Accompanying Action on Music Information in Libraries

HARMONICADevelopments of Digital LibrariesPROLIB/HARMONICA II 22496
Steps to a Digital Library

ACCOMPANYING ACTION ON MUSIC INFORMATION IN LIBRARIES

HARMONICA

Developments of Digital Libraries

Steps to a Digital Library

Deliverable 3.6.1 and 3.6.2

Project: PROLIB/HARMONICA II 22496

European Commission

TELEMATICS FOR LIBRARIES

Version: 1

Date : 15-01-1999

Author: UNI-C

Confidentiality: Public

Status: Final

Table of contents

1 Introduction...... 4

1.1 Scenario 1...... 4

1.2 Scenario 2...... 4

1.3 Scenario 1: Future roles...... 6

1.4 Scenario 2: User interface...... 7

1.4.1 This report...... 7

2 The library - a part of the information society...... 9

3 Network and security...... 12

3.1 Network requirements...... 12

3.2 Carrier network...... 14

3.3 IPv6 or IPng...... 15

3.4 RSVP...... 16

3.5 Middleware...... 17

3.6 Interspace...... 17

3.7 Security services...... 19

3.7.1 Access control...... 19

3.7.2 Authentication...... 20

3.7.3 Integrity...... 20

3.7.4 Confidentiality (Privacy)...... 20

3.7.5 Proof of origin...... 20

3.7.6 Transaction security – transaction payment, restricted services, authenticity 20

4 Interoperability of libraries...... 22

4.1 Z39.50...... 22

4.2 Bib-1-tailored to music...... 23

4.3 LDAP...... 24

4.4 Athens...... 25

4.5 Metadata and harvesting...... 26

4.5.1 Metadata...... 26

4.5.2 Harvesting...... 27

4.5.3 Multilingual access...... 28

5 Standards for formats...... 29

5.1 Choosing the right standard...... 29

5.2 Standards and practice for streaming delivery...... 30

5.3 Standards and practice for other music and sound material...... 31

6 Standards and practice for delivery of copyrighted material...... 33

6.1 Music trial...... 34

7 Human-Computer Interface...... 35

7.1 Indexation and Segmentation etc...... 38

8 Steps towards the hybrid music library...... 39

8.1 The steps...... 41

9 Appendix 1...... 43

10 Appendix 2...... 45

10.1.1 Audio Code Number 3 (AC-3) - Dolby Digital (Surround)...... 45

10.1.2 Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI)...... 45

10.1.3 Coding of Moving Pictures and Associated Audio for Digital Storage Media (MPEG-1 Audio) 46

10.1.4 Generic Coding of Moving Pictures and Associated Audio (MPEG-2 Audio) 47

10.1.5 Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE)...... 48

10.1.6 MPEG-4 (Oct. 1998)...... 48

10.1.7 MPEG-7 FRAMEWORK (in the future)...... 50

1Introduction

The electronic availability of material poses both a threat to and an opportunity for authors, musicians and other actors, and it will certainly change the traditional roles. The Internet makes it very easy for bands to publish their material, The Internet Underground Music Archive is a very good example of this. Attempts have been made to make CDs on-demand, i.e. with the music combined according to the wish of the customer, not the record company. The meaning of terms like “mechanical right” may lose importance. Of course, the music industry is fighting this development, it may undermine their business model. But what is the role of the archives? Should they be responsible for archiving this kind of music? What kind of agreement should one attempt to reach?

To illustrate the potential problems future libraries may have, let us look at the typical use and access to music material.

1.1Scenario 1

Mr Future this morning heard a piece of music that he really liked and has decided to get it. He enters the title over the net and finds several shops offering the particular piece. He enters one of the shops, orders the piece and selects a couple of other pieces he likes. He chooses the option “download” and is asked to run his credit card through the card-reader next to his PC and to enter an empty disc into his drive. After a few seconds he has a new disc with the music he has ordered.

1.2Scenario 2

Ms Future “enters” a virtual music hall. Sound is heard from different directions - in one direction the sound landscape is composed by classical music from different periods - when we turn we focus on the music from the other direction, rap etc. In the turning process we heard jazz. Turning back we “walk” towards the classical section, and the sound picture is now composed of different genres - in one room we hear a symphony orchestra, in the other we hear a trio and in the third room a single piano is heard. At any state we can ask for a normal search interface, or we may take the microphone and hum a tune. The system will then try to identify the right material - material found in the near surrounding (eg classical piano music) of where we are will be displayed first. When some material of interest has been found we can choose to have it transmitted to our computer or to have it played over our hi-fi system.

None of the above scenarios necessarily relates to music libraries, however they do relate to the use and the distribution of music material, which all music libraries will have to relate to.

