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Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder
The human rights organization, witness.org, — who gave a presentation at Digital Preservation 2013 — just published The Activists’ Guide to Archiving Video. Though this guide is intended for human rights activists, it covers all aspects of digital video archiving so thoroughly that it is of value to anyone and everyone, from individuals archiving their …
Posted in: Publications and Resources, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder
Preserving digital stuff for the future is a heavy responsibility. With digital photos, for instance, would it be possible someday to generate perfectly sharp high-density, high-resolution photos from blurry or low-resolution digital originals? Probably not but who knows? The technological future is unpredictable. The possibility invites the question: shouldn’t we save our digital photos at …
Posted in: Digital Content, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder
In separate “big data” presentations at the Digital Preservation 2012 meeting, Myron Guttmann of the National Science Foundation and Leslie Johnston of the Library of Congress described scenarios that seemed futuristic and fantastic but were in fact present-day realities. Both presenters spoke about researchers using powerful new processing tools to distill information from massive pools …
Posted in: Digital Content, Outreach and Events, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder
Last October I wrote about the importance – and the difficulty – of embedding descriptions into digital photos. As a test, I ended the article by asking readers to download a photo into which I embedded a quote from Benjamin Franklin. I also asked readers to let me know if they could see the quote …
Posted in: Digital Content, Personal Archiving, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder
(NOTE: This is a reprinted and updated article from our digitalpreservation.gov website.) The motion picture industry is rapidly changing from film to digital media and within the next decade most movies will be shot, edited, distributed and projected digitally. Yet even as the industry embraces new technology, they may not be doing enough to archive …
Posted in: Digital Content, Partners and Collaboration, Publications and Resources, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder
While clearing out some personal clutter recently, I came across an old CD-ROM, published in 1989, that I always assumed was of great cultural value. Of course, when I tried to play it I got nothing but error messages and I set about finding a way to make it work. The CD-ROM is the Electronic …
Posted in: Digital Content, Publications and Resources, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder
“I just want to use it; I don’t want to know how it works.” – Unknown My Signal colleagues and I give out digital-preservation advice based on our research, our experiences and our understanding of best practices. We also try to pay attention to questions from the general public, with whom we interact at events …
Posted in: Personal Archiving, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder
Helen Tibbo is a descendant of Mayflower settlers Miles Standish and John Alden but she doesn’t flaunt her pedigree or socialize exclusively with snooty blue bloods. It’s difficult to say exactly how her Massachusetts cultural roots have defined her but she does embody bedrock New England characteristics such as self-reliance and practicality. And these traits …
Posted in: Education and Training, Outreach and Events, Partners and Collaboration, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder
The popularity of genealogy websites and TV shows is rapidly growing, mainly because the Internet has made it so convenient to access family history information. Almost everything can be done through the computer now. Before the digital age, genealogical research was not only laborious and time consuming, it also resulted in boxes of documents: photos, …
Posted in: Digital Content, Partners and Collaboration, Personal Archiving, Tools and Infrastructure