1. [No Archive Is An Island]
September 18th 2008
What is the
Mediapedia?
Douglas Elford, Digital Preservation
National Library of Australia

2. Issues
• Identification of various media types for assisting with
collection planning, assessment, documentation, infrastructure
and preservation
• Rapid staffing and technological changes resulting in loss of
business knowledge, within an organisation or external
communities, about these various media formats for making
risk management evaluations or preservation decisions about
access to the content

4. Current Options
Despite these issues most collecting organisations
still need to collect content on physical media
• Specialist staff, organisations or third party services
• Specific interest web sites, although potentially non on-going
• Wikipedia, although one needs to know initially what one is
looking for. Its currency, accuracy, level of trust and the
longevity of the data is again potentially fraught

5. Problem
Collecting Organisations:
• It would be advantageous to be able to easily identify physical media
carriers being offered to collecting organisations without specialist
knowledge
• Is it considered an obsolete media or is there an available mechanism
which can provide access to its content
• Physical media can be quite fragile, especially digital media, with data
loss due to a number of factors including media decay (environmental
or chemical), data corruption, etc. which then informs evaluation or
preservation decisions
• because it is not in a dynamic medium, you do not know until you try
to access the content

6. Mediapedia
What Do We Need?
• a curated repository for business knowledge and ‘trusted’
sources
• enable the identification with a low level of audience
knowledge
• ability to discover deeper knowledge within or out to external
sources
• cater for both general and specialists audiences
• contains additional information about dependencies (such as
hardware, connectors, interfaces, software, etc.) and access
paths for usage which are not currently represented in other
sources such as Wikipedia
• a web based service which can be integrated internally or
externally to other services.

7. Mediapedia - Classification Schema
Genre
• Recording of the media genre
(category)
Data, Microform, Moving Image,
Genre
Sound, Still Image & Unmediated
Process
• Recording of the type of process used to
record information
e.g. magnetic, magnetic/optical,
Process
mechanical, optical, photo
chemical, photo mechanical, photo
digital, solid state, etc.
Carriers Carrier/Housing
• Recording of the type of carrier, and + (Enclosure)
optionally its enclosure.
e.g. tape reel, disc, disc / disk
cartridge, cylinder, paper, etc.
Name
• Recording common names of the
physical media carrier.
Name

8. Classification
- MICROFORM - - STILL IMAGE -
– aperture card – cartridge
Process – cassette
– magnetic – microfiche
– filmstrip
– magnetic/optical – microfiche cassette
– filmstrip cartridge
– mechanical – microfilm cartridge – film negative
– optical – microfilm cassette – film positive/transparency
– paper
– microfilm reel – flash memory card
– photo chemical
– microfilm slip – flash memory stick
– photo mechanical
– glass negative
– photo digital – microopaque
– mounted slide
– solid state
– overhead transparency
- MOVING IMAGE -
____________________ – film cartridge
– paper print
– plastic print
Carriers (by Genre) – film cassette
– stereograph card
– filmslip
- DATA - – stereograph reel
– filmstrip
– paper card
– filmstrip cartridge
– paper tape - UNMEDIATED -
– film reel
– disc – book
– tape cartridge
– disc cartridge – card
– tape cassette
– disc pack – flipchart
– video disc
– disk cartridge – microscope slide
– tape reel
– disk sleeved – paper
– flash memory card – sheet
- SOUND -
– flash memory stick
– cartridge
– online
– cassette
– ROM cartridge
– cylinder
– tape cartridge
– disc
– tape cassette
– roll
– tape reel
– tape reel
– audio film reel
(Complete listing available at: http://www.nla.gov.au/mediapedia/)

9. Mediapedia Prototype
These prototype screenshots illustrate:
• the Conservation Assessment statement to enable soft
risk assessment policy during collection assessment
• some of the potential multiple relationships that can be
created to enable the development and management of
access paths to enable accessing content on physical
media.
• for example the Environment Examples tab indicates
which physical devices [NLA in this example] currently can
accommodate that particular media. This is displayed via a
relationship to an on-line Access, Configuration &
Environment database - Configulator.

10. Mediapedia Prototype - Sound
Form View

11. Mediapedia Prototype - Sound
Form View - Environmental Specifications

12. Mediapedia Prototype - Sound
Form View – Materials: Tape Variants

13. Mediapedia Prototype - Data
Form View

14. Mediapedia Prototype - Data
Form View – Media variants

15. Mediapedia Prototype - Data
Form View – Access Environment Specs

16. Mediapedia – Other Views
List View Lightbox View

17. Mediapedia - Search!

18. Community Model
Internal
• Record business knowledge
• Allow media identification for collection assessment
• Assist in the identification of media when managing collections in order to
maintain access to the content
• Assist in the identification of media when managing associated
information technology infrastructure and associated dependencies for
their lifecycle management
External
• Share information and knowledge with others who also have a similar
needs
• Provide information that is freely accessible and available to others for
their access and re-use
• Develop a community of shared ‘trusted’ knowledge
• Capture and recording of knowledge about physical media, and its
preservation, whilst it is still available
• Collaborate on conservation options for preservation and access to
various physical media types.

19. Community Proposal
Internal
• Record business knowledge
• Allow media identification for collection assessment
• Assist in the identification of media when managing collections in order to
maintain access to the content
• Assist in the identification of media when managing associated
information technology infrastructure and associated dependencies for
their lifecycle management
External
• Share information and knowledge with others who also have a similar
needs
• Provide information that is freely accessible and available to others for
their access and re-use
• Develop a community of shared ‘trusted’ knowledge
• Capture and recording of knowledge about physical media, and its
preservation, whilst it is still available
• Collaborate on conservation options for preservation and access to
various physical media types.

20. Mediapedia
Contact: delford@nla.gov.au
Mediapedia information available at:
http://www.nla.gov.au/mediapedia/
Other web projects:
Prometheus Digital Preservation Workbench on SourceForge:
http://prometheus-digi.sourceforge.net/
A Digital Preservation SkunkWorks Project