As part of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, the Library of Congress will distribute this toolkit during three workshops that will be held beginning in late April and through May for state and territorial government representatives. Library officials hope to collaborate with their state and territorial counterparts in devising long-term strategies, and receive feedback that can be used to help create a second version.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press news release states:
The $18 million settlement grew from a series of class-action lawsuits filed after the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York (2nd Cir.) ruled in 1999 in the Tasini case that the uncompensated use of electronic copies of articles constitutes copyright infringement. The lawsuits were stayed until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2001. After the high court ruling, Judge Daniels consolidated the cases and ordered mediation, resulting in the settlement.
The Tasini case caused content to be removed from databases because publishers had not gotten permission from freelancers to disseminate it in that way. The case caused publishers to explicity ask for permission and sometimes pay fees to writers in order to ensure that articles could be placed in online databases. I doubt that this ruling will change things going forward, but "cleans up" the past. However, it does reinforce the fact that not asking explicit permission can be an expensive mistake.
You can sign up to receive the Digital and Preservation Dispatch by contacting Laurie_Gemmill@oclc.org.
Adobe is promoting an open specification called the Digital Negative format (DNG) according to this March 15, 02005 article by Kathy White in Publish. Adobe describes DNG as “a new, publicly available archival format for the raw files generated by digital cameras. By addressing the lack of an open standard for the raw files created by individual camera models, DNG helps ensure that photographers will be able to access their files in the future.”
DELOS announces a forthcoming workshop on the topic of digital repositories. Digital repositories as 'managed collections of digital objects' are an essential part of the architectural framework within many domains. In this workshop we will focus in particular on the role of repositories within e-learning and e-research and related digital library services, and will consider such repositories as providers of both preservation and access services. Digital repositories support the requirements of a number of communities, and the workshop will welcome participation from content providers and practitioners, as well as those with a research interest in the development of repositories.
This is a joint workshop of the Semantic Interoperability and Preservation clusters of the DELOS project. DELOS is an interdisciplinary Network of Excellence funded by the European Union to support the development of the next generation of digital library technologies.
Follow the links for more details including dates, locations and registration fees.
The scale of the material that will require active preservation effort is significant and extends well beyond what any single institution can preserve. As a community we are finding our way toward a network of preservation organisations, models, and networks that together will ensure that broad-based preservation is accomplished. Developing models that ensure the sustainability of this emerging network is one of the most critical issues at this junction.
If the thought of backing up e-mail evokes feelings of dread, spare a thought for Australia's librarians who are racing against the clock to digitize millions of decaying photographic images before nature has its cruel way.This sounds like a race against time to ensure that the images are preserved. The last paragraph in the article give the value of these images:
And while the Mitchell's [NSW State Library] cellulose collection may be physically fleeting and priceless, the library values the non-transient assets to be hosted on its donated facilities at $1.5 billion. It can be seen at www.atmitchell.com
Why should you care? What if people are talking about your digitization project, but they aren't sure of the right name or can't get the name right? Could that ruin a good referral? Yup.
How can you help others get your project name, organization name or personal name correct?
Our names -- personal, project, or organizational -- are indeed the sweetest words we hear. Let's help those around us use say and use them correctly.
The following document is meant to provide standards and guidelines for digitization projects created by the Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage (MDCH) program. The use of standards creates a model for measuring the success of a project and sets a mark for creating a project of lasting, educational value. MDCH partners will produce digital files from collections belonging to public libraries and other cultural heritage institutions throughout Maryland. Projects will be created by one of the regional digitization centers or by enlisting the services of commercial vendors. These standards and principles should be applied to all digitization projects to be included in the MDCH Union Catalog. The Union Catalog will aggregate collections from disparately located institutions, providing a powerful new analytical tool for students, researchers and patrons.The document version information indicates that this version is from March 17, 2004.
