The Information Professional
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Librarians and Archivists in a fast-changing digital lanscape
Curated by Karen du Toit
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We Think, YouTube animation based on book by Charles Leadbeater

A new book by Charles Leadbeater, 'We Think' explores the potential of the latest developments of the internet...

 

> The Internet as enabler of mass innovation!

 

"We Think explores how the web is changing our world, creating a culture in which more people than ever can participate, share and collaborate, ideas and information.

Ideas take life when they are shared. That is why the web is such a potent platform for creativity and innovation.

It's also at the heart of why the web should be good for : democracy, by giving more people a voice and the ability to organise themselves; freedom, by giving more people the opportunity to be creative and equality, by allowing knowledge to be set free.

But sharing also brings with it dilemmas.

It leaves us more open to abuse and invasions of privacy.

Participation is not always a good thing: it can just create a cacophony.

Collaboration is sustained and reliable only under conditions which allow for self organisation.

Everywhere we turn there will be struggles between people who want to freely share - music, films, ideas, information - and those who want to control this activity, either corporations who want to make money or governments who fear debate and democracy. This conflict between the rising surge of mass collaboration and attempts to retain top down control will be one of the defining battles of our time, from Communist China, to Microsoft's battle with open source and the music industry's desperate rearguard action against the web."

 

First 3 chapters here (for free): http://www.wethinkthebook.net/home.aspx

 


Via Ana Cristina Pratas
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Technolust - the fifth column of the information counter-revolution

Hugh Rundle:

We are in an era of unprecedented change for libraries and the life of information. Bookstores throughout the western world are closing down. Libraries in the USA, UK and some in Australia are being defunded or closed. Many question the relevance of libraries, including some librarians. I am again surrounded by defeatists and the hopelessly optimistic. Many librarians appear to be searching for One Big Technology to save us. I believe that just like in Tasmania in the 1990s, this is a flawed search.

[...]

There are many other systems for sharing ideas. Why do we need libraries? What is our ‘unique value proposition’?

Libraries are a system for sharing ideas

in a way underpinned by the values of

PRESERVATION, OPENNESS, FREEDOM and PRIVACY.

This is our ‘Unique Value Proposition’.


Karen du Toit's insight:

The future of libraries lies in their unique value propositon! Good argument!

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Preserving analog films and music at the Library of Congress - The Verge

Preserving analog films and music at the Library of Congress - The Verge | The Information Professional | Scoop.it

Preserving analog films and music at the Library of Congress
The Verge
Libraries preserve and circulate more than just books, and the Library of Congress is no exception.

Glenn Fleishman tours the facility.

Video here: http://www.loc.gov/avconservation/packard/

Karen du Toit's insight:

Audio-visual conservation at the LC

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Opening Up the Archives: Part 2- Keeping Ahead of Obsolescence / BBC - video

Opening Up the Archives: Part 2- Keeping Ahead of Obsolescence / BBC - video | The Information Professional | Scoop.it

Ant Miller (BBC Research and Development Blog):

"In this second part of the Archive Research film we take a look at the key challenges addressed by the 'preservation' work of R&D and the BBC Information & Archives teams.  With interviews from Dr Richard Wright, Adrian Williams of I&A and others, Alex Mansfield gets to the bottom of the latest technologies being used to ensure that the critical challenge of obsolescence is handled, and handled effectively and efficiency.

With huge files, and critical quality checks essential to preserving the legacy of the archive, the best efforts of engineers and archivists are being applied to saving this content for the future."

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Pioneering Internet Archivists Brewster Kahle and Rick Prelinger on Preservation in the Digital Age

Pioneering Internet Archivists Brewster Kahle and Rick Prelinger on Preservation in the Digital Age | The Information Professional | Scoop.it

Internet archivists Brewster Kahle and Rick Prelinger discuss their efforts to build both a physical and digital library of every book ever published. "The idea is we can build a Library of Alexandria version two," says Kahle.

