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Posted by: Leslie Johnston
When I meet new people and tell them that I work at the Library of Congress, the first question is usually “What do you do there?” When I explain that part of my job is to oversee a group that develops software, the reaction is often one of surprise: “What? Libraries develop software?” Yes. Yes …
Posted in: Digital Content, Inside the Library, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Butch Lazorchak
The following is a guest post by Jimi Jones, Audiovisual Specialist, and Carla Miller, Administrative Specialist, at the Library of Congress. The NDSA Standards and Best Practices Working Group is working on a digital preservation standards survey that has the following objectives: • Identify and describe existing digital preservation standards and best practices • Identify …
Posted in: Outreach and Events, Partners and Collaboration, Publications and Resources, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder
When Rebecca Guenther retires from the Library of Congress in August 2011, 35 years of institutional knowledge about bibliographic information will go with her. The Library of Congress loses – among other things – the world’s leading authority on PREMIS metadata for digital preservation. Guenther has nurtured conversations among international library stakeholders, conversations that led …
Posted in: Digital Content, Inside the Library, Partners and Collaboration, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Butch Lazorchak
The following is a guest post by Laura Graham, a Digital Media Project Coordinator at the Library. In late 2008, the Library of Congress, the California Digital Library, the University of North Texas, the Internet Archive and the Government Printing Office began the first collaborative project to capture and archive United States government web sites …
Posted in: Digital Content, Partners and Collaboration, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder
The computers that store and serve our digital collections are multiplying rapidly to keep up with our escalating data demands. All the while the servers guzzle power, radiate heat, crowd bandwidth and exert an unprecedented burden on the power grid. During these tough economic times, as institutions scrutinize their operations for budget-trimming opportunities, they must …
Posted in: Digital Content, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder
The following is a guest post by Trevor Owens, Digital Archivist with the Office of Strategic Initiatives. For my first post, I wanted to introduce readers to Recollection, a free and open tool NDIIPP is working on. Recollection is a free, open source platform that lets archivists, librarians, scholars and curators create easy to navigate …
Posted in: Digital Content, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Butch Lazorchak
This is a map. Of course, it’s not just any map. It’s the Universalis Cosmographia Secundum Ptholomaei Traditionem et Americi Vespucii Alioru[m]que Lustrationes from 1507, otherwise known as the Waldseemüller map after its creator, Martin Waldseemüller. It was the first map, printed or manuscript, to depict clearly a separate Western Hemisphere, with the Pacific as …
Posted in: Digital Content, Inside the Library, Partners and Collaboration, Publications and Resources, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder
The following is a guest post by Abbie Grotke, Web Archiving Team Lead at the Library of Congress. Eleven years ago, the Library of Congress established a pilot web archiving project to study methods to evaluate, select, collect, catalog, provide access to and preserve at-risk born digital content for future generations. We could write a …
Posted in: Digital Content, Inside the Library, Partners and Collaboration, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Mike Ashenfelder
When Andrea Goethals wants to escape the demands of her software engineering work at Harvard University library, she heads to the mountains of Maine. But not for pampered leisure. She and her husband volunteer with the Appalachian Mountain Club, maintaining a trail they’ve both adopted. They purge debris, drain water and remove massive obstacles. On …
Posted in: Digital Content, Partners and Collaboration, Tools and Infrastructure