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Archive: 2012 (54 Posts)

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Why Does Digital Preservation Matter?

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

In conversations with professional colleagues, I find we rarely talk about “the why” of digital preservation. We take it as an article of faith that what we do is important, so much so that we worry that we should be doing more, saving more. Sadness arises when we hear about loss, such as when a …

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Digital Technology Expands the Scope and Reach of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

I am happy to have had the chance to interview Jan Ziolkowski, Director, and Yota Batsaki, Executive Director, of Dumbarton Oaks, about some recent developments involving use of technology to enhance the institution’s collections. Bill: The Dumbarton Oaks collections are as fascinating as they are diverse, relating as they do to Byzantine, Pre-Columbian and Garden …

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Preserving Digital Archaeological Data

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

This is a guest post by Leigh Anne Ellison, Sales and Marketing Coordinator, The Center for Digital Antiquity. I am excited for the opportunity to contribute a guest post here at The Signal. I work with The Center for Digital Antiquity, a collaborative non-profit organization devoted to enhancing preservation of and access to irreplaceable archaeological …

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SPRUCE-Up for Digital Preservation Community Engagement: An Interview with Paul Wheatley

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to talk (via email) with Paul Wheatley, of the SPRUCE Project,about an assortment of activities, issues and ideas relating to digital preservation. Leeds University Library is leading the Sustainable PReservation Using Community Engagement project, collaborating with the British Library, the Digital Preservation Coalition, the London School of Economics …

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Fixity and Fluidity in Digital Preservation

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

Kent Anderson offers a provocative post in The Mirage of Fixity — Selling an Idea Before Understanding the Concept.  Anderson takes Nicholas Carr to task for an article in the Wall Street Journal bemoaning the death of textual fixity.  Here’s a quote from Carr: Once digitized, a page of words loses its fixity. It can change …

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Bits Breaking Bad: The Atlas of Digital Damages

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

A question popped up in the blogosphere recently.  “Where is our Atlas of Digital Damages?” asked Barbara Sierman of the National Library of the Netherlands. She pointed out the amazement that would greet evidence of physical books, safely stored, with spontaneous and glaring changes in their content or appearance.  “Panic would be huge if this …

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Get Your Bits Off (Old Storage Media)

Posted by: Bill LeFurgy

The following is a guest post by Jefferson Bailey, Strategic Initiatives Manager at Metropolitan New York Library Council, National Digital Stewardship Alliance Innovation Working Group co-chair and a former Fellow in the Library of Congress’s Office of Strategic Initiatives. As a recent blog post recounted, each year at the National Book Festival NDIIPP has a …