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Archive: December 2011 (19 Posts)

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Supporting Open Source Tools for Digital Preservation and Access

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

Skimpy.  Sparse.  Sporadic. I used these words a few years ago to generalize the state of tools, services and other technology for digital stewardship.  Until recently, an institution that wanted to actively manage its digital content over the long term had one basic option: build an infrastructure from scratch. Much has changed over the last …

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“It’s Dead, Jim”: Resurrecting an Obsolete File, Part 2

Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder

In part 1 of this story, I described the difficulty of accessing a commercial CD-ROM published in 1989. Eventually, out of frustration, I questioned its value and wondered who actually cared about outdated software. So I consulted some colleagues. It turns out that some gamers care, especially those who are fanatical about the original look …

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Omeka’s Recipes for an Open Source Community

Posted by: Susan Manus

The Omeka project team is coming up with some good solutions for building an open source community.  Omeka, an open source web publishing platform for cultural heritage collections, was developed by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.  (An overview of Omeka is given in a previous blog post …

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Providing Access to 70 Million Copyright Records

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

This is a guest post from Mike Burke from the U.S. Copyright Office at the Library of Congress. The U.S. Copyright Office has a comprehensive set of records about books, periodicals, music, motion pictures and other works that were registered with the Office between 1870 and 1977.  The records include transfers and assignments of rights …

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NDIIPP and the Online Video Revolution

Posted by: Butch Lazorchak

It barely needs to be said that video is a great way to get ideas across in a succinct and entertaining manner. But with the increased acceleration of broadband internet adoption, videos are increasingly becoming a primary information source (and search engines are recognizing this). The digital preservation community is only beginning to get into …

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Crowdsourcing the Civil War: Insights Interview with Nicole Saylor

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

The following is a guest post from Trevor Owens, Digital Archivist with the Office of Strategic Initiatives. I’m excited to offer this fourth interview for Insights, an occasional feature sharing interviews and conversations between National Digital Stewardship Alliance Innovation Working Group members and individuals involved with projects related to preservation, access and stewardship of digital …

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The Artifactual Elements of Born-Digital Records, Part 2

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

The following is a guest post by Jefferson Bailey, Fellow at the Library of Congress’s Office of Strategic Initiatives. A previous post suggested how the digital environment within computer programs and systems creates an artifactual element to born-digital records. An analog equivalent to this idea can be found in the popular Thomas Jefferson’s Library exhibit …

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Content Creator Data Tool Released by NDIIPP Partner

Posted by: Susan Manus

The following is a guest post by Carl Fleischhauer, a Digital Initiatives Project Manager in NDIIPP. In mid-October, BMS/Chace of Nashville, Tennessee, released the “first generation version” of a software tool to support the collection of metadata for the multi-track, multi-session sound recordings being produced in the music industry today.  The Metadata for Recorded Sound …