09/03/2003 — From The Smithsonian To The Hubble, The Library of Congress To Provide Access To More Than 80,000 Moving Images

On Sept. 3, 2003 IBM announced that three major universities have selected SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on IBM POWER(TM) technology to build the Library of Congress' first centralized online catalog of film, television and digital video images from libraries, national archives, museums and broadcasting companies. The centralized online catalog will ultimately be the largest repository in the world for digital moving images and will greatly expand the Library of Congress' ability to provide video images of the nation's most-treasured and important images - from archives in the national Smithsonian to video from the Hubble telescope - all as one resource accessible over the Internet.

The three universities - the University of Washington, Rutgers University Libraries, and the Georgia Institute of Technology Interactive Media Technology Center - have received a $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for the project, originally commissioned for design by The Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA), through a grant from the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress. In 2004, the Library of Congress will be the host site for the Moving Images Collection (MIC) after its development and together with the AMIA will continue to participate in its continued growth and design.

The new MIC is expected to be a tremendous aid to scientists, researchers, authors, educators, students and the general public who will now have easy access to an exciting world of more than 80,000 moving image resources. As pervasive as television, film and other moving-image media have become, they remain under utilized as mainstream information resources and are rarely ever consulted as reference material or cited in research or education papers.

The goal of the MIC is to provide a single point of access for all users, as well as allow digital image preservationists to collaborate in sharing and maintaining the various images. When completed, the MIC will work much like an internet search engine except that it will be modified to locate moving images only.

The University of Washington and Rutgers University chose IBM eServer(TM) pSeries(TM) systems running the Linux operating system to design and develop the directory and catalog databases of digital images. Georgia Institute of Technology will use the pSeries systems to develop the Web portal where users will access the actual information on the Internet and enter in their key search terms.

"We selected IBM as the infrastructure provider not only because of their support for the Linux operating system, but also because the openness and flexibility within the Linux platform can grow significantly with this project and that's what IBM and its servers with POWER technology gave to us, said Jim DeRoest, assistant director, Computing & Communications, University of Washington. "IBM is committed to understanding our unique requirements for this project and has provided a solution that will grow as our project and users demand."

"As this project progresses, IBM eServer pSeries systems running Linux gives the Moving Images Collection the performance and openness needed for the portal project to continue to grow in the months and years to come," said Brian Connors, vice president, IBM eServer pSeries Linux. "The Library of Congress is part of a growing list of organizations selecting to run Linux on eServer pSeries systems with the POWER processor, the most advanced 64-bit processor in the world."

The MIC databases and web portal will be powered by two IBM eServer p630 and two IBM eServer p610 models running SUSE Linux Enterprise SLES 8 and leveraging IBM directory server. The eServer p630 and p610 systems will serve as the gate to the database and permits users to search and locate the moving images. After finding the video images with MIC, users can then make arrangements directly with the content providers to obtain permission to view or reference the moving images. Many moving images will be available for direct streaming via a link in the catalog record.

In consultation with the Library of Congress and the other developer sites, the University of Washington selected the IBM Linux platform because it could easily be custom coded and flexible to meet the needs of the MIC project. Because IBM's pSeries technology with the POWER4(TM) architecture is a flexible environment and allows for open systems, the MIC developers decided to install the Linux on the POWER platform to give them the scalability and availability they would need as the project would grow.

About The Moving Images Collections Portal Project

The MIC (Moving Images Collection) is being designed and implemented by Rutgers University, University of Washington and the Georgia Institute of Technology, in collaboration with the sponsors, the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) and the Library of Congress. MIC has been funded (2002-2004) by a grant from the National Science Foundation in the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) program under award number 0226140.

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Novell, Inc
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