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