Traditionally, a library has been limited by its four walls. In the digital age this is no longer true; networks allow libraries to interconnect their collections, provide common access to several archives and to allow users from all over the world to access their collections. Or at least in principle, as there may be legal and economic reasons for limiting the access.

The advance of digital technology and the creation of broadband networks may replace a physical distribution medium of eg a piece of music. But what is the role of the archives in this new world of on-line publishing of music? Should they be responsible for archiving this kind of music? What kind of agreement should be aimed at?

The roles will change and new areas will appear.

What is the new role of a music library or a music archive?

museum/archive
active participant in information search and retrieval
An integrated part of eg a university environment
Responsible for special exhibits on different themes (as art galleries)?

It is also foreseen that the future role of libraries will include a higher degree of education as to how to find information, and knowledge of where to get the right information.

Libraries themselves will to an increasing extent act as information brokers. This could happen through Web-servers containing:

Description of and access to the electronic resources of the library including catalogues and documents.
Information databases geared towards special interest groups (eg the public, researchers or classical, pop music, jazz, etc.). These could be the result of collaboration between several libraries and institutions.
Discussion groups and communities for special interest groups.

The objective of this report is to investigate the technological possibilities, especially those relating to storage, retrieval and delivery of music. Clearly many of the questions are independent of the nature of the material, eg organisational questions, and others depend critically on the nature of the material, eg storage formats and network requirements. The questions related to the first point are addressed in the literature under terms like “The electronic Library”, “Digital Publishing”, “On-line Journal” etc. The latter point involves questions like:

Which forms should be supported for encoding and delivery
Realtime/Download
As sound is non-textual, it poses the problem of how to search - via text or via other means
Sound poses special demands to the network
Watermark

Before proceeding, let us return to the two scenarios.

1.3Scenario 1: Future roles

The scenario requires a number of things, the most import being agreement among copyright holders, a copyright management system and not least, a system which ensures that Mr Future cannot copy the pieces to all his friends.

The physical form of the disc may be a re-writable DVD, an MP3 disc or something else.

Commercial and non-commercial systems allowing users to select music (for later purchase) and to play music (by registered users) already exist. The information sector will affect the information flow. Intermediary players in the information sector such as publishers, shops, libraries, and record companies, replication shops and music archives - all have to deal with this new order of things. The method of buying music will most likely change despite destructive interference with the established industry (as was the example with Blockbuster, who tried to offer a service where customers could put songs together ad libitum, and the disc would be burnt, and the present attempt to block the distribution of MP3 players).

What is the role of libraries and archives?

A couple of years ago there seemed to be a group that felt that the role of libraries would be redundant as the electronic highway would allow the creator to be in direct contact with the customer.

If the role of libraries was that of a living museum, how can libraries secure a copy of the present amount of digital material available on the Internet for the future. In the above scenario there is no physical representation of the music. CDs are composed according to the users' requirement. As a minimum it requires new agreements with “publishers” - a publisher here can be something like the Underground Music.

Today the scene seems more dominated by the hybrid solution - some material will flow directly, other will pass eg the library. On the surface it seems that the electronic highway creates a bigger need for intermediaries like libraries because of the enormous rise in the amount of information. Users will more than ever need services which enable them to receive only relevant information with some kind of quality control.

1.4Scenario 2: User interface

Ms Future “enters” a virtual music hall. Sound is heard from different directions - in one direction the sound landscape is composed by classical music from different periods - when we turn we focus on the music from the other direction, rap etc. In the turning process we heard jazz. Turning back we “walk” towards the classical section and the sound picture now becomes composed of different genres - in one room we hear a symphony orchestra, in the other we hear a trio, and in the other a single piano is heard. At any state we can ask for a normal search interface or we may take the microphone and hum a tune. The system will then try to identify the right material - material found in the near surrounding (eg classical piano music) of where we are will be displayed first. When some material of interest has been found we can choose to have it transmitted to our computer or to have it played over our hi-fi system.

The system may be taught to recognise you - next time you enter you may start your tour near where you ended last time - or the place where you have spent most of you time.

Does this sound impossible to you?

The vision sketched above may be a couple of years away, however the individual pieces are beginning to be available.

Surround sound - 3D sound is now being tested. Testsites exist where the user tries to shoot according to the direction of the sound.

On-the-fly mixing of sound is being developed (especially in connection with video conferencing systems.

The notion of grouping concepts is being experimented with within other areas (concept space).

Using humming - or the keyboard - as part of navigation is being tested.

Work is being done on the network side - on-demand bandwidth and quality of service are important parts of the present agenda.

Electronic commerce is now accepted as a very important aspect of tomorrow’s society.

The beauty of the scenario is that it happens entirely on the premises of the material. Sound is international and can be used by visually impaired people.

