Local Government Web Network » General

Formats for long term preservation of information – Guest post from Cassie Findlay

ReemA — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:05:43 +0000

After my presentation on preserving digital information at the recent Local Government Web Network conference, Reem told me that she received lots of enquiries about PDF/A, which I mentioned in my talk; specifically, What is it?, How to use it? and Where to get it?
PDF/A is the ‘archival’ format for PDF. PDF/A has fewer “bells and whistles” than traditional PDF which minimises future migration requirements. PDF/A is more open than traditional PDF because it is maintained by the International Standards Organisation, not one specific vendor. The PDF/A standard is ISO 19005-1 Document management – Electronic document file format for long-term preservation – Use of PDF 1.4 (PDF/A-1).
You can create PDF/A documents by either adding a PDF maker plug-in to MS Word. Adobe Acrobat Professional has a validation feature which allows you to validate your document against the PDF/A-1 standard.
PDF/A is a great option for a long term preservation format (or LTPF as digital preservation nerds like me like to say!) for documentary style information – ideally you should use PDF/A from the very start of the information’s life, particularly when you know it has long term value (such as Board minutes). Alternatively, you can implement a conversion strategy to turn documents into PDF/A when they are moved off active directories, to minimise the risk of obsolescence and make future migrations easier. If the information is ultimately required to come to the State archives, PDF/A is a suitable format for that, too.
Other formats that are suitable as LTPFs include Open Document Format (ODF), HTML, XHTML and XML. For digital images, JPEG, TIFF or PNG are recommended, and FLAC for digital audio.
For those interested in capturing websites or portions of websites in high volumes, rather than saving individual pages, the International Internet Preservation Consortium recently announced the publication of the WARC file format as an international standard: ISO 28500:2009, Information and documentation — WARC file format. This is a a container format that permits one file simply and safely to carry a very large number of constituent data objects (of unrestricted type, including many binary types) for the purpose of storage, management, and exchange.

For more information on choosing the right formats for long term preservation of digital information, check out State Records’ digital records strategy Future Proof, subscribe to our blog at: http://futureproof.records.nsw.gov.au or follow us on Twitter @FutureProofNSW
Cassie Findlay
Cassandra.Findlay@records.nsw.gov.au

2009 Conference Wrap up

ReemA — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:41:05 +0000

We did it! Our second year and our second conference went off without a hitch!

For those of you who made it, we do hope you enjoyed it, and found it useful. For those of you who couldn’t make it, never fear, content is here! Check out the conference site for presentations and selected Audio. Sessions available include the opening keynote from Senator Kate Lundy, as well as the lightening talks from staff at councils. You can also check out some pictures on Flickr!

We’re really looking forward to next year, and are very keen for you to be more involved, so don’t be shy, get in touch, let us know what you’re interested in and want to see at the conference next year, or if you want to help out.

Public Sphere: Government 2.0

Diana — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 07:50:51 +0000

Sat in the car heading down to Canberra for the second Public Sphere, Reem, Bern (from Mosman Council), and I have been talking about the possibilities of local government on the web, and the challenges that face the web staff in councils. In New South Wales we’re on varying levels when it comes to our websites, or web services. Many are still tackling the basics of getting a functioning, usable, accessible website up, whilst others are experimenting in the realms of social media. Open data, open government, and open web, is something most are still learning about, let alone being at a stage where these methodologies will be incorporated into the building of new web services. For example, with a quick count it looks like less than 50% of councils in NSW have even one RSS feed, on the other hand we’ve seen more and more councils utilising social media such as YouTube, and gradually we’re seeing councils popping up on Twitter.

So it’s a mixed bag when you look at New South Wales as a whole, and this is not surprising with the huge regional diversity we have (as we do around the whole of Australia). Another big factor being the lack of fast broadband, which makes it difficult for councils to make their websites an important part of the services they provide their communities, and as a key community engagement tool. But Reem are excited by the individuals we’ve met and are connecting with through our network, and new networks and events such as Public Sphere. You can feel that there is a change happening from within and at the top of government, and it looks like we’re all starting to head in the right direction in realising the potential of the web. We’re collaborating, sharing our ideas, and beginning to build our Government 2.0.

The second Public Sphere hosted by Senator Kate Lundy is focussing on Government 2.0: Policy and Practice will be taking place in Canberra at Parliament house on Monday 22 June. Tickets sold out quickly but you can participate online – there will be a live video feed, live blogging and an accompanying Twitterfeed with hashtag #publicsphere.

Reem and I will be presenting a quick 10 minute presentation on Challenges in Local Government. See our presentation below, and other Public Sphere presentations on Slideshare.

Challenges In Local Government

Welcome to the Public Sphere

ReemA — Wed, 13 May 2009 01:41:17 +0000

Recently, Kate Lundy, Senator for the ACT, launched a new initiative called “Public Sphere” to engage with the community on topics of national interest.

The concept aims to bring people together online to share their views on various topics, in addition to hosting a physical meet up that is live streamed over the Internet. The meet up allows people to give their two cents in short ten minute presentations on whatever aspect of the topic they choose, either in person, via skype, YouTube or other means.

Each Public Sphere runs for two weeks and all feedback from the presentations, comments on the blog, via Twitter and any other contributions will be collated into briefing papers and distributed to members of parliament and available to the public.

