Earlier today, a group of SU iSchool students hosted an unconference event focused spaces and places. 40-50 public, academic and school librarians along with LIS students and faculty attended the event. From everything I saw, the event was a success! Congratulations to Stephanie Prato (@scprato), Sarah Bratt (@SarahSbratt), Mia Breitkopf (@MiaBreitkopf) and Matthew Gunby (@MatthewGunby) for conceiving and delivering this event.
The goal is to preserve one copy of every published work. The universe of unique titles has been estimated at close to one hundred million items. Many of these are rare or unique, so we do not expect most of these to come to the Internet Archive; they will instead remain in their current libraries. But the opportunity to preserve over ten million items is possible, so we have designed a system that will expand to this level. Ten million books is approximately the size of a world-class university library or public library, so we see this as a worthwhile goal. If we are successful, then this set of cultural materials will last for centuries and could be beneficial in ways that we cannot predict.Read the article for more information on how the books are being stored, which I must admit is interesting. The phrases "climate controlled" and "shipping containers" are often used together in my world!
The turn-around time will be less than two weeks.Starting this semester, Duke University faculty, students, and staff can request to have certain public domain books scanned on demand. If a book is published before 1923 and located in the Perkins, Bostock, Lilly, or Music Library or in the Library Service Center (LSC), a green “Digitize This Book” button will appear in its online catalog record.
After several years of work (on and off), the Canadian Conservation Institute has released Technical Bulletin #30, "The Digitization of Audio Tapes" by Joe Iraci, Kimberley Flak, and me. We have attempted to put down in writing and pictures most of the things people need to know to do a more-than-merely-competent job of digitizing audio holdings.Here is the abstract:Many archives and heritage institutions possess audio tapes that are the only record of culturally significant information. Unfortunately, these analog audio storage formats have a finite technology lifetime. If the information is to remain accessible, it must be migrated to new technology. This Technical Bulletin provides information and procedures for digitizing cassettes and reel-to-reel tapes. It is intended to assist small to mid-size heritage institutions that lack the funds for professional digitization. Note that the procedures discussed in the bulletin are intended primarily for oral history collections; they will not capture all the fine details extant in high-fidelity recordings.The English version is available for a modest fee (US$25) here:The authors all hope that this will aide in the preservation of holdings where there is no funding available for professional transfers.
