Bertram Lyons - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Bertram Lyons

Research paper thumbnail of Structural Signatures: Using Source-specific Format Structures to Identify the Provenance of Digital Video Files

Presented at JTS2019 by Bertram Lyons at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversu... more Presented at JTS2019 by Bertram Lyons at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversum (NL) on Saturday, October 5, 2019. Collaborative notes available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3835666 ABSTRACT: Every complex digital file format requires the presence of self-describing and predictable internal binary structures. This internal structure is responsible for framing the stored content within the file so playback software can acquire the correct configuration details to reconstitute this encoded information. This applies to videos (e.g., mp4, mov, avi), audio files (e.g., wav, mp3), still images (e.g., jpg, tif, png), serialized packages (e.g., zip, tar), database files (e.g., sql), and file systems (e.g., FAT32, HFS), among many other content types. Traditional approaches to digital file forensics focus on the content of the file itself. Signal analysis takes the output of the reconstructed payload of the file and processes this output to identify traces that are t...

Research paper thumbnail of iPres2018 Conference

The official OSF project for iPres 2018 includes all of the conference materials that were shared... more The official OSF project for iPres 2018 includes all of the conference materials that were shared by authors and presenters for discussion panels, paper sessions, workshops and tutorials, posters and demonstrations, and ad hoc programming. iPres is the premier and longest-running conference series that focuses on digital preservation. Our 2018 conference brought together more than 400 scientists, students, researchers, archivists, librarians, providers, and other experts to share recent developments, innovative projects and to collaboratively solve problems. Our 15th conference, iPres 2018 was co-hosted by MIT Libraries and Harvard Library in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Conference website: https://ipres2018.org/ Conference summary: https://osf.io/jdrt5/ Zip file of all papers: https://osf.io/jdrt5/ Copy of papers in iPres repository: https://phaidra.univie.ac.at/ iPres 2018 Organizing Handbook Update: https://osf.io/agh4n/

Research paper thumbnail of Ad Hoc: Lightning Talks

iPres 2018 hosted two lightning talk sessions, Sessions 206 and 212.

Research paper thumbnail of Ad Hoc: Lightning Talks

Research paper thumbnail of Ad Hoc: Tutorials

Research paper thumbnail of Finding Balance in the Management of Sensitive Cultural Heritage Material in Extant Recorded Sound Collections

Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals, 2008

In the wake of NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 1990), U.S. museum... more In the wake of NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 1990), U.S. museums and archives are acutely aware of tangible cultural property issues. Cultural intellectual property remains legislatively neglected. Ethical precedent does exist, however, for museums and archives to treat intangible heritage with the same respect as tangible property. Recorded sound collections in many libraries, museums and archives in the United States hold ethnographic recordings of indigenous American cultures. These recordings are of immense value to the cultures and peoples they document as well as to those who study the history and development of humankind. Often they require special treatment or restricted access. Through the development of collections management policies and procedures, a responsible institution can identify sensitive recordings in its collections and isolate them for further investigation. By doing so, an institution can allow broader access to non-sensitive...

Research paper thumbnail of Designing a National Online Oral History Collecting Initiative: The Occupational Folklore Project at the American Folklife Center

Oral History Review, 2013

Abstract This case study introduces the Occupational Folklore Project, a multi-year oral history ... more Abstract This case study introduces the Occupational Folklore Project, a multi-year oral history initiative that seeks to capture a portrait of America’s workforce through interviews with workers across the United States. The project, designed by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, is still being beta-tested. The progress report presented here provides information about how the project is using an innovative application of online digital technology to collect and process documentary materials from geographically dispersed fieldworkers.

