Digital Library Team Update

The AIRS Digital Library Team has been busy working on the design of a robust and accessible data architecture scheme for our Digital Library application. We have also discussed the possibility of integrating the research data to be collected by AIRS and stored in our Digital Library, with the audio analysis tools under development by Dr. George Tzanetakis and his research staff, at University of Victoria. This is an exciting prospect for the future of the AIRS Digital Library and a collaboration we really hope to foster in the near future, with the help of AIRS researchers who have been or are currently are engaged in data collection.

This is where we ask for your help: In order to properly design the underlying data structure for the Digital Library, we will need example research data from researchers who are collecting data with the intent of contributing that data to the Digital Library. At this point, we need to establish a technical map of the data being collected by the research groups in each AIRS sub-theme. This will allow us to start answering the outstanding questions of how do we best store, preserve, and access our data. What we ask is that you provide a sample of data that is being created/collected by your current AIRS-related projects. Representation from each sub-theme would be highly beneficial, so please check with your intra-theme colleagues and sub-theme leader about your ideal data submission. Formatting and quality is not an issue currently, since we will be establishing data standards based on what is being used currently in AIRS and what is considered "best practice" for these data types. Please send us copies of original data, as recorded, so we have a clear picture of what kind of data individual groups will be generating, before compression for storage.

This sample data will also enable us to have some early data objects to test the integration with Dr. Tzanetakis' analysis tools, which is sounds very promising for AIRS and audio analysis in general.

For those who have concerns regarding privacy and security of data samples provided to the Digital Library Team, rest assured that any sample data we receive will only be visible to developers and testers of the Digital Library project, all whom will be members of AIRS. Neither the test system nor the data will be visible to the public at any time. All data samples can be sent to the AIRS Information Technology Coordinator, Jonathan M. Lane. His email is jmlane@upei.ca , and you can reach him by phone at the AIRS office, +1 (902) 566-6023. Most data samples will be too large in file size to send via email, so we will arrange for a "dropbox" service to be listed on our Web site (http://www.airsplace.ca/) to upload large data files and/or archives.

If you have any questions or concerns about the requested data samples or an aspect of the Digital Library project, feel free to contact Jonathan. We also welcome any AIRS members who wish to be involved in the Digital Library Team to contact us for inclusion in future meetings and discussion.