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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 [...]
"I'm Krystal Thomas, digital archivist with Special Collections at Florida State University. I am new in my position, just starting this past summer. I am not new to the world of digital collections, but as I have learned quickly..."
"Your decisions might not be as obvious as you think
This advice goes back to the “document everything” mantra but deserves its own line: no one is a mind reader, and no one coming after you will be faced with the same set of challenges, resources, and expectations again. There were probably very good, logical reasons why you made the decisions you did when it comes to a digital collection you are working on, but if you don’t record those somewhere, no one–not your supervisor, intern, or even you ten years down the road–will know that and be able to explain that to others moving forward."
RT @dhgermany: British Library tracks rise and fall of file formats http://t.co/mKz4Qhyk via @regvulture... By Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor
"File formats and the software capable of reading them are living longer than previously thought, according to a British Library and UK Web Archive study.
Formats over Time: Exploring UK Web History (PDF, slides as PDF) considers 2.5 billion files author Andrew N Jackson retrieved with the help of the Internet Archive and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). All the files come from “the UK web domain” and come from the period between 1996 and 2010." "Our initial analysis supports Rosenthal's position; that most formats last much longer than five years, that network effects to appear to stabilise formats, and that new formats appear at a modest, manageable rate. But he also warns that “a number of formats and versions that are fading from use, and these should be studied closely in order to understand the process of obsolescence.” ®"
Esther Yi: "For all their differences, Google and the DPLA do share a major hurdle: Copyright law, which prevents the digitization of orphan works, numbering around 5 million and constituting about 50 to 70 percent of books published after 1923. Orphans are works whose rights holders are not known; they may be dead or unaware of their entitlement. Google's settlement would have given the company license to appropriate orphan works for posterity—a move that would have opened up a trove of previously unavailable works, at the expense of granting Google unprecedented control through litigation. The DPLA faces a similar problem: As some members pointed out in a gathering last year, out-of-print and orphan works—content in the "yellow zone" of copyright—outnumber both public domain and in-copyright works, "making legal reforms necessary for the success of a DPLA," according to meeting notes. Jason Schultz, an assistant professor at UC Berkeley School of Law and a DPLA member focusing on legal issues, says that the coalition wants to strike the right balance between the rights of copyright owners to be properly compensated and the rights of public access. The DPLA will not violate copyright, and it will begin with a foundation of public-domain works. The organization is trying to figure out the best case for fair use of out-of-print or unpublished works to argue that public access to this literature benefits society and serves a "higher" purpose.
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."
by Deane Zeeman, Rebecca Jones, and Jane Dysart: "This study identifies innovative service trends in library and information services in the government and corporate arenas." "e Context
This study reports on the results of interviews conducted in December 2009 and January 2010 to identify innovative service trends in library and information services in the government and corporate arenas. The study was undertaken as part of a Library and Archives Canada (LAC) research project to inform the Government of Canada Assistant Deputy Ministers Task Force (ADM Task Force) on the Future of Federal Library Service in gaining a better understanding of future-oriented service delivery models adopted by corporate and government libraries." "The interview structure matched the “building blocks” for service models defined by the ADM Task Force—E-Library, E-Services, Digitization, Physical Space, Technology, and Procurement—and probed the specific services that the interviewees offer in each .” This structure was also used to frame the findings." From journal "Computers in Libraries"
RT @librarythingtim: How to Prepare for the End of Optical Media http://t.co/vYQAKBQs ; Although written from a personal digitization viewpoint, it is also valid information for librarians and archivists. - Audio discs - DVDs - Software - Backups (including cloud)
By Damon Poeter: "CBS NewsEinstein's Complete Archives to Go Online for the First Time" - PC Magazine "Over the next several years, Albert Einstein's complete archives will be made available online by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, curator of the Noble Prize-winning physicist's volumes of private and professional correspondence, research notes, travel diaries, scientific writings, and more.
Einstein's archives include some 80,000 items that have only recently been "cataloged and enhanced with cross referencing technology," according to the Associated Press." "Knowledge is not about hiding. It's about openness," Hebrew University president Menachem Ben Sasson told the news agency. Former university president Hanoch Gutfreund added: "More than anyone else, [Einstein] expressed his views on every agenda of mankind. Now we have a complete and full picture of that person."
With the help of a grant from the Polonsky Foundation UK, the organization that also assisted in the digitization of Isaac Newton's papers, curators have been "pulling never-before seen items" from a climate-controlled safe and readying them for distribution online as high-resolution images.