The Digitization Standards is a living document and will be re-evaluated to reflect the evolution of technologies and international standards on a semi-annual basis. Each project will present unique problems and some may not be explicitly covered in this document. The MDCH Digitization Standards offers broad principles for this reason. Additionally, the MDCH Standards Working Group will be actively involved in addressing such issues to ensure continuity of all digital collections available in the MDCH Union Catalog.
King's College London and OCLC-PICA are pleased to announce the Digital Futures 5-day training event. Led by experts of international renown, Digital Futures focuses on the creation, delivery and preservation of digital resources from cultural and memory institutions. Lasting five days, Digital Futures is aimed at managers and other practitioners from the library, museum, heritage and cultural sectors looking to understand the strategic and management issues of developing digital resources from digitisation to delivery.
Digital Futures aims for no more than 30 delegates and every delegate will have the opportunity to also spend one-to-one time with a Digital Futures leader to discuss issues specific to them. Digital Futures will issue a certificate of achievement to each delegate.
In the latest versions, cell-phone novels are downloaded in short installments and run on handsets as Java-based applications. You're free to browse as though you're in a bookstore, whether you're at home, in your office or on a commuter train. A whole library can be tucked away in your cell phone - a gadget you carry around anyway.
Surprisingly, people are using cell-phone books to catch up on classics they never finished reading. And people are perusing sex manuals and other books they're too embarrassed to be caught reading or buying. More common is keeping an electronic dictionary in your phone in case a need arises.
Libraries need to be sure that they have a part in this and other delivery methods that are placing information/content into people's hands. Could we deliver content from digital libraries to cell phones? Can we place the library at a person's fingertips via his keypad?
BTW My geekiness must be showing 'cause I can't want to try this out! I read book on my Sony Clie (PDA), so I can definitely see reading a book on my cell phone.
There are many more specific questions you could consider. A disaster plan would cover many areas. Books on this topic include:
Check Amazon.com for information on these and other titles.
Designed by 4DigitalBooks, the Digitizing Line integrates i2S SUPRASCAN scanner technology allying high productivity without any compromise on optical resolution.And:
The Swiss company 4DIGITALBOOKS - ASSY SA is specialised in manual and automated digitising of bound documents. It designs and develops the DIGITIZING LINE, an automatic turn page and digitising system.
On Friday 11th March, the British Library in London announced an ambitious historical international project to reinterpret the oldest Bible in the world, the Codex Sinaiticus. A team of experts from the UK, Germany, Russia, Egypt and the United States will combine efforts to make the Bible accessible to a global audience using innovative digital technology.
The Codex is the ancient Greek Bible, written between the 1st and 4th centuries A.D., which is the period when the Roman Empire split and the Emperor Constantine, who ruled the Eastern Empire, adopted Christianity. The Codex was produced as the Greek version of the principal Jewish and Christian scriptures to match Greek heritage.
According to the British Library, the project encompasses four strands: conservation, digitisation, transcription and scholarly commentary to make the Codex available for a worldwide audience of all ages and levels of interest. It is estimated that the project will take four years to complete and cost £680,000.
First, talk to library consortia organizations and vendors (e.g., existing reprographic or microfilm service bureaus) about creating service bureaus that are focused on digitization. The service bureaus -- one in each region? -- should have machines and software for efficiently scanning at least books and flat materials. Adding technology for scanning microfilm or other formats would be very useful and would allow the service bureau to become a one-stop shop.
Since an organization might not want to invest all of the money necessary to create a high-end service bureau, I see the need for several organizations to cooperate on its creation. For example, several libraries (or maybe a combination of libraries and corporations who also need digitization services) could fund the creation of a digitization service bureau in their region in cooperation with a vendor that has the know-how to run such as facility and can ensure its staffing.
It is important to recognize that digitization work will not be completed quickly. Digitization service bureaus should be busy well into the future. So these are not being created to fulfill some short-term need; they are long-term investments.