Research paper thumbnail of Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pop Music in the Age of Jim Crow

Journal of American History, 2011

In Segregating Sound , Karl Hagstrom Miller argues that the categories that we have inherited to ... more In Segregating Sound , Karl Hagstrom Miller argues that the categories that we have inherited to think and talk about southern music bear little relation to the ways that southerners long played and heard music. Focusing on the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth, Miller chronicles how southern music—a fluid complex of sounds and styles in practice—was reduced to a series of distinct genres linked to particular racial and ethnic identities. The blues were African American. Rural white southerners played country music. By the 1920s, these depictions were touted in folk song collections and the catalogs of “race” and “hillbilly” records produced by the phonograph industry. Such links among race, region, and music were new. Black and white artists alike had played not only blues, ballads, ragtime, and string band music, but also nationally popular sentimental ballads, minstrel songs, Tin Pan Alley tunes, and Broadway hits. In a cultural history filled with musicians, listeners, scholars, and business people, Miller describes how folklore studies and the music industry helped to create a “musical color line,” a cultural parallel to the physical color line that came to define the Jim Crow South. Segregated sound emerged slowly through the interactions of southern and northern musicians, record companies that sought to penetrate new markets across the South and the globe, and academic folklorists who attempted to tap southern music for evidence about the history of human civilization. Contending that people’s musical worlds were defined less by who they were than by the music that they heard, Miller challenges assumptions about the relation of race, music, and the market.

Research paper thumbnail of AMP: An Audiovisual Metadata Platform to Support Mass Description

Presented at JTS2019 by Jon W. Dunn and Bertram Lyons at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and ... more Presented at JTS2019 by Jon W. Dunn and Bertram Lyons at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversum (NL) on Saturday, October 5, 2019. Collaborative notes available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3835666 ABSTRACT: In recent years, concern over the longevity of physical AV formats due to media degradation and obsolescence, combined with decreasing cost of digital storage, have led libraries and archives to embark on projects to digitize recordings for purposes of long-term preservation and improved access. Beyond digitization, in order to facilitate discovery, AV materials must also be described, but many items and collections lack sufficient metadata. In 2014 Indiana University (IU) began an effort to digitize hundreds of thousands of hours of audiovisual materials from across campus through its Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative (MDPI). In 2015, with the support of consulting firm AVP, the IU Libraries conducted a planning project to research, analyze...

Research paper thumbnail of Cultural Preservation Projects as the Basis for Community Building in Post-Earthquake Haiti

Research paper thumbnail of Two Open-Source Tools for Digital Asset Metadata Management

In today's world of digital information, previously disparate archival practices are converging a... more In today's world of digital information, previously disparate archival practices are converging around the need to manage collections at the item level. Media collections require a curatorial approach that demand archivists know certain information about every single object in their care for purposes of provenance, quality control, and appraisal. This is a daunting task for archives, as it asks that they retool or redesign migration and accession workflows. It is exactly in gaps such as these that practical technologies become ever useful. This article offers case studies regarding two freely-available, open-source digital asset metadata tools-BWF MetaEdit and MDQC. The case studies offer on-the-ground examples of how four institutions recognized a need for metadata creation and validation, and how they employed these new tools in their production and accessioning workflows. Digital asset metadata is a critical aspect of preservation, access, and stewardship; without this information, objects become increasingly difficult to manage and use. Without knowing precisely what an object is (both as a technical asset and intellectual entity), questions such as "how do we present this?" and "are there obsolescence concerns?" cannot be answered. Supplementary to external datastores-databases, spreadsheets, and the like-technical and descriptive metadata about digital collections can be embedded within the assets themselves. All together, external and embedded metadata comprise the total knowledge of a given digital object, and this information is critical in archival workflows and in preservation repositories. This study evaluates two tools that offer solutions for creating, reading, and making use of metadata that can be embedded within digital objects. Some uses for embedded metadata in an archival environment include automated quality control, object self-description, disaster recovery, and metadata sharing between systems. The two tools discussed in this study, MDQC (Metadata Quality Control) and BWF MetaEdit are open-source software utilities created to aid archivists in the creation and use of such metadata in daily workflows. This article explores four production implementations of these tools and their usefulness for overcoming problems and streamlining processes. The sheer quantity of digital assets created as a result of digitization projects and the resulting large-scale ingests often overwhelm library staff. Outside of digitization on demand, objects are typically digitized at scale in order to capitalize on efficiencies of volume. In such cases it is not uncommon for small archival teams to handle many thousands of digital assets, each of which must go through an ingest workflow. The most important part of ingest workflows-performing quality control on incoming preservation masters-is often the most time consuming step for digital archivists. An archive may wish to ensure that its digital assets conform to naming standards, minimum quality specifications, or format compliance. These assets are typically reviewed manually at the item level, as evidenced in our case studies below. In such cases, a bottleneck emerges because the rate at which quality control is performed falls behind the rate at which newly digitized assets are created and acquired. Quality verification also tends to be an ineffective use of staff time. Despite its importance, it is tedious and a poor use of skilled labor. Digitization projects and departments can sink unanticipated amounts of valuable time and resources into item-level quality control, thus detracting from other services (both real and potential). All told, asset quality control is a step in archival workflows that is ripe for improvement.

