Linux in the Library of Congress

IBM TO HELP U.S. GOVERNMENT CREATE MOVING IMAGES LIBRARY

From The Smithsonian To The Hubble, The Library of Congress To Provide
Access To More Than 80,000 Moving Images

Armonk, N.Y., September 3, 2003 - IBM today announced that three major
universities have selected Linux 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
Universities 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.

About IBM
IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years
of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from
across IBM and key Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services,
solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take
full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about
IBM, visit www.ibm.com. 

# # #

IBM, the e-business logo, eServer, pSeries, AIX, POWER4 are trademarks of
IBM Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Linux is a
registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other company/product names
and service marks may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their
respective companies. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States
and other countries licensed exclusively through The Open Group.