Not Just a Matter of Acid-Free Paper Anymore, Long Term Storage Issues for Digital Media
“Stanford University‘s (CA) Julie Sweetkind-Singer is a recognized authority on digital preservation, and has been honored by the Library of Congress for her work in the field. She currently serves as both the assistant director of Stanford’s Geospatial, Cartographic and Scientific Data and Services and as head of the Branner Earth Sciences Library and Map Collections. In a recent interview with CT, Sweetkind-Singer discussed the challenges facing the field of digital preservation.
“Campus Technology: What are the primary considerations for archiving and preserving digital information over the long term?
“Julie Sweetkind-Singer: From a librarian’s point of view, digital data is very different and much more difficult to preserve for extended periods than paper-based data. For example, a book on acid-free paper can be kept on a shelf in a cool, dark place for 100 years. If it is well cared for, you would expect it to remain in pretty good shape.
“With digital information, you have to implement a process from the very beginning that will allow you to preserve it well into the future. This includes ensuring that the data is well managed technically; that metadata exists so that someone in the future will understand what the data represents and how it has been stored; and that legal documents are in place indicating how the data may be used.
“It’s important for digital archivists to develop long-term preservation plans that include both technical and legal stipulations. Unless digital files are correctly preserved and documented, we run the risk of losing the information, which is then unavailable to future generations.
From Jim Baumann’s article in Campus Technology, Setting Storage Standards for Digital Media
Internet Librarian Conference Stresses Transformational Role of Librarians
“Depending upon whom you ask, libraries should serve as a platform for networking, return to their core competency as the keeper of print books, or launch new products and services as the enabler of content creation.
“In the opening keynote address, David Weinberger advocated for the library as a platform for people, ideas, and works delivered through tools and services. Weinberger is senior researcher, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, co-director, Harvard Innovation Lab, and author of Too Big to Know. He says, rather than attempting to collect knowledge in the form of published works, librarians can advance knowledge through public learning, generous sharing, and the power of iteration. Weinberger used the experience of software developers as an example of fast, efficient, and effective learning as they collaborate through tutorials, versioning, and social connections to tweak and improve programs. He posited that libraries can serve as a networking platform that “provides the resources that let others create and flourish.”
“In the meantime, public, academic, corporate, and nonprofit librarians dedicate countless hours to evaluating ebook options and comparing them to the print versions for price, availability, usability, user preference, and portability. Law librarian Erik Adams summarized the existing challenges in a session on ebook economics and trends: Technology is a problem, distribution stinks, and high prices discourage adoption.”
From Cindy Shamel’s article on Information Today, Internet Librarians—The Power to Transform Libraries
Reader Specific Social Bookmarks and Tags Offer Better Insight to Journals as Metadata
“ABSTRACT: Qualitative journal evaluation cumulates content descriptions of single articles. Articles are either represented by author–generated keywords, professionally indexed subject headings, automatically extracted terms or, as recently introduced, by reader–generated tags as used in social bookmarking systems. The study presented here shows that different types of keywords each reflect a different perspective on documents and that tags can be used in journal evaluation to represent a reader–specific view. After providing a broad theoretical background and literature review, methods for extensive automatic term cleaning and calculation of term overlaps are introduced. The efficiency of tags and other metadata for journal content description is illustrated for one particular journal.
“INTRODUCTION: Imagine you were a librarian and could support your subscription decisions using readers’ real–time usage data. Imagine you were an author searching for the most suitable journal in which to publish your paper by determining the size and geographical distribution of the journal’s current readership before submission. Imagine you were a researcher who could monitor the response to his or her latest paper in real time in terms of how many people read it and what they thought about it.”
From Stefanie Haustein’s paper filed on InfoDocket, Research Article: “Using Social Bookmarks and Tags as Alternative Indicators of Journal Content Description”
Who Owns What When the Content is Digital: E-Book Buyers Buy Access, Do Not Gain Ownership
“BUYERS of e-books may have no more legal rights than ”tenant farmers”, it has emerged, following the case of a Kindle user whose digital library was wiped by Amazon.
“The fine print in online agreements inserted at the behest of publishers to protect authors’ copyright licenses readers to the digital files but does not grant ”tangible” ownership, as with any hard copy book.
“The case of ”repossession” has been seized on by the copyright activist and Canadian science writer Cory Doctorow, who sells DMR-free copies of his own books to argue for unshackled ownership of e-books. On his blog spot Boing Boing, Doctorow said digital licensing deals circumvented the right for books to be transferred, sold or bequeathed to another person, rendering the reader a mere ”tenant farmer”
”The inability to legally on-sell or on-distribute digital products may be something which consumers consider in determining whether to purchase a hard copy or a digital product – this will apply to books, but also to products such as CDs.” ”
From Linda Morris’s article in the Brisbane Times, No such thing as ownership when it’s an e-book
Prominent pre-Columbian and early post-Columbian Mexico source added to Library of Congress’s flagship international digital collaboration
“The Florentine Codex, a unique manuscript dating from 1577 preserved in the Medicea Laurenziana Library in Florence, is for the first time available online in digital format, the Library of Congress announced today. The codex, one of the most important sources for the history of pre-Columbian and early post-Columbian Mexico, is among recent additions to the World Digital Library (www.wdl.org), the Library of Congress’s flagship international digital collaboration.
“Vera Valitutto, Director General of the Laurenziana, stated: “We are pleased to be cooperating with the WDL to present this priceless treasure, which came into the possession of the Medici family sometime in the 1580s, to a worldwide online audience. This will be of great benefit not only to researchers, but to students, teachers, and members of the general public interested in learning more about this fascinating civilization and this important chapter in human history.”
“Digitization of the codex was undertaken in a partnership among the Library of Congress, the Medicea Laurenziana Library, and the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities of Italy. Financial support was provided by the James Madison Council of the Library of Congress.
“The WDL, an unprecedented partnership of more than 160 libraries, museums and archives from 75 countries, makes available online the world’s historic treasures. It now features items in 87 languages and about all 194 United Nations member states.”
Press release from the Library of Congress, World Digital Library Adds Florentine Codex