Second, every library needs to be looking at its collection and identifying those books that should be digitized as a way of making their content more readily available while lessening the wear on the original text. I'm hesitant to suggest selection criteria since books might be selected for different reasons by different institutions. However, once the books are selected, the library needs to make it known (perhaps through some yet-to-be-created clearinghouse) that it wants specific books digitized. Then the library would work to ensure that the book is digitized by either having it done itself or by ensuring that the same book is digitized by another institution. I know -- there is a level of coordination implied here that will take time and resources. I'm not sure who should oversee this coordination, but it needs to be a group that can work efficiently and effectively to assure that timely decisions are made.
Assuming that these two suggestions are worth pursuing, what should be done next? Meetings between regional stakeholders to get things moving. These meetings need to have a sense of urgency -- a sense that this must be done now. Yes, plans need to put into place. However, these are not plans that are acted on in 2- 5 years, but plans that need to be acted on in the coming months. We need to get to work now.
Okay, I've voiced my opinion. Leave a comment and tell me yours. How do you think we should be proceeding?
President Jacques Chirac told France's national library on Wednesday to draw up a plan to put European literary works on the Internet, rivaling a similar project by U.S.-based Web search engine Google.
Chirac asked Jeanneney and France's culture minister to look at ways "in which the collections of the great libraries in France and Europe could be made more widely and more quickly accessible by Internet," Chirac's office said in a statement.
The law does not permit wholesale copying (which is what digitisation is) by a commercial organisation of works that are still in copyright. It is also illegal to make those works available digitally once they have been copied.
She also cautions that "Harvard might not be able to discern which books are copyrighted because of varying copyright regulations in different countries."
Jean-Noël Jeanneney, president of the French national library, commented that the project is too American. He believes that it will favor English language and Anglo-Saxon publications, although Harvard has said that non-English publications are a large part of its collection and will be digitized.
Can you do something now that will help you when you need to find a consultant? Yes. Given that you may need a consultant in the future, or may be asked to recommend a consultant (or a digitization service), start a file of those that you find. The notes that you keep now may be extremely valuable in the future.
These Syracuse Newspapers pages are hosted by NewspaperARCHIVE.com, but brought to you by The Post-Standard with the generous contributions of the Onondaga Historical Association.Unlimited access to the archives is available for $6.95/month or $59.95/year.
My guess is that Google has underestimated, perhaps substantially, the percentage of books that will be damaged or that cannot undergo rapid digitization. Not only will some books be too fragile, or bound too tightly to lie flat, but even some newer books, owing to rapid manufacture, fall out of their bindings in 12 months or less. Handling -- even by careful digitizers -- will doubtless leave more than a few volumes without covers. Working with both groups of titles will increase Google's costs.Imagine the wrath that will occur if even one fragile book is harmed during the digitization process. Could several instances kill the project by causes Google to slow down and be more careful, or by giving libraries second thoughts?
NYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 275,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more.
Confessions of a Mad Librarian has a good post on the Faulkner v. National Geographic Enterprises Inc. copyright case, which was recently ruled on by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The case regards the rights of freelance writers/photographers versus those of publishers. This court and the lower court both ruled in favor of the National Geographics. Misseli writes:
The big issue appears to be context. In Tasini, the republished works of the freelancers were made available separate from the other published material (whether through web archives or aggregated databases like Lexis/Nexis and Factiva). For Faulkner, the court has found that the circumstances of the digitization AND display made the CD-ROM compilation functionally equivalent to a microfilm of the magazine and thus non-infringing.
Each HistoryMaker interview is approximately two hours in length and costs $2,500 to $5,000 to produce. This includes the cost of background research, videotaping, editing, transcribing, encoding, digitizing, archiving, and disseminating the information.Thus this important work is not inexpensive. In fact, the project has been doing intensive fund raising from various sources in hopes of securing the $30 million it needs for the initial five-year archival efforts.
The Library of Congress is inviting U.S. states and territories to form collaborative arrangements and develop strategies for preservation of significant state and local government information in digital form. This activity is part of the Library’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), which is building a national preservation network. The Library seeks to include state governmental entities (state libraries, archives, and other state agencies) in its national network to preserve “born digital” state and local government information that is both significant and is at risk of loss.This wonderful since most would agree that those materials that are only in digital form (born and stored digitally) are truly at risk because they rely on technology.
