Basic metadata describing PARADISEC's collection can be freely and easily searched through OLAC or the LINGUIST LIST gateway. Access to the more detailed internal catalogue records is available here: http://paradisec.org.au/catalog/.

Access to data in the PARADISEC repository is available to those who have signed an access form. A nominal fee may be charged for files delivered on CD/DVD. Completed forms should be posted or faxed to PARADISEC (Sydney).

PARADISEC has been funded by the Universities of Sydney, Melbourne, New England, ANU the Australian Research Council and Grangenet.

View a glossary of acronyms used on this site.

 

To report broken links or for comments on this webpage, email PARADISEC.

Depositing with PARADISEC

Amanda Harris and Tote Tepano sign the Paradisec deposit form for Tote's Rapanui materials  

PARADISEC does not currently have the resources to actively collect data. We rely on the community of linguists, ethnomusicologists and ethnographers to deposit material with us for safe keeping and long-term accessibility.

Because we have seen a number of collections that are part of deceased estates, we also urge current fieldworkers to make a will (see our information for depositors).

Depositors can specify conditions on the use of their data in a deposit form. Deposits in PARADISEC are not currently freely available on the web. Password access applies and passwords are currently available only for depositors for their own material. Click here for further information for depositors.

Preferred deposit formats for PARADISEC

PARADISEC has so far focussed on digitising audio tapes, but we intend to build up a repository of digital objects including all the textual material that is currently being produced for theses, dictionaries, grammars, articles and so on.

The only non-digital materials we are able to convert are audio tapes (reel to reel and cassette). 

For existing digital material these are the formats for deposit:

Text: txt, xml, pdf, rtf (we can undertake to convert from MS Word to these formats if necessary)
Audio: DAT, .WAV (16bit 48khz, or as close to the archival standard of 24bit, 96Khz as possible). (At present we are not able to ingest 16-bit 32khz (LP mode) but depositors should contact us to discuss these options. We do not advocate the use of minidisc for recording but do have the capacity to ingest minidisc and can assist in archiving minidisc files.)
Images: TIF/ TIFF
Video: No archival version is yet apparent, but DV native format can be accessioned.

Tapes submitited to PARADISECare assessed based on PARADISEC’s established criteria including: the condition of the tape; the regional origin of the material and the status of the language recorded. Any tapes which are assessed as being outside of the scope of the PARADISEC project are labelled and stored until they can be returned to the depositor with the rest of the deposited tapes. Tapes that comply with PARADISEC’s criteria are accessioned into the collection. Each tape accessioned is catalogued and assigned a persistent identifier and labelled with this identifier. The tapes are then assigned a priority for digitisation according to the PARADISEC criteria and are placed in a queue to be digitised. 

Three digital files are created from the original tape: an archival standard 24bit/96khz file (filename.wav); a CD-audio quality 16bit/44.1khz file and an MP3 file (filename.mp3). The archival standard version and the MP3 files are sent to storage on the mass storage system of the University of Sydney and mirrored at the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing National Facility (APAC) at the Australian National University. The 44.1khz file is then used to burn two audio CD copies which are labelled with the persistent identifier and later sent back to the depositor along with the original tapes. The digital files which are created can be accessed through the web via the individual filenames, for example the file “AB1-002-A.mp3” will be accessed via: http://store.apac.edu.au:8181/PARADISEC/data/AB1/002/AB1-002-A.mp3 and the file “YZ2-P8888-B.wav” via

http://store.apac.edu.au:8181/PARADISEC/data/YZ2/P8888/YZ2-P8888-B.wav. Only those with access permission (specified by the depositor) will be able to download the audio files. Access is password protected.

To Download a summary of our format standards or for our access and deposit forms, follow the links below:

PARADISEC Digital Standards rtf or pdf

PARADISEC Access Form pdf or rtf or html

PARADISEC Deposit Form pdf or rtf or html

 

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