tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80762836481147767402024-09-06T13:47:51.101-07:00Ten Thousand Year Blog (August 02010-)David Mattison is an archivist (retired from active duty), historian and digital culture observer from British Columbia, Canada. His Ten Thousand Year Blog was hosted by WordPress.com between October 02008 and August 7, 02010. The photograph in the header was taken on May 22, 02009 at the Kew Gardens Tube station following a visit to the National Archives, England.David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.comBlogger429125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-2262921958754914792017-03-07T09:46:00.000-08:002017-03-07T22:38:37.149-08:00New URL for original "Camera Workers" siteDue to the impending closure of the Shaw.ca web space on which I had hosted since 1999 Camera Workers: The British Columbia, Alaska and Yukon Photographic Directory, 1858-1950, I have integrated the original site with the newer version. The integrated site, based on the design of the original Shaw-hosted site, uses HTML frames coding.
The integrated site is at http://David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-23742802738616209542016-03-15T22:16:00.000-07:002016-03-15T22:16:43.289-07:00Death in the archivesDistressing news from Thailand where eight people died at a bank as the result of a accidental release of fire extinguishing chemicals. Where did this tragedy occur? In the basement archive room of the Siam Commercial Bank's headquarters in Bangkok. Contractors were working on the system and tripped it. The chemical is called Pyrogen.
Source: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-64639233451992889572015-11-08T10:34:00.001-08:002015-11-08T10:34:22.043-08:00Colonial North American Project at Harvard UniversityHarvard University has embarked on a remarkable multi-year project to digitize and make freely available all 17th and 18th century archival records and publications from all its campus repositories relating to life in colonial North America. This ambitious enterprise is called the Colonial North Amercian Project at Harvard University.
In addition to the collection itself, there are also a seriesDavid Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-62187009285773367412015-09-03T10:49:00.000-07:002015-09-03T10:49:40.582-07:00BitCurator Consortium launches websiteThe BitCurator Consortium (BCC) has launched its website at http://bitcuratorconsortium.org/. The website contains numerous information resources about the BitCurator Consortium, digital forensics, and more.
The BCC is an independent, community-led membership association that supports the curation of born-digital materials by libraries, archives, and museums. Members of the BitCurator user David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-2453664935854709332015-06-17T12:10:00.002-07:002015-06-17T12:10:50.878-07:00Digital Library Federation DLF Forum meeting in Vancouver, BC, Canada, October 02015The Digital Library Federation is holdings its DLF Forum in Vancouver, BC, Canada from October 26 to 28, 02015. The call for paper proposals is open until June 22, 02015 and the program will be announced in August. This is the first time the meeting has been held outside the United States.David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-22038421856581566822015-06-12T10:42:00.002-07:002015-06-12T10:44:42.690-07:00Library and Archives Canada restores archival development fundingLibrary and Archives Canada's new Documentary Heritage Communities Program (DHCP) appears to replace the National Archival Development Program
(NADP) that the Library and Archives Canada cancelled more than three years ago. According to the Guidelines page,
Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is investing $8,698,000 million
over five (5) years to implement the Documentary Heritage Communities
David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-704081577390172682015-06-09T07:27:00.001-07:002015-06-09T07:27:55.881-07:00Hug an archivist: happy International Archives Day 02015June 9, 02015 is International Archives Day. Here is the official blurb as posted on the mailing list ARCAN-L about the importance of International Archives Day and why you should hug an archivist today. I did not mean that literally, however, archivists and archives need our support as much as fire departments, police departments and libraries:
The International Council on Archives invites the David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-40428723887078035992015-05-22T08:32:00.000-07:002015-05-22T08:32:48.201-07:001912 Goad Fire Insurance Plan now available in VanmapVanmap, a geomatics tool from the City of Vancouver, now includes a layer representing Goad’s 1912 Fire Insurance Plan contributed by the City of Vancouver Archives. The fire insurance plan data is also available through the city's Open Data Catalogue. You can read an extensive description by the city archives about the fire insurance plan.David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-78391192605768679692015-04-17T09:03:00.000-07:002015-04-17T09:03:35.154-07:00Royal BC Museum launches crowd-sourcing transcription projectFrom the announcement circulated to mailing lists such as ARCAN-L:
Today, to celebrate National Volunteer Week, the Royal BC Museum launched Transcribe (transcribe.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca), a crowd-sourcing website that invites the public to transcribe valuable historical records from our archival collection.
