Characterization of CD-ROMs for Emulation-based Access
Tobias Steinke, German National LibraryKlaus Rechert, University of Freiburg
Project EMiL
• Emulation of Multimedia objects in Libraries• Many CD-ROMs of the 1990s and 2000s• Variety of needed system environments• Access in reading rooms• Flexible solution for many object types• Project funded by the German Research
Foundation (DFG), 2014 - 2016• Partners: German National Library, Bavarian
State Library, Karlsruhe University of Art and Design, University of Freiburg
Requirements
• Libraries and museums: Different installation environments
• Thousands of objects, metadata without information about needed system environment: Automatic processing
• Usable for many multimedia object types like education programs, encyclopedias, maps, interactive art
• Flexible integration of existing and future emulators
Technical Metadata
Characterization of Container Media
• Thousands of individual files • Many different file formats• Different views (e.g. hybrid CDs)
à Required: Emulation Environment
Emulation EnvironmentEm
ulationEn
vironm
ent
technicalm
etadata
Configuration
SoftwareEnvironment
HardwareEnvironment
mapping
mapping
mapping
Disk Image
Emulator
Object Binding
Characterization WorkflowExtractFFMTs– createhistogram
Characterization WorkflowExtractFFMTs– createhistogram
MatchFFMTsandsoftwareenvironments
TheCurator‘s ToDo List
• Create a list of (minimal) emulation environments for a collection
1. Search for executables2. Map executables to an OS
– Initial results• from 69 objects chosen by the library
partners, for 66 at least one suitable OS could be determined
• for 35 objects we found at least one other alternative environment
– 11 hybrid CDROMs (Windows / Mac)
A Minimal Image-Archive
A minimal list of required "standard environments" –representative environments for each operating system.
àA working (simple) solution for most commercially published CDROMs (Typically self-contained media, made for the mass-market)
Objectswithout Executables?!?
àWhich Emulation Environment?àAnd which one is the best?
Refine Environments – Installation and Management of Additional Software
• Describing the capabilities of software environments– i.e. which file formats can be renderedà Integrated software management is required
• Software archive interface– Management of software components– Describe rendering capabilities– License management and enforcement
SoftwareManagement-1-
Listofcurrentlyavailablesoftwarepackages.
Addanew software package
SoftwareManagement-2-
Addbasic descriptive meta-data
Choose anuploaded ISO/Floppy imageandaddittoasoftwarecontainer (rightcolumn).
Createanew software bundle (leftside)
SoftwareManagement-2- (cont.)
Describe the software‘s rendering capabilities using PRONOM IDs
Licenseinformation
ModifyImage-1-
Choose animagetobemodified
ModifyImage-2-
Choose asoftware package to be installed
ModifyImage-3-
• InstallationmediumisavailableasCDROM(driveD:)
• Runinstallationprocess
Provideanameforthenewenvironment
Newenvironmentavailable
Usethenewlyinstalledimage
Thenewsoftwareenvironment descriptioncontainsareferencetothesoftwarepackagedescription.
Summary & Outlook
• A top-down approach to render container objects – mass ingest of container objects
• flag problematic objects for manual review– on-the-fly characterization– a REST interface for remote characterization
• Ongoing development– mapping "complex formats"
• e.g. web environments– define a ranking among alternative
environments– license enforcement module
Thank you!
Project website: http://www.multimedia-emulation.de
(German)
Source code:http://github.com/eaas-framework