NCCUSL. If pronounced a certain way (think “nah-kooz-ull”) it sounds like the latest toy fad. But get used to the acronym because the organization behind it is responsible for one of the most important pieces of digital preservation legislation in the past ten years. NCCUSL stands for the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State …
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 …
The following is a guest post by Barrett Jones, Program Specialist for the Digital Preservation Outreach and Education initiative at the Library. Right now as I type this post, there is a two-hour Introduction to Digital Preservation online course available from the State Library of North Carolina Digital Information Management Program. On July 25th there’s …
The following is a guest post by Jimi Jones, Audio-Visual Specialist, NDIIPP. A correction was made to this post on July 7, 2011. “What’s the best digital video file format for preservation?” Finding appropriate digital preservation file formats for audiovisual materials is not an easy task. While much of the recorded sound preservation realm has …
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 …
Enhanced access to historical resources drives the incentives to preserve. At least that’s the thinking behind the Model Technological and Social Architecture for the Preservation of State Government Digital Information Project. The project, headed by the Minnesota Historical Society with state government partners in Arkansas, California, Illinois, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Tennessee and Vermont, …
A couple of years ago I picked up a reissue of a 1970 record by a band called Stark Reality. Their lone record is a funky jazz re-working of Hoagy Carmichael compositions for a children’s public television program: highly idiosyncratic but pleasingly unusual. Turns out that in addition to their album they composed the theme …
The following is a guest post by Steve Puglia, Manager of Conversion Support Services at the Library of Congress. When you work at the Library of Congress on digital preservation projects, you know you’ll have the opportunity to contribute to (and sometimes learn about) new and exciting endeavors in the realm of technology and content …