 

"Digitizing print collections with the Internet Archive"

 

 

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'Not Google Waving, but Drowning?': Digital Literary Archives - Huffington Post UK (blog)

'Not Google Waving, but Drowning?': Digital Literary Archives - Huffington Post UK (blog) | The Information Professional | Scoop.it

In terms of digital literary archives, one of the lessons for today's archivists is that so-called e-manuscripts are highly unstable, and need early curatorial intervention to secure them against the threats of technological obsolescence.


This means that the writers involved become increasingly aware of interest in their papers, and for novelist Jonathan Franzen, this changes everything: 'Unfortunately, I think that once writers become self-conscious about preserving archival material, the game is over...I also don't see how you resist the temptation to select material that suggests the most flattering narratives. And not just select, but actively create!'


[...new forms of digital archives will have wide-ranging implications for the ways that society experiences and remembers itself [...]

Karen du Toit's insight:

Digital archiving and the "loss" of cultural artefacts! 

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Data Curation as Digital Preservation of Documents and Electronic Artifacts: Key Reference Resources

Data Curation as Digital Preservation of Documents and Electronic Artifacts: Key Reference Resources | The Information Professional | Scoop.it

Robin Good: Data (or Digital) Curation, is an academic/scientific discipline dedicated to preserve, organize and collect digital documents and other electronic artifacts for archival, re-use and repurposing objectives.

 

Check: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_curation and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_curation

 

The importance of Data Curation can be easily underestimated as it may appear, to the casual viewer, as an arid, tedious document archival job.

 

In reality, Digital Curation efforts are of great value to the preservation of important cultural documents and data for future researchers who will want to access, in some organized way, the data-information-artifacts of our time. In addition, the data curation practices and guidelines developed by academic and research institutions can also be of value and inspiration to other types of curation work, that may adopt, emulate or innovate upon them.

If you are interested in learning more about Data/Digital Curation and in identifying the key organizations in this space, here is a good shortlist for you, thanks to the kind work of Kevin "the Librarian" Read:

 

University of Arizona – Digital Information Management
University of Illinois – Data Curation Education Program
University of North Carolina – DigCCurr University of Virginia – Scientific Data Consulting

Digital Curation Centre Digital Curation Exchange International Journal of Digital Curation Purdue-UIUC Data Curation Profiles Project

 

 

Useful. 7/10

 

Source: http://kevinthelibrarian.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/an-introduction-to-the-data-curation-lifecycle-model-where-do-librarians-fit-in/

 

 

 


Via Robin Good
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SABC Media Libraries: Springbok Radio handover to SABC

SABC Media Libraries: Springbok Radio handover to SABC | The Information Professional | Scoop.it

Photo by Peter Jaquire.

 

The Springbok Radio Preservation Society handed back their collection of archive material of Springbok Radio which was on the airwaves from 1950 - 1985 in South Africa.

During those days there was no archive, and the material would have been lost, if it had not been for efforts by people to preserve and collect that material.

Frans Erasmus has been instrumental in the Springbok Radio Preservation Society, and streamed a weekly update of material on the Internet.

The material is back in the SABC Radio Archives at the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

 

Links:

Media release: http://sabcmedialib.blogspot.com/2012/05/hand-over-of-springbok-radio-archive.html

 

About Frans Erasmus: http://sabcmedialib.blogspot.com/2012/05/hand-over-of-springbok-radio-archive.html

 

 

Picasa Slideshow of the handover function: http://sabcmedialib.blogspot.com/2012/05/picasa-slideshow-of-springbok-radio.html

 

 

Springbok Radio website: http://www.sabc.co.za/springbokRadio/index.html

 

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Digital Media Collections: Archivists Need To “Take Control” Back From IT — Digital Asset Management News

RT @DAMNEWS: Digital Media Collections: Archivists Need To "Take Control" Back From IT - http://t.co/gnbqsSaJ...

"Joshua Ranger writing on the AudioVisual Preservation Solutions blog discusses how “Digital Media Collections Are an IT Problem But Not an IT Solution”.

The essence of Joshua’s post is that while archivists must collaborate with IT professionals to enable digital collections to be established, it is the archivists who should have primary control over core elements such as the development of metadata models and choice of formats based on the long-term preservation objectives of the organisation."

 

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