Category — Digital Archives

Blogger Perceptions on Digital Preservation:
Blogger Perceptions on Digital Preservation is an online survey from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science. The study team is interested in hearing from all bloggers on their perceptions on digital preservation in relation to their own blogging activities, as well as the blogosphere in general

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this is an interesting project…

Memory of the World:
UNESCO’s Memory of the World program aims at preservation and dissemination of valuable archive holdings and library collections worldwide.
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great idea…

AlterNet: Myth of the Universal Digital Library:
Sorry, but we can’t digitize everything. Here’s why …

A lot of Web geeks believe that one day everything ever created by humans will be available online. Call it the myth of the universal library. Here’s how the myth goes: Because there is unlimited real estate in cyberspace and because media can be digitized, we can fill cyberspace with all human knowledge and give everyone access to it. Without further ado, I present to you three arguments for eliminating the myth of the universal library.

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It is true, we can’t… do it… but then… that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do something.

Linux.com | Linux to help the Library of Congress save American history:
The Library of Congress, where thousands of rare public domain documents relating to America’s history are stored and slowly decaying, is about to begin an ambitious project to digitize these fragile documents using Linux-based systems and publish the results online in multiple formats.

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The sloan foundation has funded this development. It uses scribe, which is a bookscanning system.

Museum Professionals and the Relevance of LIS Expertise:
Marty, Paul F. (2007) Museum Professionals and the Relevance of LIS Expertise.

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Paul Marty, who I met while interviewing at FSU, is cranking out some great papers in museums, museum informatics, and museum professionals in relation to library/information professionals

Peter Suber, Open Access News
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Is China blocking OA to Chinese Marxist texts?

Noam Cohen, Who’s Attacking an Online Marxist Archive? China Is Suspected of Trying to Block Access to Texts, New York Times, February 5, 2007. Excerpt: …According to the Marxist Internet Archive, an online community that produces and organizes an ever-growing [open access] Marxist library…computer attacks primarily from China are jeopardizing its ability to provide Marxist texts, perhaps forcing the library to stop providing material in Chinese.

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The NYT covered the Marxist Archive of which the CDDC is now one of the main hosting providers. We have not had as much problems with Chinese, but that is probably because of the excellent infrastructure that Virginia Tech provides.

Modern Archival Literature: A Brief Annotated Bibliography:

Largest archive of free culture to be built in the Netherlands:
From the Netherlands, the “Images for the Future” project is building a large-scale conservation and digitization project to make available 285,000 hours of film, television, and radio recordings, as well as more than 2.9 million photos from the Netherlands’ film and television archives. A basic collection drawn from the archive will be made available on the Internet either under CC licenses, or in some cases, in the public domain. The Government of the Netherlands, a long time supporter of the local Dutch CC project, will invest a total of 173 million Euros over a seven-year period. Their aim is to spur innovative applications with new media, while providing valuable services to the public.
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this will be great… free content is the backbone of innovation and production.

“For archivists with strong geeky tendencies”:
Yesterday saw the first meeting of the Data Standards Group of the Society of Archivists under its new name. It was formerly known as the EAD/Data Exchange Group. The new name reflects a new, broader remit for the group, which is now providing a focus for digital preservation as well as data exchange.
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Seems like an interesting bit of work they have going on.

PrattNews:
PRATT INSTITUTE SCHOOL OF INFORMATION AND LIBRARY SCEINCE LAUNCHES COUNTRY’S FIRST ADVANCED CERTIFICATE IN MUSEUM LIBRARIES NEW YORK, N.Y.

November 8, 2006 – Pratt Institute’s School of Information and Library Science (SILS) introduced the world’s first program focusing on museum libraries this fall semester. The Advanced Certificate in Museum Libraries will yield a Master’s degree in a course of study that consists of four required areas of study: research/curatorial, digital technology, education and outreach, and field experience.

The Advanced Certificate in Museum Libraries, which was approved by the New York State Education Department in June 2006, will prepare graduates to assume leadership roles in museum libraries, and in a range of other cultural institutions, including research and academic libraries and “virtual” libraries.

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This is a new program. There are some interesting developments in this field. It will also be great to get more people involved with museum libraries.