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Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
We digital archivists warn about the risk of losing data with the assumption that the threat of loss is enough to stir people to action. But while most everyone has their own experience with data loss, people have a way of tucking past pain away rather than remaining hyper-vigilant about something similar happening again. Or …
Posted in: Digital Content, Outreach and Events, Personal Archiving
Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
Digitization–making a digital copy of a non-digital object–is a bedeviling topic for digital preservationists. Establishing a clear line of demarcation between the process of creating the digital copy and the process of keeping the copy over time is the central issue. I’ve always thought this was semantics. Well-meaning, but ill-informed, people said “digital preservation” when …
Posted in: Digital Content, Outreach and Events
Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
Getting emotional about historical collections is unusual for most people. Ask the average person to free associate words for “archives” and your will hear “dusty, “old,” “dark” and so on. Ask about digital archives and you will likely just get a blank stare. This is an occupational hazard of digital archivists, that awkward first attempt to …
Posted in: Digital Content, Outreach and Events, Personal Archiving
Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
You should have an archive for your personal digital materials. We all should. Archives preserve memories of “me” as well as “us.” Our personal archives also offer exciting new ways to remember and reconstruct our lives. Attendees of the Personal Digital Archiving 2013 conference considered these ideas over two days of presentations and discussion last …
Posted in: Digital Content, Outreach and Events, Personal Archiving
Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
I had the opportunity today to talk at the Big Data and Big Challenges for Law and Legal Information symposium at the Georgetown University Law Center. The event marked the 125th anniversary of the University Law Library. My panel was on Big Data Applications in Scholarship and Policy, and I was pleased to present with …
Posted in: Digital Content, Outreach and Events
Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
With 2012 safely behind us, let us praise some of the best things that happened last year in digital preservation. This is something of a tradition for us, as we have previously run down a list for 2011 and 2010. I cast a wide net and mustered my objectivity in in picking activities with the …
Posted in: Digital Content, Education and Training, Inside the Library, Outreach and Events, Partners and Collaboration, Personal Archiving, Publications and Resources, Tools and Infrastructure
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 …
Posted in: Outreach and Events
Posted by: Bill LeFurgy
This post is adapted from remarks I gave to the judging panel for the 2012 Digital Preservation Award on behalf of The Signal. We were honored to be among the finalists for the award, which was subsequently won by The Digital Preservation Training Programme, University of London Computing Centre (to whom we offer hearty congratulations!). …
Posted in: Outreach and Events
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 …
Posted in: Outreach and Events, Tools and Infrastructure