Blog Day 2008: Five blogs you should know about

The directions for participating in Blog Day are pretty easy:

1. Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting
2. Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2008
3. Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs
4. Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st)
   

This year, I am focusing on five blogs written by members of the Library Society of the World (LSW). The LSW has been described as (all are quotes from a discussion in Friendfeed):

• ...a way of giving official status to an unofficial gathering of librarians who, of their own initiative, are creating a community where, when, and how they want it. - Jenica Rogers-Urbanek
• using social networking tools to create a needed informal community. - Baldgeekinmd
• A grassroots community of library professionals using internet tools to organize and socialize. - Joshua M. Neff

In the same conversation, I described it as:

...a community of library workers who share information, discuss issues, collaborate on projects, and assist each other with professional development. The LSW has grown virally through online and face-to-face contact because it feels a need untouched by formal organizations.

The LSW has a wiki, web site and blog. The sites are all maintained by volunteers. LSW members have met face-to-face on several occasions, often at library conferences and events. You might even recognize LSW members at a conference by their Library Society of the World badge ribbons. The Society also uses a variety of other social networking tools in order to keep in touch (see wiki for links).

How many people are in the LSW. A lot and from several different countries! The group in LinkedIn has more than 300 members and is continuing to grow.

So here are five blogs by LSW members. Consider this a taste of who is in the the LSW and what the LSW thinks about:

• Connie Crosby (blog) -- Based in Canada, Connie is a consultant & law librarian. She focuses on social networking tools and their use by libraries and other organizations. Connie always seems to be up on what's new and who's doing what.
  
• Digital Reference -- Written by Stephen Francoeur, this blog focuses on "News and views on chat reference, IM reference, email reference, VoIP reference, video reference, SMS reference, phone reference, roving reference, and face-to-face reference."
• The Goblin in the Library -- Joshua M. Neff is referred to as the Sheriff of the LSW and is one of its informal leaders. Joshua, a public librarian, writes about web 2.0 stuff and other things. Joshua is located in Kansas.
  
• (almost) Bald Trainer Blog -- I met Maurice Coleman formally at Computers In Libraries this year. He's a good person to know and very outspoken (in a good way!). Located in Maryland, he focuses on the wide variety of tools that libraries can use.
  
• Joeyanne Libraryanne: Librarianship in the Modern Age -- Written by Jo Alcock, who is a para-professional in the UK and currently studying for her MSc via distance learning. She is very focused on academic libraries and how they can use new technologies to improve services.

There are many more bloggers in the LSW. You can use the member list in the wiki to find them.

Oh...and how to you join the LSW? Add your name to the wiki or join in one of the LSW social networking groups. Yes, it is that easy.

My previous Blog Day posts are here (2006) and here (2007).

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Technorati tag: BlogDay2008

More on the Dead Sea Scrolls

Yesterday I mentioned a project to digitize the Dead Sea Scrolls. Simon Tanner from King's Digital Consultancy Services read the post and emailed additional information to me.

First of all, there is a 3 minute video about the project at CNN.com. While the words are similar to the text I pointed you to yesterday, what is helpful is to see what they are doing.



Tanner reports that:

• In the pilot, they are using PhaseOne P45 cameras with Haselblad bodies - for both the color and infrared imaging. They are capturing at 16-bits per channel and typically outputting a 230+ MB file of roughly 7,250 x 5,500 pixels.
• They will very likely upgrade to the P65 for the actual project.
• They are also doing image spectroscopy at multiple wavelengths between 640 and 1000 nm and this revealed lots of new information of conservation interest to the Scrolls in a non-invasive way. They might even be able to measure water content non-invasively.

He also said that:

Regarding the handling - all handling is done by the conservators at the Israeli Antiquities Authority and is done with extreme care - we even designed a special table to carry the Scrolls during the imaging.

However, the 900 scrolls are in many very small fragments (maybe 15,000) and these are stored in conservation enclosures. The vast majority of the scroll fragments can be imaged with a very careful conservation/imaging workflow - hence the timeline for the digitisation being in 1-2 years rather than months. There are a very few items for which the handling would preclude our imaging techniques and these will be dealt with as special cases.

Simon, thanks for contacting me! You wrote, "Hope this is helpful information for the community and your blog." Yes, very helpful! Thank you!

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Technorati tag: Digitization

Report: International Study on the Impact of Copyright Law on Digital Preservation

Press release....

July 14, 2008 -- The Library of Congress has released the International Study on the Impact of Copyright Law on Digital Preservation. The report is a joint effort of the Library of Congress National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, the Joint Information Systems Committee, the Open Access to Knowledge (OAK) Law Project, and the SURFfoundation.

There are significant technical, financial and legal obstacles to digital preservation. This Report focuses on the law – in particular, on copyright and related rights issues. As the laws of the countries discussed in the report demonstrate, in many cases exceptions and limitations do not accommodate the actions required for digital preservation. The copyright and related rights issues, and various strategies to address them, are discussed in detail in the report.

The report is available here (PDF file, 1.58Mb)

The report is 214 pages. Section 1.7 provides a roadmap to the report. (Note that all paragraphs in the report are numbered):

1.71 The following sections discuss, for each of the jurisdictions represented in this report:

• Major digital preservation activities currently ongoing;
• The copyright and related rights laws that bear on preservation, and relevant exceptions and limitations;
• Areas where there is tension between the laws and digital preservation activities;
• Current efforts within existing law to undertake digital preservation, either through exceptions and limitations or pursuant to agreements with right holders; and
  
• Recommendations for change.

1.7.2 The final section of the report consists of a summary of the report’s major findings and a series of joint recommendations agreed to by all of the organizations that participated in the study and the preparation of this report.

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Technorati tags: Copyright, Digital Preservation

Article: Dead Sea Scrolls go from parchment to the Internet

This is wonderful news about the Dead Sea Scrolls!

Over the next two years, the Israel Antiquities Authority will digitally photograph and scan every bit of crumbling parchment and papyrus that makes up the scrolls, which include the oldest written record of the Bible's Old Testament.

The images eventually will be posted on the Internet for anyone to see.

I had always heard that some of the scrolls were too fragile to handle, so I will be curious to hear about the process they will be using. Obviously, they are assembling a team that is well-funded and that will be using the best technology and technique. As Simon Tanner, director of King's Digital Consultancy Services, said:

Just by applying the latest infrared technologies and shooting at very high detail, lots of resolution, we are already opening up new characters from the scrolls that are either extremely indistinct or you just couldn't see them before.

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Technorati tag: Digitization

Press Release: Some Results from the International Survey of Library & Museum Digitization Projects

This press release contains a few interesting statistics as well as information on a report that is for sale. Press releases for reports can be useful, since they do give tidbits -- teasers -- that are useful. Sometimes all you need to do is find the press releases about specific reports to learn what you need to know.

The press release arrived in email a bit mangled, so I have reformatted it. I hope that the formatting is appropriate. Emphasis was added in order to point out interesting facts.

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Primary Research Group has published: The International Survey of Library & Museum Digitization Projects, ISBN 1-57440-105-X. The study presents data from more than 100 library & museum digitization programs from academic, public and special libraries and museums in the United States, Canada, Australia, Italy, the UK and other countries. The mean annual budget for the digitization projects that contributed to the sample was $122,408, with a range from $0 to $1.963 million. The reports presents data on sources of funding, the outlook for raising money for additional projects, collaboration within and outside of institutions, staffing of
digitization projects, spending on hardware and software, practices on rights, permissions and copyright clearance, outsourcing, staff training, impact of digitization on preservation mediums, cataloging issues, marketing of digitization projects and other aspects of library and museum digitization project management. Data is broken out by size and type of digitization project and by size and type of institution. Data is presented separately for text, photograph, audio, and film/video intensive projects.

Just of few of the report's many findings are that:

• More than 60% of the funding for the projects in the sample is derived from the library budget itself. For U.S. libraries, close to 64% of funds for digitization projects comes from the library budget.
• A shade more than 20% of the organizations in the sample believe that the outlook for raising money for digitization projects from outside sources is not favorable, while more than 43% characterize it as "not too bad," more than 32% call it "pretty good" and more than 4% characterize it excellent.
• More than 53% of the organizations in the sample have teamed up with another department or faculty of the organization to work jointly on a digitization project.
• The institutions in the sample had a mean of 4.43 individuals who spent at least part of their working day on digitization projects, with a maximum of 20.
• The organizations in the sample spent a mean of $21,839 on equipment to copy, duplicate, record, photograph, scan or transform content of any kind into digital formats. Median spending was only $3,000 and the range was $0-$330,000.
• The mean number of hours spent obtaining rights permissions or copyright clearance of the organizations in the sample was 221.04.
• Nearly 49% of the organizations in the sample outsource some form of digitization, in whole or in part, to an outside party. Museums were more likely than other organizations to do this kind of outsourcing; more than 61% of the museums in the sample outsource some form of digitization to an outside party. Projects that were photographic-intensive were also more likely to describe themselves as being deficient in mastering digitization skills; more than 31% of the organizations in this category said they had a great deal to learn, while another 25% said that they had gotten better but still had a long way to go.
  
• More than 61% of the organizations in the sample had some form of digital asset management software. 52% had their own in-house system, while another 9.2% share a system with other departments or divisions of their organization.
• 44.68% of the organizations in the sample said that digitization had had no impact on their use of microfilming or other preservation mediums.
• The mean percentage of labor time required for digitization projects that is accounted for by cataloging and metadata tasks is about 37%, with a range of zero to 85%.
• Only 8.16% of the organizations in the sample had completely outsourced a digitization project to another organization such as a major museum or university that specializes in such projects.
• 17.7% of the organizations in the sample license or rent use of any aspect of their digital collection to outside parties.

For further information view our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com.

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Technorati tag: Digitization