Authors:
Rodney Obien
1
and
Jeffrey Monseau
2
Affiliations:
1
Keene State College, United States
;
2
Springfield College, United States
Keyword(s):
Digital Surrogates, Digital Libraries, Digital Preservation, Manuscript Collections, PDF/A.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Artificial Intelligence
;
Data Engineering
;
Digital Libraries
;
Knowledge Management and Information Sharing
;
Knowledge-Based Systems
;
Multimedia and User Interfaces
;
Ontologies and the Semantic Web
;
Symbolic Systems
;
Web Information Systems and Technologies
;
Web Interfaces and Applications
Abstract:
Digital surrogates provide a non-invasive means to study old manuscript documents that are often too fragile and valuable for wide public access. These surrogates are generated from web-accessible derivatives made from high-resolution archival masters; these masters serve as long-term digital preservation copies. What if there was a file format that combined the functions of digital surrogate, web-accessible derivate, and archival master? This paper considers the notion of the archival file format PDF/A (ISO: 19005-1) as digital archival surrogate or DAS that combines the functions of surrogate, derivative, and master. The paper discusses, furthermore, the versatility of PDF/A in dealing with the complex nature of old manuscripts, and the possible implications of adapting PDF/A as a DAS standard.