Research paper thumbnail of The Cost of Inaction: A New Model for Physical Audiovisual Media Holdings

Research paper thumbnail of Repatriation and Digital Cultural Heritage

Indian Folklife, 2011

The late ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax coined the term “cultural feedback,” by which he meant rein... more The late ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax coined the term “cultural feedback,” by which he meant reinforcing the world’s diverse expressive traditions and aesthetic systems by a variety of means, including the method of returning documentation to the places, people, and cultures whence it came. How to interpret and implement such an idea is dependent on context. Advances in digital technology make it possible for repositories to cooperate in circulating ethnographic collections, but how do we eff ect this while honoring our moral and legal obligations to artists and local cultures? Today’s scholars have made great headway in disentangling the many complicated issues facing contemporary researchers, archivists, and curators (as well as indigenous and local peoples) concerning the ownership and management of artifacts and intangible culture. But what are the challenges of engaging in digital repatriation eff orts today? In 2005, the Association for Cultural Equity1 (ACE —an entity also kn...

Research paper thumbnail of Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library (review)

Journal of American Folklore, 2011

What are the functions of websites for cultural heritage repositories? At the very least, these s... more What are the functions of websites for cultural heritage repositories? At the very least, these sites serve four potential functions. They inform visitors to the sites about the repository itself, its location, history, hours, contact information, and upcoming or past events. The sites also provide visitors the opportunity to discover what resources reside in the repository. Additionally, and this takes place more and more as technologies progress, repositories provide virtual access to collection materials through the website (in the form of digital research collections or curated exhibits). Finally, websites today provide a space, a location, for interaction between the repository and its many publics. As i review the online presence of the Southern Folklife collection (SFc) at the Wilson library at the university of north carolina, i am looking at the ways SFc responds to these functions and the ways SFc challenges and is challenged by them. An important archival resource, the SF...

Research paper thumbnail of From Preservation To Access In One Step: Aviary: An Access Platform For Audiovisual Content

Research paper thumbnail of Beyond Floppy Disks: Collecting Digital Content for Archives Today

Research paper thumbnail of Book Review: Call the Lost Dream Back: Essays on History, Race and Museums

Research paper thumbnail of Book Review: What are Archives? Cultural and Theoretical Perspectives: A Reader

Research paper thumbnail of IASA's Travel Award Program

International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) Journal

Research paper thumbnail of Beyond Floppy Disks: Collecting Digital Content for Archives Today

For the past decade, archives have focused on developing the internal capacity to store and manag... more For the past decade, archives have focused on developing
the internal capacity to store and manage digital records.
Many methodologies exist for describing, managing, storing,
and providing access to digital content in archives today.1
With tools such as BitCurator, we also have methods
to extract and analyze digital content from external storage
devices acquired with archival collections such as floppy
disks and hard drives. Building from these advances, and
working with the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History
at the University of Kentucky Library,2
AVPreserve saw
the need for a tool that could engage records creators
in the activity of preparing and sending digital content
directly to an archives. Together we turned our attention
to addressing digital collections made available by donors
and records creators by creating a tool called “Exactly.”

