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By: Amanda Smith
Recently, on May 4, 2014, musician Happy Traum was inducted into the New York Blues Hall of Fame. Here at the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, we are quite familiar with Happy because of his work in establishing the audio music company, Homespun Tapes. As a local New Yorker and musician during …
Posted in: NLS Music Notes
By: Trevor Owens
Who would have thought when CompuServe introduced the Graphics Interchange Format in 1987 that the world was witnessing the birth of a new medium of expression? At Digital Preservation 2012 keynote speaker Anil Dash suggested that the humble animated GIF was likely “the most watched form of video?” Animated GIFs are increasingly being appreciated as …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Susan Manus
The following is a guest post by Lea Harrison, Lindsey Bright & Michelle Datiles, all graduate students in the digital curation class of Dr. Jane Zhang, Catholic University of America Inspired by the Library of Congress’ Personal Digital Archiving initiatives, our small team of three Catholic University of America grad students in the Library & …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Erin Allen
(The following is a story written by Cory V. Langley, a communications specialist in the Congressional Research Service, that is featured in the May – June 2014 issue of the Library of Congress Magazine, LCM, now available for download here. You can also view the archives of the Library’s former publication from 1993 to 2011. Amid fear and anxiety …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Susan Manus
Some good news coming out of the National Digital Stewardship Residency program – the host institutions and projects for the upcoming year have now been announced! The NDSR, an initiative to develop new professionals in digital stewardship through funded, post-graduate residencies, is wrapping up the first successful year of the program, held in 10 different …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Mike Ashenfelder
“Over here,” said Matt Kirschenbaum as he led past the researchers’ desks toward the far side of the room. He stopped and beamed as he pointed toward the corner and said, “Mysty.” “Mysty” – weighing about 200 pounds and shaped like a small refrigerator — is an IBM MT/ST, the first product ever marketed as …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Bryan Cornell
[loc-video-player id=’A2671ACD4CEE037CE0438C93F116037C’] In 1915 when Victor records included Henry Dacre’s “Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Built for Two)” in the above “Songs of the Past” medley (starting at 2:44), the song was likely viewed as something of a sentimental oldie. Two decades earlier, however, the bicycle craze was in full swing and the song was …
Posted in: Now See Hear!
By: Butch Lazorchak
This is a guest post by Abbie Grotke, Library of Congress Web Archiving Team Lead and Co-Chair of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance Content Working Group A researcher, a crawl engineer, a program manager and a curator walk into a national library… sounds like the start to a great joke, doesn’t it? But it actually …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Erin Allen
Civil Rights activist Roy Wilkins devoted his life to achieving equal rights under the law for the nation’s African Americans. The legacy of slavery, Roy Wilkins once wrote, divided African Americans into two camps: victims of bondage who suffered passively, hoping for a better day, and rebels who heaped coals of fire on everything that …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Susan Manus
The May 2014 issue of the Library of Congress Digital Preservation Newsletter (pdf) is now available! In this issue: Shaking the Email Format Family Tree Interview with Jonathan Sterne: The Meaning of the MP3 Format The Why and What of Web Archives Protect Your Data: Information Security A Defining Experience: The Residency Class of 2014 …
Posted in: The Signal