Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Press release: Sun Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group (Sun PASIG)

As posted on the Digital-Preservation discussion list.



SANTA CLARA, Calif. October 8, 2007 -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced the formation of the Sun Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group, Sun PASIG, to bring together global leaders in government, broadcasting, education, and library services to share best practices for digital archiving.

Addressing the need for better collaboration on best practices around global standards in large data set and metadata preservation, the Sun PASIG will help provide support for organizations challenged with preserving and archiving important research and cultural heritage materials. Founding members of the Sun PASIG include The Alberta Library, The British Library, Johns Hopkins University, University of Oxford, Stanford University, The Texas Digital Library, and other leading global libraries and universities.

“We are trying to meet the needs of the evolving ‘cybrarian’ community that is grappling with storage and data management, workflow, and high-level architecture trends in the area of preservation and archiving,” said Art Pasquinelli, Education Market Strategist, Global Education and Research, Sun Microsystems.

At globally located semi-annual meetings, group members will share knowledge of storage technology trends, services-oriented architecture and software code, and discuss best practices of both commercial and community-developed solutions. Working groups will hold discussions on architectures, use cases and business drivers, storage, access and security, and operating policies, with the goal of providing common case studies and solutions for digital archiving. The Sun PASIG will focus on both collaborating with leading institutions in the EPrints, Fedora, and DSpace communities to create replicable solutions and exchanging expertise on global developments around the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) architecture model.

“Libraries and universities around the world face a common problem: how to best capture and archive valuable knowledge. Global discussion is the first step towards finding solutions that meet institutions’ individualized preservation needs,” said Michael Keller, University Librarian, Director of Academic Information Resources, Stanford University. “With the formation of Sun PASIG, we are looking forward to working with our peers to discover and create the best digital preservation options available, from infrastructure to interfaces.”

Sun currently collaborates with leading institutions like the University of Oxford to develop infrastructures for digital repositories. Sun is working with the University of Oxford in the development of the library's digital asset management system (DAMS) which will be based on Sun's advanced storage technologies. The DAMS will be used to provide long-term preservation of its digital collections, including a million 19th-century books digitized for the Bodleian Library as part of the Google Libraries Program.

The next Sun PASIG meeting will be held in Paris, France, November 14-16. For more information on Sun PASIG, go to http://sun-pasig.org/ or contact art.pasquinelli@sun.com. Registration for the November 14-16 Sun PASIG conference in Paris is available at https://events-at-sun.com/pasig/.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Sun Microsystems develops the technologies that power the global marketplace. Guided by a singular vision -- "The Network is the Computer" -- Sun drives network participation through shared innovation, community development and open source leadership. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com

Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java, and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.


Technorati tag:

No comments: