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By: Trevor Owens
The following is a guest post from Andrea Goethals, digital preservation and repository services manager at the Harvard University library. This post is similar to a presentation I gave as part of a panel called “Assessing and Mitigating Bit-Level Preservation Risks” at DigitalPreservation 2012. It grew out of conversations and work within the NDSA Infrastructure …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Erin Engle
“Do you remember how we did things back when your great great grandma or grandpa [were alive]? We had moved Native Americans from their homelands, so we could have more and more land for ourselves.” The above reference describes the Whitefish Middle School’s Montana Indian Tribes, Modern Life, 2010-2011 Web Archiving Collection. This unique collection, …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Bill LeFurgy
The following is a guest post by Emily Reynolds, a 2012 Junior Fellow. One of the many highlights of the DigitalPreservation 2012 conference last month was the Preserving Digital Culture panel, which featured speakers discussing the preservation of born-digital art and other creative output. While much of the conference addressed the often automated management of …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Trevor Owens
The following is a guest post from Meg Phillips, Electronic Records Lifecycle Coordinator for the National Archives and Records Administration. “What’s the bare minimum I can responsibly do with my electronic stuff?” was one of the central questions on the table at CurateCamp Processing. The unconference, focused on Processing Data / Processing Collections, was a …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Erin Allen
The collections of the Library of Congress are vast and varied. And, what better way to get to know them but through our many wonderful curators. In this inaugural edition of “Curator’s Picks,” jazz curator Larry Appelbaum discusses a few prized items housed in the Music Division. A hand-written letter from Leonard Bernstein to …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Mike Ashenfelder
“Technology has had most of the attention in digital preservation but it is the least of our concerns,” said Anne R. Kenney. That’s a bold declaration. But Kenney has earned the right to make it, based on her 25 years at Cornell University Library, conducting ground-breaking digital research, creating award-winning training resources and fostering national …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Robert Casper
Today the capital is quiet―Congress is on recess, and many DC residents are on vacation somewhere else. Even the throngs of summer tourists have subsided a bit as the season is winding down. As we at the Poetry and Literature Center prepare for our new Poet Laureate’s opening reading and the season that lies ahead―and …
Posted in: From the Catbird Seat
By: Susan Manus
The following is a guest post by Abbie Grotke, Web Archiving Team Lead. Is a U.S. Government website or part of a site you use or know about at risk of disappearing? Is there a website related to the 2012 U.S. Elections that you think should be preserved? Always dreamed of contributing to a collaborative …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Erin Engle
“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 …
Posted in: The Signal
By: Butch Lazorchak
The South By Southwest conference is has become pretty big on the tech circuit and has garnered a reputation as a place where new technologies are launched. There’s an egalitarian spirit to the event (read; sprawling) that encourages anyone to attend and participate. The “anyone” increasingly includes information professionals in libraries, archives and museums (LAMs). …
Posted in: The Signal