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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 [...]
A MINUTE WITH LIBRARIAN KYLE RIMKUS ON DIGITAL ARCHIVING AND THE LAW: "Editor’s note: In what has been described as a major victory for the digital humanities, a federal court earlier this month ruled against the Authors Guild in favor of the HathiTrust, a massive digital archive of library materials converted from print that is co-owned and managed by a partnership of more than 60 academic institutions, including the University of Illinois. Kyle Rimkus, preservation librarian at the U. of I., talked with News Bureau news editor Dusty Rhodes about the impact of this ruling."
Via NELLCO
"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
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."
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."
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
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"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.” ®"
"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
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."
"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)
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