[Resending this, since the text was dropped from the previous email.  Is 
there any way to configure the listserv accept html instead of only text?]

Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 23:31:46 -0500
To: [log in to unmask]
From: Stephen Paul Davis <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Wikipedia "Digital Preservation" page strategies

Folks:

I apologize the delay in getting to the task I volunteered for, namely 
looking at the current Wikipedia Digital Preservation article to see what 
might be done to make it more useful for our efforts.  After spending a 
fair amount of time thinking of different approaches,  I ended up drafting 
an outline for a new article (attached) that could serve as a starting 
point for us to work on a replacement of the current one.

Let me say a few words of explanation about some of the choices suggested 
in the new outline.   Clearly problems with the current article include, 
but are not limited to:

- dated content; many newer developments are not included
- somewhat haphazard, additive organization
- areas that are too specific and need to be brought back up to a more 
general level on the one hand and allow for more lower level subtopics or 
links to related articles on the other

I also came to the conclusion that a major problem -- and one that I think 
needs to be thought about before we start adding substantive new content 
and links -- is that the piece does not really provide a contextual 
framework in which the information is to be understood,  instead leaping 
too quickly into assertions and descriptions of digital preservation as a 
known set of specific processes and issues.

The world of Digital Preservation has expanded considerably in the last few 
of years and has many more players and stakeholders now  Taking this into 
account, I propose we start by characterizing Digital Preservation in the 
first instance as a domain of activity that involves different communities, 
organizations and initiatives.  That would then allow us to frame "our 
part" of the article as reflecting the concerns, practices and approaches 
of research libraries and archives (etc.), while providing an 
organizational structure to the article that would allow other communities 
concerned with digital preservation to bring in their sometimes differing 
contexts and approaches.  Clearly there would be major overlaps in some of 
these domains, but I would hesitate to frame this in a way that seemed to 
indicate that domains and approaches we're all involved in are any longer 
the only ones.

[A different approach to the same problem would be to frame the entire 
(new) article as reflecting the issues and answers specifically of the 
research library and archives community, naming something like: "Digital 
Preservation (in libraries, archives and cultural memory institutions)".  I 
don't this is the right way to go, but it illustrates the point.]  But I'm 
certainly willing to be persuaded that we owe our community's efforts the 
contextual "pride of place" in Wikipedia, if others think that a better 
approach.

NB: In the current outline, most of the content that the Standards Group 
has talked about documenting so far would fall into sections 5.4 and 
5.5.   Other parts of the article might actually fall into the domains of 
other NDSA working groups, e.g., the Infrastructure and Innovation 
WGs.   Clearly rewriting and this article will be a bit of work, especially 
given Wikipedia's standards for careful documentation of sources for 
assertions and facts

/Stephen

___________________________________________
Stephen Paul Davis
Director, Libraries Digital Program
Columbia University Libraries
535 W. 114th Street, New York, NY  10027
email: [log in to unmask]  phone:  (212) 854-8584
___________________________________________ 

############################

To unsubscribe from the NDSA-STANDARDS list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://list.digitalpreservation.gov/SCRIPTS/WA-DIGITAL.EXE?SUBED1=NDSA-STANDARDS&A=1