1.4.1This report

What is described above is not a project proposal but an illustration of how one scenario can lead to a number of sub activities, each of which may be the basis for a proposal. As mentioned, some are already being tested in laboratories, some have been prototyped, and others have been prototyped for eg text documents.

The objective of this report is to describe some of the activities which now seem relevant for the music library of the future.

The report covers the areas around storage formats, network and search and retrieval. It is, among other material, based on the three reports developed during the first phase of the Harmonica project.

The description of the-state-of-the art today can be split into two parts, one is information relevant to digital libraries in general, the other is information relevant to music and sound archives especially.

Future roles and relations between the user, the archives, publishers and the copyright holders
Emerging standards for text-based navigation and access to digital (music) material
Emerging network standards supporting advanced delivery (QoS, RSVP etc.) over packet- switched network

In the description we will indicate some trends. We will end the report by pointing to the future - what seems from a technical point of view especially relevant for music libraries.

2The library - a part of the information society

The library of the future will be part of an entity serving local customers as well as providing specialised services to other libraries and/or their customers. The road which will facilitate this interconnectivity is the network, and the vehicles are information containers exchanged according to predefined rules depending on the purpose of the information exchange.

A library of the future will no longer be limited by walls or by country barriers. The libraries themselves will to a higher and higher degree act as information brokers - and potentially on an international scale. Below is an illustration of a library - located as part of the information society.

Two things are illustrated in the above figure, one is the relation between the different actors in the digital information society, the other is the rules, standards and de facto standards adhered to.

First regarding the relations. In the above drawing many relations between users, libraries and material can be imagined. Examples are:

Users find material via the search engines and access or order the material either from publishers or from libraries. The material is delivered (and possibly paid for) on-line.

Users may find the material in the catalogue of the library, but the electronic copy is stored at the publisher.

Authors/composers etc. may publish via a publishing house/record company or they may publish directly on the net either by themselves or via some of the new music sites, or they could publish via the Web-site of the library or commercial Web-sites.

Some of the roles and questions of libraries towards:

Asset owner

How is legal deposit handled in the future for music-material – if legal deposit exists?

How can we be sure to have all the relevant music of bands – especially those gaining fame and who started publishing at eg Underground Music?

How do libraries buy electronically – Will Edifact be implemented?

User

Provision of access to catalogues via the Web

Provision of information on availability

Provision of access to material

Support of relevant formats

Other libraries

How to ensure collaboration and unity:

Standardisation of exchange formats (for bibliographical data as well as for the material)

Standardisation of access

Mutual recognition of the registered users of each library

The second point raised in connection with the figure was regarding adherence to standards and rules.

To create an environment which offers to the user a coherent, consistent and complete environment requires certain rules to be set and followed for design and structure of the distributed services.

Many approaches can be taken to achieve this homogeneous appearance. The philosophy behind this report is not to impose standards on how information, tools and services are created, stored or maintained but to try to define interoperability in terms of protocols or interfaces to be followed for the material and its description.

This philosophy has consequences as has been illustrated on the figure:

For the network: the protocol TCP/IP is recommended. However, there are no requirements to the carrier network (eg ATM, Frame relay, ISDN, xDSL, or modem.
For the content the design philosophy results in recommendations on protocols and application interfaces, Z39.50, but not on the actual implementation.
The material is described in a standardised manner, but no requirements are made on how the support of the fields are implemented.
For the exchange of music files a number of encoding schemes are recommended. However, no requirement is made as to which tool(s) should be used.

3Network and security

The evolution in network and people's access and use of networks clearly will affect the expectation towards libraries in general but also music libraries. With access to video-on-demand and music-on-demand via commercial service providers, the users will also like to access the material in the archives in this way.

The network scene is complex and depends on many parameters. When the talk is on network, most people today will associate that with the Internet, the network of networks tied together by the common IP protocol. However, for projects addressing the problem of providing on-line access to music material, the Internet protocol has proved insufficient. The Internet protocol is a best effort protocol that cannot provide a guarantee for delivery of any kind of service. For this reason many projects have used specific physical networks which can support the required Quality of Service (QoS in the following). Examples of such networks are ISDN and ATM. The problem with this approach is that the protocols are tied closely to the carrier network and due to the general mixture of carrier network, the expected market penetration of services based on these “proprietary” protocols is expected to be small.

A possible remedy is the RSVP protocol, the reservation protocol for IP-based networks, which will be described later.

3.1Network requirements

Sound and video material requires a certain kind of high quality of the network. It is well known that the ear is very sensitive to the quality of the sound, both in terms of dynamic range and in terms of omissions. The latter is not true to the same extent for the eye, and it is a well accepted procedure to reduce in the quality of video rather than audio when the bandwidth is reduced.