Supporting Description and Access for New Media Art Dianne Dietrich, Physics & Astronomy Librarian, Cornell University Library; Digital Scholarship and Preservation Services Fellow, 2013-2015

1. SUPPORTING
DESCRIPTION AND
ACCESS FOR
NEW MEDIA ART
DIANNE DIETRICH
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
DECEMBER 16, 2015

2. THE GRANT
Preservation and Access Framework for
Digital Art Objects
Test bed: 100 born-digital artworks
created for CD-ROM, dating back to the
early 1990s.

3. • Media fragility
• Interrelated technical
dependencies
• Incomplete and/or
missing
documentation
• No established best
practices for archival
preservation
CHALLENGES
NorieNeumark,ShockintheEar.1998.

4. OBSOLESCENCE
“Macintosh System 7.0 and up”
“PowerPC processor-based Macintosh”
“Macintosh with 680x0 series processor”
“16 bit color and 13 inch monitor”
“QuickTime 2.1 or better”
“Internet connection and web browser with
… Shockwave”
“Windows 95”
“IBM-compatible PC”
“MPC2, 486, or Pentium PC”
“Requires Internet Explorer 5.5, DirectX”
“SVGA video card”
“SoundBlaster compatible sound card”
“Flash player 8 or higher”

5. “I am worried
about context
and artistic
intent – how do
we retain
authenticity in
the long term?”
AUTHENTICITY

6. TOOLS
Guymager
The Sleuth Kit
fiwalk
sorter
disktype
hfsutils
IsoBuster
Basilisk II
SheepShaver
QEMU
VirtualBox

7. EMULATORS
Basilisk II
SheepShaver
QEMU
Mac OS 7.6.1
OS 8
OS 8.1
Mac OS 8.5
OS 9
Windows 95
Windows 2000

8. • Emulation offers
“best feasible” access for
research environment
• Provides environment
needed for interaction
with original software
• Necessitates
documentation of
deviations from
original playback
ACCESS
AdrieneJenik,MauveDesert.1997.

9. METADATA
Descriptive – Catalog records
Preservation – Imaging report, pre-fixity
Technical – Disk image metadata, file ids
Access – Classifications, emulation

10. INGEST
CORNELLUNIVERSITY
ARCHIVALREPOSITORY
Archival Collection
Artworks
Documentation
Compiled
Emulators
Related
Deriv
Disk
Disk Images
Disk Images
Derivat
Disk Image
Related
Disk Images
Derivative
Disk Image
Related
RMC

11. THANK YOU
Grant PIs: Oya Rieger, Timothy Murray
Cornell PAFDAO Team:
Desiree Alexander, Madeleine Casad, Dianne Dietrich, Jason Kovari, Danielle Mericle,
Liz Muller, Michelle Paolillo
Consultants at AVPreserve: Alex Duryee, Chris Lacinak, Kara VanMalssen
Advisory Board: Ben Fino-Radin, Jean Gagnon,
Rebecca Guenther, Matthew Kirschenbaum, Jon Ippolito, Norie Neumark, Christiane Paul,
Richard Rinehart, Simeon Warner
This work supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this presentation do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.