The inspiration for this article was a question submitted by one of our members, the project manager of a "Taxonomy Center of Excellence." She asked: "How do we position ourselves against Google, which is in essence,anti-classification/taxonomy? (OR do we embrace it... and if so, how?)"
The excerpt of the article goes on to say:
As we show in this article, there are times when Google works well. But because it's ubiquitous and deceptively easy to use, Google creates unrealistic expectations for many users. It also fosters an over-simplified model of information work. Everyone uses Google, but everyone uses it in a different way depending on their job role, personality, and other factors. Furthermore, most professional employees play more than one role, often within the same work day.
The article is available for members of the Montague Institute, however others will find the full excerpt to be of interest.
Who should create the comprehensive list? The one group that I think could do this is AIIM. Currently AIIM captures information on a limited list of solution providers. Although they are focused on "the tools and technologies that capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content in support of business processes", I don't think it would be a huge leap for them to capture information on vendors who work with historic items, etc.
Who else could create the list? Perhaps a publisher or the government...whomever, it would need to be a group that would see it has part of its mission (which is why I think AIIM could be a logical choice).
And who should set the standards used to certify vendors? A group of people who have had lots of experience with digitization vendors. Perhaps representatives from those projects what we all marvel at (American Memory, etc.)? I would want key people from the National Archives and Library of Congress at the table, and perhaps someone who could bring the vendor's viewpoint. Definitely someone who understands that all projects are not alike.
And who should actually do the certification? Should vendors self-certify? With the importance of digitization on our future, I would think some independent group (government funded?) should certify vendors, using information provided to them. It would be a lot of work, but very much worth it. And vendors would go through the process when they understood the benefit (like those companies that go through the ISO 9000 certification).
It's all do-able. Perhaps we should call on AIIM to help get the first ball rolling?
The overarching aim of the DCC is to provide leadership in digital curation and data preservation. The conference will provide an important forum, helping to raise awareness of the key issues and encouraging active participation and feedback from all stakeholder communities. The programme will include Keynote Speakers, will provide an overview of the work of the DCC and an opportunity via a "Symposium" to discuss the concepts and principles of Digital Curation. There will also be a series of parallel sessions, which will look in more detail at specific topics including Socio-Legal Issues, Format Registries, Storage Media, Training & Staff Development and Certification.
Beyond vague talk about Google having developed a much more efficient process, the project's specifics are secret. At Harvard, for instance, Google won't allow reporters to visit or photograph the scanning currently being done -- of 40,000 volumes as a kind of pilot project, just to make sure the books don't get damaged or lost -- at the university library's 5-million-volume off-campus storage facility.Steve Johnson. "How Google Will Scan the World, 1 Book at a Time." Chicago Tribune. Feb. 25, 2005. (Free registration required)
When you can't find copyright holders, copyright becomes a quagmire.
Let's fix it.
Google’s partnership with libraries was a strategic move. Not only have they “co-branded” their name with those of prestigious libraries, they have scored an end-run around reluctant publishers. Over a year ago Google rolled out a plan to engage willing publishers in a “Google Print” program, arguing better visibility of the content of books would lead to sales. But Amazon had already signed agreements with publishers to make the full text of tens of thousands of current consumer-oriented books searchable at Amazon’s site, allowing customers to search full text and browse a limited number of pages without copying or printing pages.
Much of the NFAIS conference seems to focus on if and how content producers should embrace new opportunities and business models in an age of Googlization. Discussions with Google representatives highlighted details of Google’s three projects and Kaser reported that conference delegates "were urged to think about how their materials might be of use and interest to a wider market." Of course, the supposition is that Google would be the enabler to those wider markets.
BTW Google’s director of business development, Cathy Gordon, who has worked for both Dialog and LexisNexis, gave the opening keynote on "Capturing Diverse User Mindshare." John Lewis Needham, Google’s strategic partner development manager, was also on hand and spoke about the expand content in Google Scholar.
