Author: Kate Murray

Preliminary Results for the Ranking Stumbling Blocks for Video Preservation Survey

In a previous blog post, the NDSA Standards and Practices Working Group announced the opening of a survey to rank issues in preserving video collections. The survey closed on August 2, 2014 and while there’s work ahead to analyze the results and develop action plans, we can share some preliminary findings. We purposely cast a […]

NDSA Standards and Practices Survey: Ranking Stumbling Blocks for Video Preservation

A new thread emerged during the recent monthly conference calls of the Standards and Practices Working Group of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA). What do we do about preserving video? It’s a problem for many of our members. One participant even commented that video is often the last content type to be added to […]

Preserving Digital and Software-Based Artworks: Recap of a NDSA Discussion

In response to a suggestion from our active membership, the NDSA Standards and Practices Working Group recently hosted a discussion about preserving digital and software-based artworks. Interestingly, the suggestion for this topic came not from a museum staffer but by Winston Atkins, Preservation Officer at Duke University Libraries. Complex materials like digital art works and […]

Saving the Date: Exploring Calendar and Scheduling Formats

Each January, my family picks out a new wall calendar to hang in our kitchen. Its main appeal these days is nostalgic decoration since we no longer use it to write down our appointments or important dates. Like many people, we now rely on electronic calendar and scheduling tools built into personal information manager software […]

Shaking the Email Format Family Tree

Recently, we’ve started to add email formats to the Sustainability of Digital Formats website. Eventually, when we get a more robust collection, we’d like to split them out into a separate content category but for now, they (mostly) are categorized with their closest cousin, the Textual Content family.  Our genealogical research is still very much […]

It’s Not Just Integrity: Fixity Data in Digital Sound and Moving Image Files

This blog post is co-authored by Carl Fleischhauer, Project Manager, Digital Initiatives, Library of Congress. People who manage audio and video files over time, do create fixity data, aka hash values or checksums, to help monitor the condition of those files in storage and when moved from one system or media to another system or […]

Let’s Start at the Very Beginning: Guiding Principles for Creating Born Digital Video

The beginning is a very fine place to start indeed for the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative Born Digital Video subgroup of the Audio-Visual Working Group. As mentioned in a previous blog post, the FADGI Born Digital Video subgroup is taking a close look at the range of decisions to be made throughout the lifecycle […]

AV Artifact Atlas: By the People, For the People

In this interview, FADGI talks with Hannah Frost, Digital Library Services Manager at Stanford Libraries and Manager, Stanford Media Preservation Lab and Jenny Brice, Preservation Coordinator at Bay Area Video Coalition about the AV Artifact Atlas. One of my favorite aspects of the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative is its community-based ethos. We work collaboratively […]

Can I Get a Sample of That? Digital File Format Samples and Test Sets

If you’ve ever been to a warehouse store on a weekend afternoon, you’ve experienced the power of the sample. In the retail world, samples are an important tool to influence potential new customers who don’t want to invest in an unknown entity. I certainly didn’t start the day with lobster dip on my shopping list […]

Connecting Communities: FADGI Still Image Working Group’s Impact on the Library of Congress and Beyond

The following is a guest post from Carla Miller of the Library of Congress. This is the second in a two-part update on the recent activities of the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative. This article describes the work of the Still Image Working Group. The first article describes the work of the Audio-Visual Working Group. While […]