Weekly readings - 16 March 2007

History, Digitized (and Abridged). Katie Hafner. New York Times. March 10, 2007

Archives and museums hold many important items that will probably not be digitized in the near future. This increases the possibility that they will be ignored as people expect more that all information is on the internet. A major problem is the cost of digitizing materials. Many items will still exist only in paper, LPs, magnetic tape and film. Libraries tend to digitize the items that are unique to their collection. But by putting the items on the internet, the number who use them increase dramatically. The LDS Church has initiated large scanning projects and hopes to have hundreds of millions of images online in the next five years. Others are digitizing collections which allow much broader access to the materials, but copyright is an issue. There is very little room in copyright law for preservation. The amount of material available can be overwhelming.

Director's Message. Anne-Imelda M. Radice. News & Events. March 2007.

The Webwise Conference: Stewardship in the Digital Age: Managing Museum and Library Collections for Preservation and Use highlighted the huge shift underway in museums and libraries. In a short time they have gone from knowing almost nothing about preserving digital objects to now understanding that digitization is an important part of conservation and use. Besides preserving the physical objects, institutions realize they need digital repositories for collections that are:

- physically vulnerable

- on fragile or unstable media

- born digital

Digitization protects historically important collections and addresses future collections. There is a great need to develop a new set of digital preservation skills in order to address digital objects. These collections can increase public awareness and interest in existing collections that may currently be unknown. Digital stewardship is an important part of the overall mission of libraries and museums as they care for their collections.

Quad-layer DVD Technology Becomes the Third HD Format. Marcus Yam. DailyTech. March 11, 2007.

New Medium Enterprises (NME) has developed the Versatile Multilayer Disc (VMD), a new optical-based format capable of storing 20GB of data. VMD is a red-laser technology that achieves its storage capacity by using a greater number of layers. VMD is the same size and thickness as DVD. However, while DVD technology uses two layers of a disc, VMD technology has multi-layering where up to 5GB can be stored on each layer.

Version 3.0 Launched. Mia Garlick. Creative Commons Website. February 23, 2007.

The latest version of the Creative Commons license is now available. A new generic license has been created. The new licenses ensure that there is consistent, express treatment of the issues of moral rights and collecting royalties and that there are no legal barriers to people being able to remix creativity as intended.

Intel Faces Up to E-Mail Retention Problems in AMD Lawsuit. Chris Preimesberger. eWeek. March 7, 2007.

A U.S. federal judge on March 7 gave Intel 30 days to try to recover about 1,000 lost e-mails that it was required to keep for an antitrust lawsuit. The suit was filed AMD (a competitor) in 2005. Intel could have been easily avoided the digital storage problems with careful planning. The new U.S. federal court rules enacted last December require companies to be able to quickly find data required by the federal court.

Principles for Digitized Content. ALA. Website. March 2, 2007.

An ALA task force introduced the draft Principles for Digitized Content. These have been put on the ALA blog and they are interested in comments. The principles in brief are:

1. Digital libraries ARE libraries and ALA policies and values apply fully.

2. Digital content must be given the same consideration as regular content, including preservation.

3. Digital collections must be sustainable and requires long-term management capabilities.

4. Digitization requires collaboration which will require strong organizational support

5. Digital activity requires ongoing communication for its success.

6. Digital collections increasingly address an international audience.

7. Digital collections are developed and sustained by educated staff, requiring continuous learning

8. Digital materials require appropriate preservation, including the development of standards, best practices, and models for sustainable funding to guarantee long term commitment.

9. Digital collections and their materials must adhere to standards, serve the broadest community of users, support sustainable access and use over time, and promote the core library values

Model Plan for an Archival Authority Implementing Digital Recordkeeping and Archiving. Australian Digital Recordkeeping Initiative (ADRI). 2 March 2007.

This 32 page Word document is a list of the components, tasks and resources needed to develop a digital recordkeeping / archiving capability. It addresses creating recordkeeping standards and developing a digital archives repository. It is based on the OAIS model. It outlines the strategies, functions, and tasks to develop, implement, and review the repository. The functions for preservation planning are:

- Monitor / interact with the designated community to understand requirements and changes

- Monitor the emerging technology and standards

- Develop and recommend preservation strategies

- Develop packaging designs and detailed migration plans and prototypes

- Implement administrative policies and directives