A few months back, during the Personal Digital Archiving 2013 conference, I was struck by how much interesting research was being done in the field of digital preservation. Everything from digital forensics to gamification, all of it thoughtful, much of it very practical and applicable. Still, I couldn’t help wishing that there was even more […]
Category: Digital Content
Before You Were Born: We had Online Communities
My first foray into online communities was in the mid- to late-1980s, when the organization I worked for got some of its online services through UCLA. We got limited access to email and access to the Usenet discussion system. If you’re not familiar with Usenet — which went live in 1980 — surprise! It’s still […]
Word Processing: The Enduring Killer App
I started writing before computers were commonly available. But, unlike some who are nostalgic for the era of pen and ink, I feel only joy about relying on machines in my struggle to communicate with written language. My handwriting was inelegant from the start. I never bothered to ask if neatness counted, because it didn’t […]
Teaching Digital Libraries with Viewshare: An Interview with Dr. Erik Mitchell
This is a guest post by Camille Salas, the Viewshare.org coordinator for the Library of Congress. This past December, I shared a lesson plan that uses the Library’s Viewshare platform to create digital libraries. Dr. Erik Mitchell, who teaches the Organization of Information class at the University of Maryland’s iSchool, created the lesson plan. After a pilot […]
Content Matters Interview: An Interview with David McClure of the Neatline Project
In this installment of the Content Matters interview series of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance Content Working Group we’re featuring an interview David McClure, a Web Applications Specialist on the R&D team at the Scholars’ Lab at the University of Virginia. David is working on the Omeka + Neatline project and pursuing research projects that explore […]
Digital Preservation Pioneer: Clifford Lynch
Clifford Lynch is widely regarded as an oracle in the culture of networked information. Lynch monitors the global information ecosystem for cultural trends and technological developments. He ponders their variables, interdependencies and influencing factors. He confers with colleagues and draws conclusions. Then he reports his observations through lectures, conference presentations and writings. People who know […]
What are We Going to do About Hardware?
On May 20-21, 2013, the Library of Congress hosted one in its series of small invitational digital content at-risk summits, this one on the topic of software preservation. “Preserving.exe: Toward a National Strategy for Preserving Software” covered a wide range of topics around software preservation, every type of software and interactive media art and engaged multiple […]
End of Semester Thoughts and Farewells
The following is a guest post by Tess Webre, former intern with NDIIPP at the Library of Congress For the past semester I have been working with NDIIPP learning the tools of the trade, creating resources, and crafting fun blog posts (or at least trying). Sad to say, the semester is over. Yes, loyal readers, […]
Hey Content Creator: Make Mine Lossless!
I’ve always loved the term “lossy” compression (add a “y” to anything and the “cute” factor really goes up). But just like a baby tiger is cute only so long as you understand that it will one day grow into a vicious, man-eating beast, lossy compression is cute only so long as you understand that […]