The university's new Einstein Archives Online portal, which debuted earlier this week, currently offers visitors about 2,000 documents representing Einstein's life through the year 1921. Subsequent additions to the site will fill out the papers bequeathed by the German Jewish physicist, born in 1879, to Hebrew University upon his death in 1955."
Sanjay Talwani: "HELENA -- Not that long ago, the Montana State Library, in charge of making state documents available to the public, circulated just a few hundred publications outside its walls each year.
Now, in just the past three months, the library has circulated some 18,000 digital documents, and what's available is vast: state agency reports going back years, and data-rich natural resource and geographic information resources covering everything form moisture levels to property ownership to oil and gas leases.
Jennie Stapp, the state library director since Jan. 1, is driving that digital train. Just nine years out of graduate school, she figures she's the youngest state librarian in the nation. She was, most recently, the digital library director and library's chief information officer. She succeeded Darlene Staffeldt, who had worked at the library for 35 years." Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/new-state-librarian-leads-digitization-effort-to-expand-reach-of/article_5224e554-4cf5-5f25-a77c-db7d86b20eff.html#ixzz1lsvOeViB
The library is taking a giant leap to the web. By using NASA technology, it's planning on scanning 80000 of its manuscripts. The technology used is called FITS, which stands for Flexible Image Transport System.
RT @GSLISDom How to digitize a book http://t.co/eD3GRnuJ #libraries #archives... "The following is a guest post by Carl Fleischhauer, a Digital Initiatives Project Manager in NDIIPP. How do you reproduce a book in digital form? This may seem like a simple question until you pick up a book and page through it. You may be struck by “how” in the methodological sense, knowing you need to scan the, say, two hundred pages and, often, not wishing to cut the book into pieces to do so. This need has led to the development of a number of marvelous mechanical devices including the book scanner known as SCRIBE from the Internet Archive, and a scanner that turns the pages as it makes the pictures."
Best Practices for TEI in Libraries: A Guide for Mass Digitization, Automated Workflows, and… The TEI Special Interest Group on Libraries has released version three of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries: A Guide for Mass Digitization, Automated Workflows, and Promotion of Interoperability with XML Using the TEI. Here's an excerpt from: There are many different library text digitization projects, serving a variety of purposes. With this in mind, these Best Practices are meant to be as inclusive as possible by specifying five encoding levels. These levels are meant to allow for a range of practice, from wholly automated text creation and encoding, to encoding that requires expert content knowledge, analysis, and editing. The encoding levels are not strictly cumulative: while higher levels tend to build upon lower levels by including more elements, higher levels are not supersets because some elements used at lower levels are not used at higher levels—often because more specific elements replace generic elements. | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship | http://digital-scholarship.org/digitalkoans/2011/10/16/best-practices-for-tei-in-libraries-a-guide-for-mass-digitization-automated-workflows-and-promotion-of-interoperability-with-xml-using-the-tei/
How has the digital revolution affected libraries? University Librarian and Director of Academic Information Resources at Stanford University, Michael Keller, (Reading: "Curiosity: How has the digital revolution affected libraries?
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"A federal judge on Wednesday threw out a copyright infringement lawsuit against universities that participated in a massive book-digitization project in conjunction with Google without permission from rights holders. U.S. District Judge Harold Baer of New York dismissed an infringement lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild and other writers’ guilds, saying the universities had a fair use defense. The guild accused the University of California, University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, Cornell University and University of Michigan of wanton copyright infringement for scanning and placing the books into the so-called HathiTrust Digital Library. The trust consists of 10 million digital volumes, 73 percent of which are protected by copyright. The trust provides full-text searches only with a rights holder’s permission, and gives full-text access for readers with “certified print disabilities,” Baer said."
