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By: Jaime Mears
This is a guest post by Andrea Goethals, Manager of Digital Preservation and Repository Services at Harvard Library. Harvard Library’s digital preservation program has evolved a great deal since the first incarnation of its digital preservation repository (“the DRS”) was put into production in October 2000. Over the years, we have produced 3GB worth of …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Kate Zwaard
This is a guest post by Mary Kendig, a student of the Master of Information Science program and the research coordinator for the DCIC Center at the University of Maryland. The Problem With the explosive emergence of computers and information technology since the 1960’s, electronic records have overwhelmed librarians and archivists. Federal agencies have responded …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Jaime Mears
This is a guest post by Kate Murray, IT Specialist in the Library of Congress’s Digital Collections and Management Services. The Library of Congress’ Sustainability of Digital Formats Web site (informally just known as “Formats”) details and analyzes the technical aspects of digital formats with a focus towards strategic planning regarding formats for digital content, …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Kristi Finefield
One month ago, a blog post in Picture This featured photos of New York’s Hell Gate Bridge, marking the centennial of its dedication. Today, I turn my attention to prints and drawings of the Hell Gate in our holdings. These drawings and etchings enable us to look at the bridge through an artist’s eyes. American …
Posted in: Picture This
By: Nicole Saylor
Kelly Revak is a new processing archivist at the American Folklife Center. She has a master’s degree in folklore and a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. Cumulatively, she has 20 years of experience in archives, including 7 years in various capacities at the Berkeley Folklore Archive. Since starting her job …
Posted in: Folklife Today
By: Kate Zwaard
In February, we hosted 40 librarians, archivists and data wranglers at the Library of Congress to learn advanced skills in managing digital collections. National Digital Initiatives (NDI/NP/NIO) hosted a Software Carpentry workshop, inviting staff from the Library, the DC Public Library and federal libraries for hands-on learning in the programming language Python, the version-control software …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Mike Ashenfelder
This is a guest post from Alice Prael, Digital Accessioning Archivist for Yale Special Collections at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. As digital storage technology progresses, many archivists are left with boxes of obsolete storage media, such as floppy disks and ZIP disks. These physical storage media plague archives that …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Cary O’Dell
The following is a guest post by Jenny Paxson of the Packard Campus. Thursday, March 30 (7:30 p.m.) Pay it Forward (Warner Bros., 2000) Emmy Award-winning director and producer (for E.R.) Mimi Leder helmed this drama based on the novel of the same name by Catherine Ryan Hyde. When given a class assignment to “make the …
Posted in: Now See Hear!
By: Kate Zwaard
This is a guest post by Joe Puccio, the Collection Development Officer at the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress has steadily increased its digital collecting capacity and capability over the past two decades. This has come as the product of numerous independent efforts pointed to the same goal – acquire as much selected …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Abbey Potter
Mass digitization — coupled with new media, technology and distribution networks — has transformed what’s possible for libraries and their users. The Library of Congress makes millions of items freely available on loc.gov and other public sites like HathiTrust and DPLA. Incredible resources — like digitized historic newspapers from across the United States, the personal papers …
Posted in: The Signal