David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-7594695116616324262015-04-15T21:35:00.001-07:002015-04-15T21:35:26.487-07:00Wonder becomes reality: BC Government reaches agreement with Royal BC Museum on transfer of thousands of boxes to the BC ArchivesYou read it here first when I posted in early March 02015 a reflection about Bill 5, the Government Information Act that is working its way through the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia:
I wonder too whether with this new legislation the door may be opening
for the payment of a one-time fee and transfer of thousands of boxes to
the "museum archives of government" as the bill styles the David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-43530230574079182572015-04-13T06:51:00.000-07:002015-04-13T06:56:42.868-07:00"Tackling the wicked problem of managing records in the digital environment" lecture, Victoria, BC, April 21, 02015As part of the Archives Association of British Columbia's pre-conference, Dr. Julie McLeod, Professor in Records Management, iSchool, Northumbria University, United Kingdom, will present a lecture titled "Tackling the wicked problem of managing records in the digital environment".
The lecture will be held on April 21, 02015 at St. Ann's Academy Auditorium, 835 Humboldt St., Victoria, BC, David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-74796180028462997192015-03-03T22:23:00.000-08:002015-03-03T08:13:35.538-08:00British Columbia Government Information Act begins second reading in Legislative AssemblyUpdate for March 3, 02015:
The second reading of Bill, the Government Information Act, began on March 2, 02015 in the British Columbia Legislative Assembly. The Hansard transcript is here: http://www.leg.bc.ca/hansard/40th4th/20150302pm-House-Blues.htm
In speaking about the bill, opposition member Doug Routley gave a lengthy critique and highlighted the 33,000 boxes of records in government David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-82344284077622227652015-02-23T06:58:00.000-08:002015-02-23T06:58:34.441-08:00Alice turns 150The sesquicentennial of the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is 2015. Happy birthday! The Lewis Carroll Society of North America has information on events and commemorations for Alice150.David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-12126006202874410642015-02-21T21:19:00.000-08:002015-02-21T21:20:26.471-08:00Denmark presents digitized cultural heritage to the worldAccording to this BBC News story, Denmark has opened its digitized cultural heritage of over two million images and other types of content to the world. The site is called arkivdk. The content comes from over 500 Danish archives. There appears to be no English language interface as yet.David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-7850695877234819612015-02-19T08:57:00.001-08:002015-02-19T08:57:44.067-08:00Key reports and publications in Canadian archival historyThe Association of Canadian Archivists created a page pulling together Key Reports and Publications in Canadian Archival History. The documents span the development of Canadian archives from the 19th century to the present.David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-57966870777423298452015-02-17T06:49:00.002-08:002015-02-17T06:49:32.367-08:00Google executive despairs of a digital dark agePeople notice when a Google executive talks about a digital dark age. Vint Cerf, an Internet pioneer and Google executive, was speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting and warning of "bit rot" and "digital vellum" to stem the tide of an "information black hole".
