Report of the SC-03-06 Working Group on Digital Library and Archive Systems of the SC-03 Subcommittee on the Preservation and Restoration of Audio Recording meeting, held in Barcelona, Spain, 2005-05-28

The meeting was convened by vice-chair C. Chambers.

The agenda and report from the previous meeting were accepted as written.

Development Projects

AES- X098: Audio metadata
The documents (parts A, B and C) as tabled were confusing, as the document formatting had not been completed. It was agreed that there was not much that can be done with these parts until the reformatting was complete.

AES-X098A: Descriptive metadata for audio objects
This document is due to PWD due at this date. This date was advanced to next October.

AES-X098B: Administrative metadata for audio objects - Audio object schema
The meeting discussed the problem of encoding a unique material identifier (UMID), being a binary data structure, into a string text field. The chairman proposes to set up two identifier types to cater for this. After some discussion the meeting suggested that RFC 3548 could be used as a standardised method to provide Base 64 Encoding with URL and Filename Safe Alphabet. See:- http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3548.html

This document will undergo some minor reformatting to present a similar dictionary structure to that found in AES-X098A. The chair will complete this work and return the document to the Standards Manager for formatting for PTD.

AES-X098C: Administrative metadata for audio objects; Process history schema
The meeting discussed the need for permanent Web addresses to be used as an absolute reference point for the schemas to reside. The standards manager stated that he has discussed the possibility of setting up a permanent site and this was in hand. For PTD.

The meeting discussed how this body was going to publish XML schemas for peer-review and formal publication. It was suggested that the text output of XML editors such as XML Spy could be used to produce printed versions.

Liaison

IASA liaison
It was stated that IASA prefer to continue with the informal liaison for the time being.

New projects

No new projects were received or proposed

New business

There was no new business

The next meeting will be scheduled in conjunction with the 119th AES Convention in New York, US., 2005-10