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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/ > >