Ironically, as The Atlantic reported in its take on this story, there was a fire at a David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-19180468312670630352015-02-15T09:52:00.000-08:002015-02-15T09:56:09.563-08:00Alien invasion imminent (in galactic time)?If the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in California gets its way, we'll be inviting aliens to Earth. I think this is an extremely bad idea. While the chances are extremely remote that we'd see a single space craft in Earth orbit any time soon, I come down on the side of the sci-fi camp that says the only reason to make such an interstellar journey is for the resources David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-77605364099421784002015-02-04T20:52:00.000-08:002015-02-04T20:52:29.395-08:00Leading in the Digital World: Opportunities for Canada’s Memory Institutions reportThe Council of Canadian Academics has released its report Leading in the Digital World: Opportunities for Canada's Memory Institutions. The report was assembled by an Expert Panel on Memory Institutions and the Digital Revolution haired by Dr. Doug Owram. David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-50884067814623458892014-11-21T14:08:00.000-08:002014-11-21T14:08:04.438-08:00Good morning IRENE, new hope for early audio formatsThe new IRENE Audio Preservation service at the Northeast Document
Conservation Center (NEDCC) is the culmination of a decade of research
and development at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the US
Library of Congress.
The IRENE technology uses a non-contact approach, which eliminates the
possibility of damage caused by mechanical contact of a stylus on
fragile media. The David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-79417348950810325982014-11-14T11:59:00.000-08:002014-11-14T11:59:31.721-08:00Saskatchewan Historic Newspapers Online launched
The Saskatchewan Historic Newspapers Online collection has been created in collaboration between the Saskatchewan Archives and Sask History Online (SHO).
The project when completed will see the digitization of newspapers from
all across Saskatchewan from 1878 through to the mid 1960s. The first
stage of the project that you see here focuses upon Saskatchewan
newspapers published during the David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-1790144191668190262014-11-13T13:14:00.000-08:002014-11-13T23:12:43.771-08:00Royal Society of Canada expert panel on future of archives and libraries releases its reportThe Royal Society of Canada’s Expert Panel on The Future Now: Canada’s
Libraries, Archives, and Public Memory is now available at: https://rsc-src.ca/en/expert-panels/rsc-reports/future-now-canadas-libraries-archives-and-public-memory
A free copy of the full report is downloadable at the bottom of the page.
Source: ARCAN-L mailing list, 020141113 David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-74753180809217736352014-09-03T08:48:00.000-07:002014-09-03T08:48:00.911-07:00Internet Archive Book Images via FlickrFlickr is hosting nearly 3 million images extracted from digitized books at the Internet Archive through programming developed by an academic researcher. The Internet Archive Book Images is an amazing resource and it's all in the public domain.
Source: "Millions of historical images posted to Flickr" by Leo Kelion, BBC News: Technology, http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28976849David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-42044779491078173952014-07-22T10:27:00.000-07:002014-07-22T10:27:03.751-07:00Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC releases special report, "A Failure to Archive"Elizabeth Denham, the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC, released a special report on July 22, 2014 titled "A Failure to Archive: Recommendations to Modernize Government Records Management". The report deals with three issues:
the decade-old backlog of 30,000+ boxes of records awaiting transfer from government to the BC Archives, which is part of the Royal BC Museum, a Crown David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-76694999672297503472013-08-14T10:34:00.003-07:002013-08-14T10:34:57.577-07:00The Getty opens its public domain art to allThe Getty launched its Open Content Program on August 12, 02013 to make digital versions of its public domain artwork available to all. They went above and beyond, as have some other cultural organizations, by providing "high-resolution, reproduction-quality images with embedded metadata, some over 100 megabytes in size."
I applaud The Getty's decision and hope that many more cultural David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8076283648114776740.post-41139344138281387662013-08-09T16:34:00.000-07:002013-08-09T16:34:46.451-07:00Census of Canada 1921 available for free at Ancestry.ca
In one of those P3 (public-private partnership) deals, the first phase in the release of the 1921 Census of Canada was announced by the Library and Archives Canada on August 9, 2013. Here's how it reads:
Canadians can now browse the 1921 Census data of the Canadian population, free of charge on Ancestry.ca.
The 1921 Census includes 197,529 images; it is therefore a massive electronic file David Mattisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16852773331448048649noreply@blogger.com0