IFLA Conference Paper: Gillian M McCombs: "The digital age may well be considered a golden age for Special Collections. Treasures that have long been locked in vaults and available only to researchers onsite are now accessible at the click of a mouse from anywhere in the world. However, for every stunning rare book, photograph or art work that is available electronically, thousands more are still inaccessible. Some libraries have been slow to realize the potential for digital access and have not built the infrastructure needed to put these collections out into the public eye. This paper addresses questions such as: are we hiring the right people for Special Collections; are we retooling current curators so that they are technically adept; are we providing our Special Collections Libraries with necessary resources such as marketing and graphics design staff to develop websites for digital exhibits; have they developed a strategic plan that outlines their long-term goals for incorporating technology; what are the consortial opportunities that will help our Special Collections Libraries; are we working closely enough with library schools and rare book programs to ensure that graduates have the skills, aptitude and attitude that we need?" source: INFODocket http://conference.ifla.org/sites/default/files/files/papers/wlic2012/87-mccombs-en.pdf
"The Age: Digital age takes libraries off the shelf" writes Catherine Armitage: Ryan Stokes ... "new technology can enable more people to enjoy collections." "In his own words, Stokes brings a "great interest" and ''passion'' for the "treasures that are in the library, the uniqueness of that material and its meaning to Australia"." He is also an admirer of the world-leading work the library has done in digitising the physical collections and archiving material that originates in digital form, such as websites." "The ability to interact with libraries via the internet means log-ins will be no less important than in-person visits as a measure of the reach of libraries, especially when the national broadband network is in operation.
"We are only at the beginning of conceiving how we can use that capacity," Schwirtlich says. The amount of data the library can supply and the way people interact with it will be transformed. Curatorial experts physically visible to community groups or classes on the other side of the country will be able to conduct virtual tours of collections.
Stokes says "continuing to enrich the experiences available for free" remains a core objective for the NLA under his stewardship.
Schwirtlich reminds that, powerful as it is, Google does not pay for and provide access to the mass of information resources in libraries, which have always played a vital social role in giving people access to information regardless of their wealth."
The ''purposeful, long-term, methodical, expert work of collecting, cataloguing and archiving'' remains vital to the nation, she says. "The future is tethered, shaped, informed and nourished by the past." Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/digital-age-takes-libraries-off-the-shelf-20120629-217fj.html#ixzz1zS744at1
by Chris Foreman: Ars Technica"One of the biggest challenges in the field of digital librarianship is simply trying to evolve as fast as technology," Pike said, "because we need to also keep up..." Robin Pike (certified archivist currently serving as a Digital Collections Librarian at the University of Maryland): "We are the custodians of what has been created and are enabling access—ideally free and unlimited—for the future," Pike said. "No matter what is created and where it is created, if it is important, some librarian, archivist, or records manager is capturing it and saving it for the future. In addition to saving the digital objects, we need to make them accessible so people can use and reuse the materials." "We are the custodians of human history."
Via Pippa Davies @PippaDavies
Oxford's Bodleian Libraries and the Vatican's Biblioteca Apostolica plan to digitise 1.5 million ancient texts to make them available online. "The Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Lord Patten of Barnes, said: 'We are very grateful to Dr Polonsky for his insight into the importance of widening access to the fundamental texts which have had a major impact on the development of civilisation. "By making these collections available online we give the wider public access to a small, but significant part of the world's heritage.'"
"As libraries around the world transition from hardbound books to digital files, at California State University, Northridge, a massive infrastructure keeps things running. Mike O'Sullivan reports."
"We are pleased to announce the release of a new Exposure draft: Managing digitisation programs and projects http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/recordkeeping/government-recordkeeping-manual/guidance/guidelines/managing-digitisation-programs-and-projects/new-draft-guidance-on-digitisation" "The digitisation guidance is divided into two guidelines: 1. business process digitisation programs, i.e. ongoing routine digitisation for daily business use, and 2. back-capture digitisation projects, i.e. retrospective or project-based digitisation of existing paper records. Each guideline can be read as a whole, or you can go to individual sections to learn more about particular topics, e.g. metadata requirements, technical specifications etc. The Planning for digitisation section of each guideline provides a summary of the issues you need to consider. In addition, the guidance includes Frequently asked questions, a Glossary, a Bibliography and Digitisation case studies." (Image: a digital image of an archival record)
Pictures Online is a large-scale digitisation project being run by the National Library of New Zealand.
"It seems to me that digital information packages and quantum archives have a lot in common. Looking back over the blog posts over the last couple of years, and thinking about how all this might fit together, I’ve formulated a new list of slogans for the quantum universe, or what have taken to calling the second generation digital repository. I haven’t attributed the origins of all of these ideas below, but regular readers of the Quantum Archivist should be able to pick out where they come from. We begin with the list and follow with a bit of exposition and expansion of the items in the list. Right now there are five principles on the list, maybe the list will grow, maybe it will shrink. We’ll see… Five Principles of the Second Generation All digital content is data All data that has value should be managed The package is the smallest unit of management All pointers refer to the “original” resource Digital curation preserves access not objects"
Via Ana Cristina Pratas
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Teacher librarians are essential catalysts towards access to knowledge; not only information!