Research paper thumbnail of Structural Signatures: Using Source-specific Format Structures to Identify the Provenance of Digital Video Files

Presented at JTS2019 by Bertram Lyons at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversu... more Presented at JTS2019 by Bertram Lyons at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversum (NL) on Saturday, October 5, 2019. Collaborative notes available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3835666 ABSTRACT: Every complex digital file format requires the presence of self-describing and predictable internal binary structures. This internal structure is responsible for framing the stored content within the file so playback software can acquire the correct configuration details to reconstitute this encoded information. This applies to videos (e.g., mp4, mov, avi), audio files (e.g., wav, mp3), still images (e.g., jpg, tif, png), serialized packages (e.g., zip, tar), database files (e.g., sql), and file systems (e.g., FAT32, HFS), among many other content types. Traditional approaches to digital file forensics focus on the content of the file itself. Signal analysis takes the output of the reconstructed payload of the file and processes this output to identify traces that are t...

Research paper thumbnail of iPres2018 Conference

The official OSF project for iPres 2018 includes all of the conference materials that were shared... more The official OSF project for iPres 2018 includes all of the conference materials that were shared by authors and presenters for discussion panels, paper sessions, workshops and tutorials, posters and demonstrations, and ad hoc programming. iPres is the premier and longest-running conference series that focuses on digital preservation. Our 2018 conference brought together more than 400 scientists, students, researchers, archivists, librarians, providers, and other experts to share recent developments, innovative projects and to collaboratively solve problems. Our 15th conference, iPres 2018 was co-hosted by MIT Libraries and Harvard Library in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Conference website: https://ipres2018.org/ Conference summary: https://osf.io/jdrt5/ Zip file of all papers: https://osf.io/jdrt5/ Copy of papers in iPres repository: https://phaidra.univie.ac.at/ iPres 2018 Organizing Handbook Update: https://osf.io/agh4n/

Research paper thumbnail of Ad Hoc: Lightning Talks

iPres 2018 hosted two lightning talk sessions, Sessions 206 and 212.

Research paper thumbnail of Ad Hoc: Lightning Talks

Research paper thumbnail of Ad Hoc: Tutorials

Research paper thumbnail of Finding Balance in the Management of Sensitive Cultural Heritage Material in Extant Recorded Sound Collections

Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals, 2008

In the wake of NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 1990), U.S. museum... more In the wake of NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 1990), U.S. museums and archives are acutely aware of tangible cultural property issues. Cultural intellectual property remains legislatively neglected. Ethical precedent does exist, however, for museums and archives to treat intangible heritage with the same respect as tangible property. Recorded sound collections in many libraries, museums and archives in the United States hold ethnographic recordings of indigenous American cultures. These recordings are of immense value to the cultures and peoples they document as well as to those who study the history and development of humankind. Often they require special treatment or restricted access. Through the development of collections management policies and procedures, a responsible institution can identify sensitive recordings in its collections and isolate them for further investigation. By doing so, an institution can allow broader access to non-sensitive...

Research paper thumbnail of Designing a National Online Oral History Collecting Initiative: The Occupational Folklore Project at the American Folklife Center

Oral History Review, 2013

Abstract This case study introduces the Occupational Folklore Project, a multi-year oral history ... more Abstract This case study introduces the Occupational Folklore Project, a multi-year oral history initiative that seeks to capture a portrait of America’s workforce through interviews with workers across the United States. The project, designed by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, is still being beta-tested. The progress report presented here provides information about how the project is using an innovative application of online digital technology to collect and process documentary materials from geographically dispersed fieldworkers.

