Ok! This is coming from the person who only ever purchases second hand or hand made table ware for ethical and environmental reasons posting this!  I am not advocating the acquisition of this stuff but dang it the geographer in me gets seduced by it!  And i am a real succer for design and well would need an entirely new abode to match the table ware.  Topoware - how can you not luv that idea! (almost totally useless - the place mat anyway - but really cool!).  They even have a topo table cloth and a full matchin’ topo china set!

The unintended outcome of googlemaps!  Via Moco Loco 

I was chatting with my pal Warren in BC who is questioning the validity of how the province uses and fabricates its data.  As we were talking he quoted lyrics from this song! Frigging Awesome!

Democracy

It’s coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It’s coming from the feel
that this ain’t exactly real,
or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It’s coming through a crack in the wall;
on a visionary flood of alcohol;
from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which I don’t pretend to understand at all.
It’s coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay,
from the brave, the bold, the battered
heart of Chevrolet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It’s coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin’
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

It’s coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It’s here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it’s here they got the spiritual thirst.
It’s here the family’s broken
and it’s here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It’s coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we’ll be making love again.
We’ll be going down so deep
the river’s going to weep,
and the mountain’s going to shout Amen!
It’s coming like the tidal flood
beneath the lunar sway,
imperial, mysterious,
in amorous array:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on …

I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Just read two great articles in the NYTimes today that have striking simularities!

You are what you grow
By MICHAEL POLLAN
Published: April 22, 2007

The article very nicely addresses how a national farm policy determines what the kiddies get for lunch, why the poor in the US are obese, landuse, international markets, why it is more expensive to purchase healthy food relative to junk and how this bill is debated behind closed doors and how the farm bill should be a food bill with eaters in mind:

eaters want a bill that aligns agricultural policy with our public-health and environmental values, one with incentives to produce food cleanly, sustainably and humanely. Eaters want a bill that makes the most healthful calories in the supermarket competitive with the least healthful ones. Eaters want a bill that feeds schoolchildren fresh food from local farms rather than processed surplus commodities from far away. Enlightened eaters also recognize their dependence on farmers, which is why they would support a bill that guarantees the people who raise our food not subsidies but fair prices. Why? Because they prefer to live in a country that can still produce its own food and doesn’t hurt the world’s farmers by dumping its surplus crops on their markets.

Wow! Just imagine!

past farm bills, which have faithfully reflected the priorities of the agribusiness interests that wrote them. One of these years, the eaters of America are going to demand a place at the table, and we will have the political debate over food policy we need and deserve. This could prove to be that year: the year when the farm bill became a food bill, and the eaters at last had their say.

And i know this is going to sound crazy, but the critique of the farm bill negotiations are strikingly similar to the profiteers i just read about

In Somalia, Those Who Feed Off Anarchy Fuel It
Opportunists in Somalia — from squatter landlords to teenage gunmen for hire to vendors of bad baby formula — profit from continuing chaos By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: April 25, 2007

In both stories, those who profit, big agribusiness for the farm bill or gangs, thugs, and fundamentalists in Somalia have no interest in the health and well being of the population as a whole but only in their own self interests.  And therefore ensure the perpetuation of a system that will meet their needs.  Farm bill negotiations are a closed door affair for special interests such as corn producers and the market in Somalia for anything is via profiteers who align themselves with whoever has the guns to protect them but absolutely not a government that may tax or regulate them.  In both cases the people aka the citizens are not the priority.

In Somalia the best interest of profiteers are best served if there is no government and in the US the interest of profiteers are best served with negotiations that happen behind closed doors and in a complex language that no one understands.  Whether it be anarchy and lawlessness in Somalia or undemocratic farm bill dealings, the end results are the same, few profit, the majority looses, and no one has the health and welfare of the people nor the land as a best interest.

We have so much work to do on so many fronts!  What does it mean to have a real democracies and not kleptocracies run by thugs or well spoken negotiators?  Neither of which were elected nor can be considered as representatives!

OK back to Andrew Feenberg for some sanity! 

I keep tripping over the work of Andrew Feenberg, Canada Research Chair in Philosphy and Technology so i finally had no choice but to start reading it.  Exceptional! I look forward to reading more. 

I will be presenting my research on Scientific Data Portals at the Society of American Archivists Conference in Chicago in September.  I am really excited about this as this is a study I led on the InterPARES 2 Project with Barbara Craig from U. Toronto that is on a topic very near and dear to my heart which relates to many areas of work I have been involved with for some time.  I really do believe that scientific data is a national and cultural resource.  We are benefiting from longitudinal research and I hope that future generations can learn from the data we collect daily now.  It is part of our knowledge commons and our collective memories and it would be really wonderful if we could preserve that knowledge and make it accessible to future generations.

