even though i think the posts above basically override what i'm about to say, i'll add this in the off chance that you might find it useful. this is controversial as emile pointed out, and in the archival world the only medium other than paper of course that archivists place any faith in is microfilm. obviously you won't be going that route, and so to get to the point, the only semi-acceptable digital storage at this point is actually cds, not dvds. people i've talked to tend to prefer gold cds because the gold coat is more stable, but how stable? and for how long until they're obsolete? i don't know.
you may have already thought of this, but the other thing to standardize first /before/ storing is the metadata attached to your images. who's going to be using them? how will they search? what will they be looking for? that sort of thing. if you're interested, here are some places you can read up on past experiences, digital library/archiving standards, questions, and so forth:
an experience with tape drives:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/techdocs/libt1999/libt1999.html#media
via: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/about/techIn.html
if you're not on enough listservs:
www.dli2.nsf.gov/lists
for your free time:
(much of this will be irrelevant, but there are some good things mentioned such as the book _Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging for Libraries and Archives_ and also the section on Objects):
http://www.niso.org/framework/Framework2.html
thanks for the expert advice! i must admit i had no idea what went into picking an archiving system.
we are planning on building a searchable database for our data. (we are working with microarray data.) i think part of the problem is that we are not storing just images, but pixel values that are important for analysis. you bring up a good point about thinking of achiving in terms of what people will need to look for later and that's something that i will have to do some research on.
i should probably google "microarray archiving".
thanks for the direction!
venice - 2005-06-12 23:45:40
even though i think the posts above basically override what i'm about to say, i'll add this in the off chance that you might find it useful. this is controversial as emile pointed out, and in the archival world the only medium other than paper of course that archivists place any faith in is microfilm. obviously you won't be going that route, and so to get to the point, the only semi-acceptable digital storage at this point is actually cds, not dvds. people i've talked to tend to prefer gold cds because the gold coat is more stable, but how stable? and for how long until they're obsolete? i don't know. you may have already thought of this, but the other thing to standardize first /before/ storing is the metadata attached to your images. who's going to be using them? how will they search? what will they be looking for? that sort of thing. if you're interested, here are some places you can read up on past experiences, digital library/archiving standards, questions, and so forth: an experience with tape drives: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/techdocs/libt1999/libt1999.html#media via: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/about/techIn.html if you're not on enough listservs: www.dli2.nsf.gov/lists for your free time: (much of this will be irrelevant, but there are some good things mentioned such as the book _Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging for Libraries and Archives_ and also the section on Objects): http://www.niso.org/framework/Framework2.htmllani - Tue 14 Jun 2005 23:31:42
thanks for the expert advice! i must admit i had no idea what went into picking an archiving system. we are planning on building a searchable database for our data. (we are working with microarray data.) i think part of the problem is that we are not storing just images, but pixel values that are important for analysis. you bring up a good point about thinking of achiving in terms of what people will need to look for later and that's something that i will have to do some research on. i should probably google "microarray archiving". thanks for the direction!