Howard Besser

Howard Besser (born c. 1952) is a scholar of digital preservation, digital libraries, and preservation of film and video. He is Professor of Cinema Studies and the founding director of the NYU [http://www.nyu.edu/tisch/preservation/ Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program] ("MIAP"), a graduate program in the Tisch School. Besser also worked as a Senior Scientist at New York University's Digital Library Initiative. He conducted extensive research in image databases, multimedia operation, digital library, and social and cultural influence of the latest Information Technology. Besser is a prolific writer and speaker, and has consulted with many governments, educational institutions, and arts agencies on digital preservation matters. Besser researched libraries' new technology, archives, and museums. Besser has been actively contributing at the international level to build metadata and upgrade the quality of the cultural heritage community. He predominantly, focused on image and multimedia databases; digital library aspects (related to quality, intellectual property, and longevity); cultural and societal impacts of information technology, and developing new teaching methods through technology such as web-based instructions and distance learning. Besser was closely involved in development of the Dublin Core and the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS), international standards within librarianship. Provided by Wikipedia