Kevin Glick, Chair
Yale University Library, Manuscripts and
Archives Department

Tracey Lauriault
Carleton University
Department of Geography & Environmental Studies
“Accessing Scientific Data in the Future: Do Data Portals, Repositories, and Catalogue  Preserve or Archive Their Data?”

Evelyn Peters McLellan
Insurance Corporation of British Columbia
“Preserving the Geographic Information System of the City of Vancouver”

Session Abstract
Geospatial data, remote sensor data, and other types of scientific records must be preserved and made accessible to support replication of research results, but these data often reside in dynamic and interactive systems that present significant recordkeeping and preservation challenges. The presenters discuss results of InterPARES 2 research into preservation of electronic records in the sciences, with an emphasis on geospatial and geomatic records, and offer possible preservation strategies for use by scientific institutions and digital repositories. Although the emphasis in this session is on the sciences, the discussion has implications for general electronic records preservation.

Je présenterai à la conférence AAQ à St-Adèle au mois de mai.  Cette fois ci je ne présenterai pas ma recherche personnel mais les résultats d’un rapport du projet de recherche InterPARES écrit par ma collègue. Le rapport sera d’intérêt à ceux impliqué dans les logiciels libres.  J’ai participé au projet d’InterPARES comme chercheuse dans le domaine de la science.

Sélection de formats de fichiers numériques pour préservation à long terme: Rapport final de l’Étude générale 11 d’InterPARES 2

Par: Evelyn Peters McLellan
Co‑enquêteure pour InterPARES 2

Introduction

Ces dernières années, c’est devenu pratique courante pour les dépôts de documents numériques — y compris les archives — d’accepter certains formats de fichiers numériques pour préservation à long terme tout en en rejetant d’autres. La question de savoir si les archives devraient limiter le nombre des formats de fichiers à préserver et les critères de sélection de ces formats soulèvent d’importantes questions théoriques et stratégiques dont doivent tenir compte tant les chercheurs dans le domaine de la préservation des documents numériques que les archivistes chargés de la gestion des dépôts numériques. Nous tentons ici de répondre à ces questions, puisque ce rapport est une analyse des questions et des tendances relatives à la sélection de formats de fichiers pour la préservation des documents numériques qui, compte tenu de la portée de la recherche d’InterPARES 2, est focalisée sur les secteurs du gouvernement électronique, des sciences et des arts. C’est un examen essentiellement qualitatif de la documentation disponible sur les sites internet de vingt dépôts et de quatre groupes de collaboration multi‑institutionnels ayant des politiques et des procédures ou des lignes directrices d’inclusion bien établies à l’intention des organismes qui leur transfèrent des documents[1]. Invariablement, ces groupes et ces dépôts précisent les formats qu’ils acceptent ou donnent des indications des formats qui se prêtent le mieux à la préservation à long terme des documents. La liste des dépôts et des groupes de recherche étudiés figure en annexe.

[1] La recherche nécessaire à la production de ce document a été réalisée avec l’aide de Tracey Krause et Yvonne Loiselle, étudiantes en études supérieures à la School of Library, Archival and Information Studies de l’Université de la Colombie‑Britannique

Intro à la session speciale du project.

Le projet InterPARES au 36e congrès de l’AAQ Le comité organisateur a le plaisir d’annoncer qu’Yvette Hackett et Tracey Lauriault présenteront une partie des travaux du projet interPARES. Ce projet international de recherche sur la préservation à long-terme de l’authenticité des documents d’archives numériques a officiellement terminé ses recherches en décembre dernier après cinq ans de travail.

Parmi les nombreux documents et rapports produits par les chercheurs qui ont participé à ce projet, les conférencières traiteront du document les 13 Principes pour conservateurs découlant de nombreuses études de cas entreprises par InterPARES. Les principes fondamentaux présentés dans ce document devraient se retrouver dans tout programme d’archives touchant la préservation de documents numériques. Les conférencières aborderont également une étude des politiques de préservation de 21 institutions. L’analyse effectuée par le projet InterPARES de ces nombreux documents indique de sérieux problèmes dans la terminologie et les définitions utilisées pour décrire les formats logiques acceptables pour la conservation à long-terme ainsi que leurs caractéristiques. La conférence sur le projet interPARES vient enrichir le programme préliminaire que vous avez déjà reçu. Elle aura lieu le vendredi 1er juin de 13 h 45 à 14 h 45.