I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the 2013 CurateGear meeting held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on January 9, 2013. And what a good experience it was. CurateGear is a somewhat unique experience because it focuses not on presentations, but on demonstrations. LIVE demonstrations. Every presenter gives a …
For a while now, Stanford University’s special collections have had the distinct honor of holding “one of the largest historical collections of interactive software in the world.” The Stephen M. Cabrinety Collection in the History of Microcomputing at Stanford University consists of several thousands of pieces of computer hardware and software. At a recent advisory …
This is a guest post by Chris Adams, in the Repository Development Center, technical lead for the World Digital Library at the the Library of Congress. Like many people who work with digital imagery, I’ve been looking forward to the JPEG-2000 image format for a long time due to solid technical advantages: superior compression performance …
I am excited to continue the NDSA infrastructure working group’s ongoing exploration of the role that open source software can and is playing in supporting long term access to digital cultural heritage with this interview with Peter Murray about FOSS4lib, “the site that helps libraries decide if and which open source software is right for …
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 …
Amber Case coined the term persistent paleontologyin reference to electronic systems that continuously layer on new information. “The e-mail inbox is a rapidly expanding site of excavation which one must continually query,” she writes. “The newness of everything buries one’s ability to reach it without digging.” I like this association because it lets us look …
You’re a graduate student in a geography education program learning about the concepts underlying a geographic information system, including creating, analyzing and editing geospatial data sets. Part of your coursework also includes learning about the preservation of GIS data. As an academic librarian, your position oversees the gathering and management of geospatial data as well …
I’m excited to be able to chat with Arfon Smith, Director of Citizen Science at The Adler Planetarium & technical lead on the Zooniverse projects. Adler Planetarium is the newest member of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (and the first Planetarium to join!). Adler is somewhat unique in that it both collects, preserves and exhibits …
In 1982 Interstate I-66 opened, providing a direct high-speed connection (except at rush hour) between downtown Washington D.C. and its western suburbs in Virginia. I was barely out of high school at the time so its opening didn’t really register with me, but now I live mere blocks away from the highway so it’s an …