**This message is being cross-posted.  Apologies for the duplication **

Please note that the survey is closing on Friday, 25 July.

We appreciate the responses we've received thus far and would like to
encourage
those of you who have not yet had the chance to reply to do so by next
Friday.

Thank you.
______________________________________________________________________


               Automatic Exposure:
Capturing Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images

        Announcement & Questionnaire:
              New RLG Initiative
         Supported by CIMI, MCN, DLF



We know: A rapidly changing technological environment threatens the
longevity of digital still image files.

We also know: Technical metadata is the first line of defense against
losing access to digital assets and the investment they represent.

We fear: Recording technical metadata manually takes a greater investment
in staff time than most institutions can afford.

We conclude: Automating the capture of technical metadata will make digital
preservation more economically feasible. Automatic Exposure - Capturing
Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images seeks to minimize the cost of
technical metadata acquisition and maximize the community's capability of
ensuring long-term access to digital assets. The project engages vendors in
a dialog about how their products can expose technical metadata and make it
available for transfer into digital repositories and asset management
systems. For more details on this RLG initiative, please visit our website
at <http://www.rlg.org/longterm/autotechmetadata.html>.


With this questionnaire we aim to identify the stakeholders in the cultural
heritage and the vendor communities. It is our goal to organize a joint
meeting of vendors and cultural heritage professionals in November 2003 so
we can educate the commercial sector to our metadata needs. With your
response to this brief questionnaire you can identify who we should target,
and give us a mandate we'll take to the vendors. If you merely want to
endorse the project, but you are not in a position to provide any further
information, please just fill out question 1. Please send your replies to
<[log in to unmask]> or <[log in to unmask]> no later than
Friday, 25 July.



1. Please tell us who you are.

   (Full Name)(Title)(Institution)


2. What digital capture device(s) (cameraback, scanner, etc) do you use?
   (Manufacturer)(Model)


3. We would like to invite the manufacturer of your capture device(s) to
   our meeting. Do you have an account representative at your vendor? Who
   should we contact?
   (Full Name)(e-mail)(Phone)


4. Please tell us how you are currently capturing technical metadata.


5. We have identified two mechanisms for transferring metadata from a
   capture device to a digital repository.
    a. Internal to the image file: Technical Metadata gets written to a
       file header (e.g. TIFF) or file segment (e.g. JPEG 2000).
    b. External to the image file: Technical Metadata gets written to an
       external file, e.g. tab-delimited text or XML.

   Please tell us which mechanism you think would work best for you. Why?


6. What system do you currently use to manage your images? A preservation
   repository, a commercial asset management system, a homespun database,
   a resource fork on a server? Please be as specific as you can!



Thank you for your time! For more information on this initiative, please
contact <[log in to unmask]> or <[log in to unmask]>.

* * * * *

An RLG initiative - http://www.rlg.org/

Supporting Organizations:

CIMI - http://www.cimi.org

MCN - http://www.mcn.edu

DLF - http://www.diglib.org

Günter Waibel
Program Officer/RLG
http://www.rlg.org
[log in to unmask]
650-691-2304