Research paper thumbnail of Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pop Music in the Age of Jim Crow

Journal of American History, 2011

In Segregating Sound , Karl Hagstrom Miller argues that the categories that we have inherited to ... more In Segregating Sound , Karl Hagstrom Miller argues that the categories that we have inherited to think and talk about southern music bear little relation to the ways that southerners long played and heard music. Focusing on the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth, Miller chronicles how southern music—a fluid complex of sounds and styles in practice—was reduced to a series of distinct genres linked to particular racial and ethnic identities. The blues were African American. Rural white southerners played country music. By the 1920s, these depictions were touted in folk song collections and the catalogs of “race” and “hillbilly” records produced by the phonograph industry. Such links among race, region, and music were new. Black and white artists alike had played not only blues, ballads, ragtime, and string band music, but also nationally popular sentimental ballads, minstrel songs, Tin Pan Alley tunes, and Broadway hits. In a cultural history filled with musicians, listeners, scholars, and business people, Miller describes how folklore studies and the music industry helped to create a “musical color line,” a cultural parallel to the physical color line that came to define the Jim Crow South. Segregated sound emerged slowly through the interactions of southern and northern musicians, record companies that sought to penetrate new markets across the South and the globe, and academic folklorists who attempted to tap southern music for evidence about the history of human civilization. Contending that people’s musical worlds were defined less by who they were than by the music that they heard, Miller challenges assumptions about the relation of race, music, and the market.

Research paper thumbnail of AMP: An Audiovisual Metadata Platform to Support Mass Description

Presented at JTS2019 by Jon W. Dunn and Bertram Lyons at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and ... more Presented at JTS2019 by Jon W. Dunn and Bertram Lyons at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversum (NL) on Saturday, October 5, 2019. Collaborative notes available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3835666 ABSTRACT: In recent years, concern over the longevity of physical AV formats due to media degradation and obsolescence, combined with decreasing cost of digital storage, have led libraries and archives to embark on projects to digitize recordings for purposes of long-term preservation and improved access. Beyond digitization, in order to facilitate discovery, AV materials must also be described, but many items and collections lack sufficient metadata. In 2014 Indiana University (IU) began an effort to digitize hundreds of thousands of hours of audiovisual materials from across campus through its Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative (MDPI). In 2015, with the support of consulting firm AVP, the IU Libraries conducted a planning project to research, analyze...

Research paper thumbnail of Cultural Preservation Projects as the Basis for Community Building in Post-Earthquake Haiti

Research paper thumbnail of Two Open-Source Tools for Digital Asset Metadata Management

In today's world of digital information, previously disparate archival practices are converging a... more In today's world of digital information, previously disparate archival practices are converging around the need to manage collections at the item level. Media collections require a curatorial approach that demand archivists know certain information about every single object in their care for purposes of provenance, quality control, and appraisal. This is a daunting task for archives, as it asks that they retool or redesign migration and accession workflows. It is exactly in gaps such as these that practical technologies become ever useful. This article offers case studies regarding two freely-available, open-source digital asset metadata tools-BWF MetaEdit and MDQC. The case studies offer on-the-ground examples of how four institutions recognized a need for metadata creation and validation, and how they employed these new tools in their production and accessioning workflows. Digital asset metadata is a critical aspect of preservation, access, and stewardship; without this information, objects become increasingly difficult to manage and use. Without knowing precisely what an object is (both as a technical asset and intellectual entity), questions such as "how do we present this?" and "are there obsolescence concerns?" cannot be answered. Supplementary to external datastores-databases, spreadsheets, and the like-technical and descriptive metadata about digital collections can be embedded within the assets themselves. All together, external and embedded metadata comprise the total knowledge of a given digital object, and this information is critical in archival workflows and in preservation repositories. This study evaluates two tools that offer solutions for creating, reading, and making use of metadata that can be embedded within digital objects. Some uses for embedded metadata in an archival environment include automated quality control, object self-description, disaster recovery, and metadata sharing between systems. The two tools discussed in this study, MDQC (Metadata Quality Control) and BWF MetaEdit are open-source software utilities created to aid archivists in the creation and use of such metadata in daily workflows. This article explores four production implementations of these tools and their usefulness for overcoming problems and streamlining processes. The sheer quantity of digital assets created as a result of digitization projects and the resulting large-scale ingests often overwhelm library staff. Outside of digitization on demand, objects are typically digitized at scale in order to capitalize on efficiencies of volume. In such cases it is not uncommon for small archival teams to handle many thousands of digital assets, each of which must go through an ingest workflow. The most important part of ingest workflows-performing quality control on incoming preservation masters-is often the most time consuming step for digital archivists. An archive may wish to ensure that its digital assets conform to naming standards, minimum quality specifications, or format compliance. These assets are typically reviewed manually at the item level, as evidenced in our case studies below. In such cases, a bottleneck emerges because the rate at which quality control is performed falls behind the rate at which newly digitized assets are created and acquired. Quality verification also tends to be an ineffective use of staff time. Despite its importance, it is tedious and a poor use of skilled labor. Digitization projects and departments can sink unanticipated amounts of valuable time and resources into item-level quality control, thus detracting from other services (both real and potential). All told, asset quality control is a step in archival workflows that is ripe for improvement.

