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Archive: 2011 (56 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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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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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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Digital Preservation and the 1963 Kennedy Assassination Study

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

Events associated with the Kennedy assassination offer a compelling case study regarding obsolete data formats and digital preservation. Shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy on this day 48 years ago, an organization turned to the latest computer technology in an effort to study the tragedy.  From November 26 through December 3, 1963, the National …

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Unbreaking News You Can Use: The National Digital Newspaper Program

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

The following is a guest post by David Brunton, a Supervisory Information Technology Specialist in the Library of Congress Office of Strategic Initiatives. I have heard the National Digital Newspaper Program jokingly described as “putting breaking new online, within 200 years.”  In some ways, it’s a fitting tag line: the most current newspaper pages released …

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Have Obsolete Digital Media, Will Travel

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

The following is a guest post by Keri A. Myers, a volunteer archivist with NDIIPP. I never planned to have obsolete digital storage media as a traveling companion.  It just kind of happened.  And I’m an archivist with lots of experience working with digital materials! This summer I relocated to the Washington DC area after …

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Hashing Out Digital Trust

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

The following is a guest post by Kate Zwaard, a Supervisory Information Technology Specialist in the Library of Congress Office of Strategic Initiatives. The Library of Congress and its partners continue to work on ways to help users communicate and evaluate trustworthiness of the electronic material they are accessing. The risk is higher for some …