Alexander Street Press

In April, I was introduced to Alexander Street Press, a company that is digitizing content in order to create databases in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. They are currently offering free access to the American Civil War Online series of databases until June 30, 2008. You can view images from the Civil War, unit rosters and more. [I search the rosters for "hurst" and received 920 hits. I wonder if any were connected with my family?]

On a conference call last week, the topic was raised of purchasing content to complement a digitization program. Purchasing content may help an institution round-out its offering and provide missing information. It might also be cost effective (depending on the license) as a way of expanding a digital collection. Just as libraries purchase databases from EBSCO and Gale to supplement there print collections, some might purchase databases to supplement their digital/digitized collection.

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Technorati tag: Digitization

Book Industry Study Group, Inc.

Recently I had a digitization service bureau mention the Book Industry Study Group, Inc. to me. Among the member companies are organizations that we know are involved in digitization, e.g., Amazon, Google and Microsoft. One of the BISG's committees is the Digital Standards Committee. This committee's purpose is to "develop – with input from all relevant constituencies – industry-wide standards for the online discovery, browsing, search and distribution of books and related content in digital form."

This is another player in the realm of digitization that we need to pay attention to.

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Technorati tag: Standards

Article: Online Digital Special Collections in English Universities: Promoting Awareness

In February, FUMSI published an article by Erica Wine entitled "Online Digital Special Collections in English Universities: Promoting Awareness." The article provide suggestions for curators "to enhance promotion and awareness of their online digital collections." It is quick read that contains useful information.

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Technorati tag: Marketing

Report: Keeping Research Data Safe: a cost model and guidance for UK Universities

In his email announcing this report titled “Keeping Research Data Safe: a cost model and guidance for UK Universities” , Neil Beagrie wrote the following:

The study has investigated the medium to long term costs to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) of the preservation of research data and developed guidance to HEFCE and institutions on these issues.

The study uncovered a lot of valuable data and approaches and we hope this can be built on by future studies and implementation and testing. The study makes 10 recommendations on future work and implementation. For further information see the Executive Summary online.

And...

Although focused on UK universities in particular, it should be of interest to anyone involved with research data or interested generally in the costs of digital preservation.

Comments and Feedback via the blog or via email to info@beagrie.com welcome!

The costs information in the executive summary will make you stop and think. The costs do not go away, but they do seem to decrease over time. As the summary says:

Our case studies illustrate a number of efficiency curve effects. The start-up phases of repositories reflect both the ramping-up of activities e.g. recruitment of staff and specific start-up activities such as developing new policies and procedures for the archive. The start-up costs particularly in terms of staff time can be substantial. The operational phases reflect increasing productivity and efficiency as procedures become established, tested and refined and the volume of users and deposits increases.

And there are indeed economies of scale.

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Technorati tag: Digital Preservation

Blog post: Digital Information 250 Years From Now

Thanks to David Kemper for finding this post by Josh Catone that discusses the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration's take on digital archiving. Why should they be archiving government web sites when the agencies should be doing it themselves? (mmm...if they are doing it...) These words from Catone stood out to me:

About 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson sold his personal library of 6,000 books to the Library of Congress. About 150 years ago, more than half were destroyed in a fire. But today, all 6,000 of them have been recovered or recreated and will go on display at the LoC. Now we're living in the so-called information age, where almost a gigabyte of new data is being created each year for every man, woman, and child on earth. But what's going to happen it to it all 250 years from now? "Is digital content too ephemeral to last?" wondered Leland Rucker. Will digital information have the same lifespan as printed books?

In workshops, I ask people to think 5- 10 years into the future, because we generally can get out heads around that time span. I can imagine people becoming blurry eyed at the idea of being responsible for content lasting 100+ years. Isn't that someone else's job?

By the way, I've mentioned before an episode of Stargate SG-1 where the civilization found it was relying on flawed digital files. That could be our future.

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Technorati tag: Digital Preservation

Kenny Crews is the guest blogger at ©ollectanea

I always tell people to take a copyright workshop from Kenny Crews, if at all possible. He makes copyright understandable and entertaining. And I appreciate that he always goes back to the law when answering people's questions.

Crews --formally Kenneth D. Crews, J.D., M.L.S., Ph.D. -- is the guest blogger this month at ©ollectanea and I particularly like this blog post about Orphaned Works. Who else could give us a copyright lesson from the Grand Canyon?!

You might want to follow his blog posts for the month. I'm sure they will prove to be enlightening.

Related posts:

• Congrats to Kenny Crews!
• Kenneth D. Crews Wins American Library Association's L. Ray Patterson Award

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Technorati tag: Copyright

Survey: Digital Lives

This is from the Digital-Preservation discussion list.

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Digital Lives: Helping People to Capture and Secure their Individual Memories, their Personal Creativity, their Shared Historic Moments

Increasingly, our family memories, our personal achievements, our experiences of historical events, are being facilitated and recorded digitally. Digital Lives is a pathfinding research project that is setting out to understand how individuals retain and manage their personal collections of computerised information - everything from digital photographs and videos to favourite podcasts and sentimental email messages - and how these digital collections can best be captured in the first place and preserved in the long term, perhaps for family history, biographical or other purposes.

The project is led by Dr Jeremy Leighton John and colleagues at the British Library who, together with experts from UCL and Bristol University, are researching the challenges that lie ahead as more and more of our memories and documentary witnesses exist in electronic form.

