High-tech history: IBM technology helps protect priceless works

Scholars of 18th century German literature, Russian history or Egyptian papyri and the techno-types at IBM generally don't find their paths crossing too often, but a new technology developed by IBM could make academicians' lives much easier by by making access to priceless literary texts, rare manuscripts and ancient works of art as easy as logging onto a Web site.

The IBM Digital Library solution, first introduced last fall, is a combination of hardware and software powered by IBM's DB2 relational database management system that allows libraries, museums, universities and other institutions to convert works into digital format for storage and remote access.

The Digital Library product depends on a number of existing IBM solutions for its functionality. The ImagePlus VisualInfo product suite provides tools for capturing, storing and managing digitized objects, while the DB2 relational database system manages the relational tables that hold the index and search support data. In addition, IBM is using search technologies from Excalibur Corp. to provide advanced search features.

For institutions such as Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Digital Library lets them preserve their priceless works while expanding access to them.

The Beinecke Library is in the middle of digitizing thousands of photographic negatives for storage in a database that will eventually be accessible via the Internet, said Christa Sammons, a curator at the library.

"It's a pilot project to understand how this technology can be used in a library for creating a database of images that people can use and find things in," Sammons said.

And while users will save time by not having to manually flip through the photographs to find what they're looking for, another major advantage is that the originals are protected from wear and tear, she said.

But digitization and storageopens up a whole new can of worms: unauthorized use of the material.

IBM's most recent release of the Digital Library product--called the Digital Library Collection Treasury--addresses that problem by incorporating a capability called digital watermarking as a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop software.

Digital watermarking uses an IBM-developed and patented technology called visible random brightness alternation to stamp a pattern in the shape of a seal or a crest on the digital image by varying the intensity of the pixels.

Many institutions don't object to viewers downloading the originals for commercial purposes, but they do want to receive royalties for such activity, said Willy Chiu, director of the IBM Digital Library. Digital watermarking provides them with a way to collect that revenue: If a user illegally downloads files, the images will be marred with a watermark, but users who pay for the rights to the images will be allowed to download an unmarked version.

Another option is a version of digital watermarking that is invisible to the naked eye but recognizable by special software programs. Invisible watermarking modifies just a few bits on the image--just enough for institutions to determine thatthe image is illegally downloaded and possibly track down the source.

Other IBM customers for the Digital Library product include the State Hermitage Museum in Russia and the Library of Congress.

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