Most of the conversations I end up in about digital preservation are about the digital versions of analog things. Discussions of documents, still and moving images and audio recordings are important, but as difficult as the problems surrounding these kinds of digital objects are, there is a harder problem: preserving executable content, aka software. Software isn’t …
Wouldn’t it be great to have a single technical solution that solves all your long-term digital archiving, stewardship and preservation needs? Perhaps a file format with millions of users, widespread adoption across different computing platforms, free viewers and open documentation? A lot of hopes and dreams have been poured into the idea of “one preservation …
The November 2012 Library of Congress Digital Preservation Newsletter is now available. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/news/newsletter/201211.pdf In this issue: Activist Archivists preserving content from the Occupy Wall Street movement Mapping the Federal geospatial stewardship efforts Interviews with: Lori Emerson, Director of the Media Archaeology Lab; Peter Van Garderen and Courtney Muma, Archivematica; and Christie Moffatt and Jennifer Marill, …
I like lists. I particularly like ordered lists. I’ve even read a book about checklists. Which is one of the reasons I wanted to point out a recent OCLC report, You’ve Got to Walk Before You Can Run: First Steps for Managing Born-Digital Content Received on Physical Media(PDF). The report focuses on practical approaches institutions …
The following is a guest post by Nicholas Taylor, Information Technology Specialist for the Repository Development Group at the Library of Congress. Prompted by questions from Library of Congress staff on how to more effectively use web archives to answer research questions, I recently gave a presentation on “Using Wayback Machine for Research” (PDF). I …
Today’s guest post is by Carlos Martinez III, a Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities intern in the Library of Congress’s Office of Strategic Initiatives. The National Information Standards Organization provides standards to help libraries, developers and publishers work together. Their report, A Framework Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections, is still as helpful to organizations today …
I’m obsessed with maps, especially digital maps. I’m continually amazed by the tools being developed to use location data to make our lives easier. Luckily, this interest dovetails with NDIIPP’s concerns about ensuring that digital mapping survives for the long-term, so I’m regularly scanning the landscape to figure out ways we can engage the wider …
The October 2012 Library of Congress Digital Preservation Newsletter is now available. http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/news/newsletter/201210.pdf In this issue: *Find out how you can help define levels of digital preservation *Reflections on CurateCamp processing *Read about three individuals who are working on the preservation of video games *Learn about the difference between domains and subdomains in web archiving …
The five recipients of the inaugural National Digital Stewardship Alliance innovation awards are exemplars of the creativity, diversity and collaboration essential to supporting the digital community as it works to preserve and make available digital materials. In an effort to learn more and share the work of the individuals, projects and institutions who won these …
“We leave Gulfport at noon; gulls overhead trailing the boat—streamers, noisy fanfare— all the way to Ship Island. What we see first is the fort, its roof of grass a lee— half reminder of the men who served there— a weathered monument to some of the dead.” -excerpt from Natasha Trethewey’s “Elegy for the Native …