The first of these workshops on the topic of “High Bandwidth in Australia” was held on Thursday 7 May in Canberra and I was lucky enough to be able to watch the live stream and participate via Twitter. To provide clarity, it was made clear that this topic was not about the national broadband initiative or any implementation details, rather the focus was on the possibilities high bandwidth offers communities, business and individuals.

The range of people presenting was impressive, and the topics were diverse. There were a couple of presentations that caught my eye. The first was by Roger Clarke an academic and consultant who talked about government service delivery in the new contexts of (a) broadband, (b) highly diverse access devices, (c) highly diverse patterns of use, and (d) highly diverse human needs. I thought this was a really valuable presentation to make us actually stop and assess what we’re trying to do with regard to opening up government, and really thinking about the way different people and groups use different types of technology.

Another stand out presentation for me was by Adrian Blake. Adrian was responsible for creating a broadband network in Cooma using a shared trenching arrangement with AGL. Now most of this was very technical and well over my head, but really highlights how one small company working collaboratively with the support of the community can build their own network. It really highlighted for me the failings of Federal Government’s broadband policy, because if this guy can do it, around 10 years ago, how come the Federal Government can’t do it!? Adrian’s slides are available as a pdf.

This was a brilliant workshop, and I found the presentations diverse and really engaging. Other standouts were James Purser talking about opportunities for online collaboration. James’ Youtube video and James’ slides, and Michael De Percy talking about citizen engagement and community participation online in Canada in comparison with the Australian experience. Here are Michael’s slides. Thanks to Kate Lundy (@KateLundy) and her advisor Pia Waugh (@PiaWaugh) for getting this concept up and running so quickly and so successfully. I’m really looking forward to the conversations that Public Sphere has and will generate, and the model it provides for Local Government in engaging the community.

For a full agenda and presentations please check out Kate Lundy’s blog.

Update!

The Public Sphere Wiki has now been set up and is open to contributions:

http://www.katelundy.com.au/2009/05/27/draft-briefing-paper-from-public-sphere-topic-high-speed-bandwidth/
http://wiki.katelundy.com.au/PublicSphere1

We would love all participants to look over our briefing paper and contribute. We have tried to keep it simple and easy to read/scan with the ability to use the reference materials to get further information on any particular topic. It is a first attempt at a format for the Public Sphere, so if you can think of a better way to format the outcomes, we’d love to hear about it (or you can just do it).

The wiki page will be publicly editable for a week (instructions on the page) and then we’ll clean it up for final publishing. Depending on how a week plays out, we may extend this timing for future draft processes (as our main target audience for the edits are the participants in the topic, however anyone can obviously contribute to the briefing paper). We would expect any further commentary on the briefing paper to be made on the blog post where we post the final version. The wiki page (and all edits) will remain publicly available.

We have also linked as much reference material (videos, slides, websites) from the original event schedule if you are looking for any of this material:

http://www.katelundy.com.au/2009/04/29/public-sphere-1-high-bandwidth-for-australia/

LG Web Network Conference 2009 – what do YOU want?

Diana — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:24:32 +0000

We are starting to plan the program for the Local Government Web Network Conference for 2009, so now is the time where we’d really like your feedback to help us make a better conference for you.

To get your feedback in a more interesting way, we are taking a leaf out of Web Directions book, and launching an Ideas Forum. This will allow you to post ideas, comment on other people’s ideas, and vote on the things you really like or maybe don’t think are a great idea.

Reem and I are passionate about delivering you a conference where you will come away inspired, excited about new possibilities, full of new knowledge, and hopefully new connections and friends. Your ideas and feedback will help us deliver you a conference that is suited to your needs. So don’t just sit there, post a new idea now!

We want ideas for topics and presentations, suggestions for workshops, and if you are interested in presenting we’d love to here about it.

We will post some of the ideas we’ve had to get you started. It is easy to add your ideas, and if you can’t think of anything then you can comment or vote on other people’s suggestions.

Visit the Ideas Forum at http://lgwebnetwork.ideascale.com

The conference this year: WE Believe In Community

Well we’ve decided that the name works well as community is what it’s all about, so we’re sticking with the “WE Believe In Community” theme. We’ll also be launching a full conference website next month as things got a little crammed on the blog last year!

Conference peeps and presenters

Dates:
The conference will be on Thursday 20 and Friday 21 August 2009, in Sydney. Put it in your diary now!

A change of format:
This year we are changing things slightly based on feedback from last year. We will be running a day of workshops which will likely be half day sessions, and the second day will be in a similar format to last year with split streams, a couple of plenary sessions, and the presentations will usually be from 30 mins to 1 hour.

New this year – the conference dinner!
We are extremely excited to be giving you a full conference dinner this year. This will allow a nice social element to the conference. Of course we checked out the location ourselves which will be at Subsolo Spanish Restaurant and Tapas bar. Check out Reem’s blog post for the low down on the food.

Cost:
We have not confirmed costs yet, but again we will be keeping this as low as possible. This conference is not about making money, it’s about getting people together to share ideas and learn.

Register your interest:
If you want to keep updated about the conference and be the first to know when registration is open, register your interest to receive conference updates.

We look forward to seeing your feedback in the Ideas Forum, and hope to see many of you at the conference in August.