We would like to invite you to take part in our research by completing an online survey. This should take no more than ten minutes of your time and it will provide us with crucial information that will benefit the work of the British Library and other archives enormously as we plan for what is fast becoming a largely digital world.

If you would like to take part in the survey, please go to http://tinyurl.com/5wtwgm.

If you would like to enter our Prize Draw and stand a chance of winning £200 in British Library gift vouchers (drawn at random and with no further obligation) you can register your interest at the end of the survey.

Please note that all responses are strictly confidential. No individuals will be named when we report our findings, and the information collected will only be presented in an aggregated form. You will not be contacted again as a result of completing this survey.

If you have any questions, or are concerned about the bona fides of this survey, please email Dr. Ian Rowlands (University College London School of Library, Archive & Information Studies) at i.rowlands@ucl.ac.uk.

(Digital Lives is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council: Grant number BLRC 8669).

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Technorati tag: Surveys

Book: Metadata for Digital Resources: Implementation, Systems Design, and Interoperability

I'm catching up on my surfing and found this book mentioned by Available Online. Summary:

This book is intended to assist information professionals in improving the usability of digital objects by adequately documenting them and using tools for metadata management. It provides practical advice for libraries, archives, and museums dealing with digital collections in a wide variety of formats and from a wider variety of sources. This book is forward-thinking in its approach to using metadata to drive digital library systems, and will be a valuable resource for those creating and managing digital resources as technologies for using those resources grow and change.

Key Features

• Provides practical guidance on the key choices that information professionals in libraries, archives, and museums must make when defining and implementing a metadata strategy
  
• Provides insight on the new area of 'metadata librarianship' while positions are opening in many organizations and many professionals worldwide are charged with managing and sharing metadata
  
• Focuses on metadata usability and the careful definition of what a digital library system must do in order to define a metadata strategy
  
• Explains key concepts of interoperability of digital library systems to information professionals
  

This was a cross-Atlantic effort written by Muriel Foulonneau (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France) and Jenn Riley (Indiana University).

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Technorati tag: Metadata

Press Release: Civil Rights Digital Library

I received the press release below last week. Personally, what makes this collection valuable it that it contains a lot of film of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. talking. While we celebrate Dr. King's life and accomplishments each year, most people have seen very little film of him talking. He was more than a few sound bites and selected images...and here you can see (and hear) that.

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Civil Rights Digital Library
http://crdl.usg.edu

Delivering a news film archive and related historical materials from educational institutions across the U.S., the Civil Rights Digital Library premiered on the Web this week.

Athens, Ga., April 29, 2008 - The Civil Rights Digital Library (CRDL) is the most ambitious and comprehensive initiative to date to deliver educational content on the Civil Rights Movement via the Web.

The CRDL promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement trough its three principal components: 1) a digital video archive delivering 30 hours of historical news film allowing learners to be nearly eyewitnesses to key events of the Civil Rights Movement, 2) a civil rights portal providing a seamless virtual library on the Movement by aggregating metadata from more than 75 libraries and allied organizations from across the nation, and 3) instructional materials to facilitate the use of the video content in the learning process.

The centerpiece of the site is a collection of more than 30 hours of historical news film held by the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia Libraries. These moving images—about 450 clips--cover a broad range of key civil rights events, including the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas (1957); the Atlanta Temple bombing (1958); Atlanta sit-ins (1960); Freedom Rides (1961); desegregation of the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech (1961); the Albany Movement (1961-1962); desegregation of Ole Miss (1962) and University of Alabama (1963); and Americus Movement (1963, 1965); Birmingham demonstrations (1963); among many other topics.

The video archive covers both national figures and local leaders. There is more than two hours of film related to Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King’s role in the Albany Movement is documented extensively, including clips of speeches at mass meetings, his arrest by local police, press conferences, and his visit to a pool hall to urge local African Americans to adopt non-violence in achieving change in Albany. Among the clips is coverage of King’s reaction to President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and his funeral in 1968.

In addition to the news film, the digital library includes related collections from 75 libraries, archives, and museums across the nation. Most are original documentation of the period, such as oral histories, letters, diaries, FBI files, and photographs.

A partnership with the online New Georgia Encyclopedia is a key component, providing concise, authoritative articles on events and individuals associated with the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia, supplemented by images and multi-media files.

The CRDL initiative includes a special site for teachers, called "Freedom on Film" (currently in development) that relates civil rights stories from nine Georgia towns and cities, along with related news film, discussion questions, lesson plans, and related readings. Freedom on Film is being developed by University of Georgia faculty and students, along with scholars from other institutions.

The Civil Rights Digital Library receives financial support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the federal Institute for Museum and Library Services.

The CRDL will continue to grow through its partnerships with allied organizations across the U.S.

Visit the Civil Rights Digital Library: http://crdl.usg.edu

Contacts: Dr. P. Toby Graham, Director, Digital Library of Georgia, University of Georgia, tgraham@uga.edu, 706.583.0213

Ruta Abolins, Director, Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, University of Georgia, abolins@uga.edu, 706.542.4757

Dr. Barbara McCaskill, Professor, English Dept., University of Georgia, bmccaski@uga.edu, 706.542.2250

Digital Library

Bound document & book digitization case studies

Kirtas has published several case studies about the use of its scanning systems for bound documents and books. Look at the right hand side of this page for links to case studies regarding libraries, governments, corporations, etc. Although the case studies don't tell you if the organizations considered different solutions, you do get a sense of how they thought about their decision and the benefits that they are seeing.

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Technorati tags: Digitization, Book