The Information Professional
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Librarians and Archivists in a fast-changing digital lanscape
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How to kill a library, By Kitty Pope

How to kill a library, By Kitty Pope | The Information Professional | Scoop.it

"[...]there are more than a few ways to kill a library.

For example:

√ Stop believing in the libraries mission. Do we really believe in the freedom to read, learn and discover?

√ Spend less time with the board. The ideal public library board would meet 4 times per year and agrees with everything the CEO recommended.

√ Stop talking to your customers. What do they know any way? And on the same topic, stop consulting staff. It is a huge time waster.

√ Don’t worry about the future and how you will get there. Sustainability is not an issue with which libraries need to be concerned. After all, we’ve have survived for hundreds of years.

√ Stop telling the library story. Everyone has heard our story.

√ Accept that the library building is old and you don’t need to keep renovating, painting, and updating it. It is what it is.

√ Accept that just like instant coffee killed the coffee bean, the e-book will kill the printed book.

√ Stop promoting the product; everyone knows about literacy and lifelong learning.

√ Stop empowering staff, and stop training them. They should come to us fully trained.

√ Stop all this talk about innovation. It just makes for more work.

√ And, for heaven’s sake, stop changing the rules and our traditions. It’s annoying!"

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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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Film vs. Digital: Archivists Speak Out - Smithsonian (blog), by @Film_Legacy

Film vs. Digital: Archivists Speak Out - Smithsonian (blog), by @Film_Legacy | The Information Professional | Scoop.it

Smithsonian (blog): Film vs. Digital: Archivists Speak Out

[...] 

"Skip Elsheimer, a media archeologist with A/V Geeks, believes that access to materials is key. “Access is the first step toward preservation,” he said. “When films are online, people can access them and identify areas for research. You can say, ‘You know what? That title’s important because it was made by a special company, or it’s the first time a musician scored something, or it’s an early appearance by an actor.’”

Digital answers some of these access issues, but also raises other questions. “Videotape is going away,” Elsheimer pointed out. “The crushing blow was the tsunamis in Japan last year that hit the Sony tape manufacturing plants. A lot of people changed over to file-based formats at that point.”

But what format do you use? “When YouTube came out, it was a pretty big deal,” Elsheimer said. “We’re still talking to archives who want a YouTube channel, so that’s what the bar is. And that bar’s not very high. But a lot of people just want to see something, even if they’re seeing it in the worst possible quality.”

Elsheimer believes how we watch movies determines the delivery format. “With High Definition, video has gotten bigger, but people are watching it smaller—on iPhones and iPads,” he said. “What’s changing now is the software for reading video files. Final Cut was a big thing for a while, but we’re shifting to another format. Are QuickTime files going to be valuable anymore? Probably not.”

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Association of Moving Image Archivists Conference

Association of Moving Image Archivists Conference | The Information Professional | Scoop.it

"The National Archives has made public their guidelines for reformatting materials and the context for the digitized items that they produce. I'll be looking at these documents with a goal of updating Dartmouth Library's ...

 

The Association of Moving Image Archivists is the professional organization for those who are involved with preserving and making accessible film and video. I attended the recent conference in Austin, TX and came away with a couple of good tools"

 

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Archive films used in pioneering approach to tackling dementia and memory loss | Harrogate-News

Archive films used in pioneering approach to tackling dementia and memory loss | Harrogate-News | The Information Professional | Scoop.it

"Films from the collections housed at the Yorkshire Film Archive are at the forefront of a pioneering project to connect the past to the present, and bring back memories to share and enjoy.

Working with experts from Age UK, the Alzheimer’s Society and Methodist Homes for the Aged (MHA), the Yorkshire Film Archive has created “Memory Bank”, an innovative series of carefully curated themed DVDs and online films, plus a wealth of information and activities for use in reminiscence therapy and life story work."

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Why I love being an archivist via The Reel Li

Why I love being an archivist via The Reel Li | The Information Professional | Scoop.it

"One of the things I love about being an archivist is that every day is a little different. The materials you’re working with depend entirely on what happens to end up on your desk..."

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