SAMMA

The Library of Congress has contracted to purchase the System for
the Automated Migration of Media Archives, or SAMMA, to migrate its
massive collection of audio visual material in preparation for its
move to the National Audio Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper,
VA. Over the next several years, the Library will use SAMMA to
migrate and digitize many of the hundreds of thousands of recordings
in its collection.

The Library realized that it would take many decades and be
prohibitively expensive to migrate and digitize the audio visual
collections manually. To have the material available at the Culpeper
facility when it opens in 2007, a more practical, cost effective,
and efficient method had to be found. In examining the alternatives,
the Library concluded that Media Matters' innovative migration
automation system would provide the high quality necessary to
preserve the recordings, while meeting the required cost and time
restraints.

SAMMA combines robotic tape handling systems with proprietary tape
cleaning and signal analysis technologies. SAMMA's expert system
automatically supervises quality control of each media item's
migration. >From a thorough examination of the physical tape for
damage, to real time monitoring of video and audio signal parameters
during migration, SAMMA ensures that magnetic media is migrated with
the highest degree of confidence and the least amount of human
intervention. SAMMA uses specially designed components to gather
technical metadata throughout the entire migration process, ensuring
that the process is documented in depth while gathering important
metrics about the health of an entire collection. The modular,
portable system will be installed on site at the Library and run
24/7.  The final product will be a lossless compressed Motion JPEG
2000 digital file copy of each master tape at preservation quality,
and the technical metadata describing the condition of the media
item and the migration process.

Upon completion, the National Audio Visual Conservation Center of
the Library of Congress will be the first centralized facility in
America especially planned and designed for the acquisition,
cataloging, storage and preservation of the nation's heritage
collections of moving images and recorded sounds. It is expected to
be the largest facility of its kind in the world. The NAVCC, funded
by the Packard Humanities Institute and the U.S. Congress, will open
fully in 2007.

For further information contact

    Steve Kwartek
    212-268-5528 ext 113
    steve.kwartek<-a t->media< . >matters< . >net


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 19:19
                 Distributed: Friday, October 14, 2005
                       Message Id: cdl-19-19-004
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