Most of the conversations I end up in about digital preservation are about the digital versions of analog things. Discussions of documents, still and moving images and audio recordings are important, but as difficult as the problems surrounding these kinds of digital objects are, there is a harder problem: preserving executable content, aka software. Software isn’t …
In honor of this week’s Museum Computer Network conference, I want to talk a bit about the early history of museum computing. Most people are not aware that MCN was born out of a cooperative computing project in the New York City area in 1967, under the direction of Dr. Jack Heller. Fifteen New York-area …
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 …
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 …
The following is a guest post by Nicholas Taylor, Information Technology Specialist for the Repository Development Group at the Library of Congress. Prompted by questions from Library of Congress staff on how to more effectively use web archives to answer research questions, I recently gave a presentation on “Using Wayback Machine for Research” (PDF). I …
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 …
As digital preservation and stewardship professionals, we approach digital objects from a unique perspective. We evaluate the long-term value of any particular digital object and work to develop a technical and social infrastructure that will enable us to successfully preserve the objects over time. Preserving and providing appropriate access are our primary functions, but no …
I had the distinct pleasure of hearing about the on-going development of the free and open-source Archivematica digital preservation system twice this year. First, from Peter Van Garderen at the CurateGear conference and second from Courtney Mumma at a recent briefing on the project for staff at The Library of Congress. Peter and Courtney both …
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 …