Research paper thumbnail of The Cost of Inaction: A New Model for Physical Audiovisual Media Holdings

Research paper thumbnail of Repatriation and Digital Cultural Heritage

Indian Folklife, 2011

The late ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax coined the term “cultural feedback,” by which he meant rein... more The late ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax coined the term “cultural feedback,” by which he meant reinforcing the world’s diverse expressive traditions and aesthetic systems by a variety of means, including the method of returning documentation to the places, people, and cultures whence it came. How to interpret and implement such an idea is dependent on context. Advances in digital technology make it possible for repositories to cooperate in circulating ethnographic collections, but how do we eff ect this while honoring our moral and legal obligations to artists and local cultures? Today’s scholars have made great headway in disentangling the many complicated issues facing contemporary researchers, archivists, and curators (as well as indigenous and local peoples) concerning the ownership and management of artifacts and intangible culture. But what are the challenges of engaging in digital repatriation eff orts today? In 2005, the Association for Cultural Equity1 (ACE —an entity also kn...

Research paper thumbnail of Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library (review)

Journal of American Folklore, 2011

What are the functions of websites for cultural heritage repositories? At the very least, these s... more What are the functions of websites for cultural heritage repositories? At the very least, these sites serve four potential functions. They inform visitors to the sites about the repository itself, its location, history, hours, contact information, and upcoming or past events. The sites also provide visitors the opportunity to discover what resources reside in the repository. Additionally, and this takes place more and more as technologies progress, repositories provide virtual access to collection materials through the website (in the form of digital research collections or curated exhibits). Finally, websites today provide a space, a location, for interaction between the repository and its many publics. As i review the online presence of the Southern Folklife collection (SFc) at the Wilson library at the university of north carolina, i am looking at the ways SFc responds to these functions and the ways SFc challenges and is challenged by them. An important archival resource, the SF...

Research paper thumbnail of From Preservation To Access In One Step: Aviary: An Access Platform For Audiovisual Content

Research paper thumbnail of Beyond Floppy Disks: Collecting Digital Content for Archives Today

Research paper thumbnail of Book Review: Call the Lost Dream Back: Essays on History, Race and Museums

Research paper thumbnail of Book Review: What are Archives? Cultural and Theoretical Perspectives: A Reader

Research paper thumbnail of IASA's Travel Award Program

International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) Journal

Research paper thumbnail of Beyond Floppy Disks: Collecting Digital Content for Archives Today

For the past decade, archives have focused on developing the internal capacity to store and manag... more For the past decade, archives have focused on developing
the internal capacity to store and manage digital records.
Many methodologies exist for describing, managing, storing,
and providing access to digital content in archives today.1
With tools such as BitCurator, we also have methods
to extract and analyze digital content from external storage
devices acquired with archival collections such as floppy
disks and hard drives. Building from these advances, and
working with the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History
at the University of Kentucky Library,2
AVPreserve saw
the need for a tool that could engage records creators
in the activity of preparing and sending digital content
directly to an archives. Together we turned our attention
to addressing digital collections made available by donors
and records creators by creating a tool called “Exactly.”