Not the kind of suggestion you're looking for, I know, but as a
broader philosophical point ...

I wonder how much of the infrastructure we're building now to manage
access rights, including dark achives like CLOCKSS, is going to end up
looking rather quaint and old-fashioned as the progress towards an
Everything Is Open world accelerates.  Of course, "Everything" is an
exaggeration, there will always be *some* restricted materials, but
we're already seeing a strong trend towards author-pays open access in
scholarly publishing, and towards musicians not trying to limit access
to their music, but using it as an advertisement, and both trends seem
to be accelerating.

I guess the truth is that none of us knows where all this is going to end up.

In the mean time, it's hard to get excited about building software to
*restrict* access to materials, when what we all really want to do is
*improve* access.

-- Mike.



On 3 November 2011 03:36, William Denton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Some of us at work were talking about a problem the archivist and other
> digitizing people have: showing particular digitized objects to particular
> people with particular restrictions.  We called it GRAP:  the granular
> restricted access problem.
>
> Here's the archivist's description.  If you also had this problem and found
> a solution, we'd love to know.
>
> # ----- begin GRAP
>
> We are generating lots of digital assets (TIFFs of historical photographs,
> WAVs of sound recordings and oral histories, etc.) not only in the course of
> our regular digitization-for-access activities but also as a result of
> researcher requests and requests through Accessibility Services.
>
> We have a institutional digital repository (DSpace) that works well as a
> mass distribution tool, but as with most primary sources there are often
> additional restrictions on access based on copyright, donor permissions,
> third party privacy issues and other legislation.  We are struggling to find
> ways of promoting these resources that have additional access restrictions.
>
> What we want:
>
> A system of storing and organizing all digitized materials in one place so
> that everyone (librarians, archivists, technicians, IT, scholars, faculty,
> students) can find them.
>
> A means of managing and tracking all these objects that will allow:
>
> - the creation of unique identifiers (to generate statistical metrics, track
> chains of custody, access etc.)
> - quick and easy updating
> - access controls, possibly with time limits, for all material (X to the
> public, Y to this person, Z to students in HUM 101 for one week)
> - seamless streaming of audio and video (with access controls)
>
> # ----- end GRAP
>
> Any suggestions welcome.  I'll pass along and report back.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bill
> --
> William Denton
> Toronto, Canada
> http://www.miskatonic.org/
>
>