Ten Thousand Year Blog (August 02010-)

Born Digital report available for public comments

2013-01-14T18:50:00.002-08:00

In 2011, an international group of ten archivists and special collections curators gathered for the first of a series of conversations about how born-digital materials are acquired and transferred to archival repositories. The resulting report, Born Digital: Guidance for Donors, Dealers, and Archival Repositories, offers recommendations to help ensure the physical and intellectual well being of digital media and files during different stages of the acquisition process.

A draft of Born Digital has been published with MediaCommons Press, an innovative online publisher committed to open public review, and is currently open for your comments: http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/mcpress/borndigital/
We invite you to read the report, share your thoughts via the easy-to-use commenting interface, and take part in a discussion with the larger community of people concerned about the acquisition and preservation of born-digital materials. Your feedback will provide an important level of peer review as the report’s co-authors continue revising and preparing Born Digital for final publication.
If you have any questions about the report, please contact Gabby Redwine at gredwine@austin.utexas.edu

Source: DIGITAL-PRESERVATION@JISCMAIL.AC.UK, 02013 01 09

UBC Library digitizes historic BC newspapers

2012-07-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

According to this Canadiana.ca update, UBC Library has completed the digitization of 24 historic BC newspapers dating between 1865 and 1924. You can search these through the Canadiana Discovery Portal, a Google-like search engine that currently has its own failings, not the least of which is the ability to isolate a set of records such those valuable newspapers.

As the update states, "There are 8862 issues in total and over 45,000 pages. Here are the names of the newspapers:

Abbotsford Post
Alberni Advocate
Atlin Claim
Bella Coola Courier
Boundary Creek Times
British Columbia Record
Cariboo Sentinel (Barkerville)
Cumberland News
Daily Building Record (Vancouver)
Daily Ledger (Ladysmith)
Grand Forks Sun
Hedley Gazette
Hot Springs News (Ainsworth)
Kootenay Mail (Revelstoke)
Ledge (Greenwood)
Ledge (Nakusp, New Denver, Fernie)
Massett Leader
Miner (Nelson)
Mining Review (Sandon)
Moyie Leader
Nelson Economist
Phoenix Pioneer
Prospector (Fort Steele)
Tribune (Nelson)"

In the Canadiana Discovery Portal Search "Everything" option list, you can change the search option to Titles. There's a catalogue record for the newspaper itself and then individual records for each issue which will take you to UBC's British Columbia Historic Newspapers site. Congratulations UBC on making these invaluable resources freely available.

LinkedIn security breach (June 7, 2012), change your password

2012-06-10T10:54:00.002-07:00

In case you have not heard or been informed, as I was not, LinkedIn.com has had a security breach and 6.4 million member passwords were stolen. The theft was publicized on Thursday, June 7, 2012. As of June 10, 2012, all LinkedIn has done is to post a notice on its site that you should reset your password. In my case, the site remembered I was logged in from a previous visit and did not automatically log me out. I'm not sure whether that's a plus or a minus.

International Archives Day - June 9, 2012

2012-06-09T09:35:00.000-07:00

June 9 has been designated as International Archives Day by the International Council on Archives. Given the current (ongoing since May 2012) turmoil in Canada around the elimination of the National Archival Development Program (NADP), a funding source for archives and archival organizations, by the Library and Archives Canada (LAC), as well as the severe cuts at LAC by its current head, Dr. Daniel J. Caron, is it any wonder that no one appears to be celebrating this event in Canada? Most publicly funded archives are also closed on Saturdays and Sundays, which might also explain the lack of hoopla.

OpenMetadata.org opens

2012-06-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

OpenMetadata.org has launched. It's a catchy but very misleading name since it deals only with statistical and scientific metadata. The site is the property of "a small group of private companies working with research data and statistics, dedicated to providing services around metadata standards such as SDMX and DDI. Our goal is to provide better visibility and use of existing data resources, whether these are publically available or require permission to access." (About Us).

One of the databases you can consult that makes use of these standards is the Open Survey Catalog, compiled in collaboration with the International Household Survey Network (established 2004). As the name implies these are essentially questionnaires on a wide variety of topics. You may or may not, however, be able to access the actual data because the word catalog means this is a database describing these surveys.

Buy American? President Obama bought French game Just Dance 3 for Christmas

2011-12-23T10:23:00.000-08:00

According to a tweet from French multinational computer gaming company Ubisoft, United States President Obama obtained their game Just Dance 3 as a family Christmas present. So much for Buy American! What's that about Do what I say, but not what I do....

The Ubisoft tweet also caught the attention of the venerable Forbes with this headline
"President Barack Obama Endorses Ubisoft's Just Dance 3 Videogame For Christmas". Forbes missed the obvious Buy American contradiction.

KEEP project releases new version of Emulation Framework (EF)

2011-12-22T08:50:00.000-08:00

The European project KEEP released a new version of the Emulation Framework (version 1.1.0). The software is open source (Apache v2 license) and free to use for any organisation or individual. The software allows you to access old computer files and programs using emulation without the need to go through difficult installations and configurations.

Source: DIGITAL-PRESERVATION@JISCMAIL.AC.UK, 02011 12 22

The Burgess Shale, a new Web site from the Royal Ontario Museum

2011-12-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

The Royal Ontario Museum developed a Virtual Museum of Canada Web site around The Burgess Shale, a UNESCO World Hertiage Site, which is located entirely in BC in Yoho National Park. The ROM has done fieldwork at the Burgess Shale. None of the Burgess Shale fossils appear to be on display anywhere in BC, so it's great to have this opportunity for a virtual visit. The guy with the sledgehammer kind of worries me though.

NMC (New Media Consortium) Horizon Report 2011 Museum Edition released

2011-12-20T20:18:00.000-08:00

The NMC (New Media Consortium) Horizon Report 2011 Museum Edition was released at the Museum Computer Network Conference in November 02011 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. In order to download the report as a PDF file you'll need to create a free account.

Archives Society of Alberta launches its blog

2011-12-15T20:04:00.000-08:00

The Archives Society of Alberta has launched its blog through the free WordPress.com community at http://www.archivesalberta.wordpress.com/

The RSS feed URL is http://archivesalberta.wordpress.com/feed/

Library and Archives Canada launches blog as pilot project

2011-11-24T12:18:00.000-08:00

Not only has the Library and Archives Canada launched a "corporate" Web site (en francais http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/fra/Pages/default.aspx), which seems to be an unnecessary expense and annoying instance of redundancy, they've also set up a blog as a pilot project with the prosaic name of the Library and Archives Canada Blog: A Pilot Project (the URL is actually a better title, The Discover Blog). The first post is dated November 24, 02011.

The RSS feed for the blog is http://thediscoverblog.com/feed/

UNESCO adopts the Universal Declaration on Archives

2011-11-07T10:38:00.000-08:00

On November 7, 02011, UNESCO adopted the Universal Declaration on Archives proposed by the International Council on Archives.

The first version of the Declaration was written by archivists in Québec in 2007. It was then adopted by the Section of Professional Associations (SPA) in ICA, who developed the text and made sure that its key messages were understood across languages and cultures. It generated many stimulating debates in ICA, before it obtained unanimous approval at the AGM in Oslo in September 2010.

Since then the international archival community has worked tirelessly to have the Declaration adopted by UNESCO. Today's decision is the culmination of intense efforts led by Papa Momar Diop, the Ambassador of Senegal at UNESCO and the former National Archivist of Senegal. He has been ably supported by Jens Boel, Head Archivist at UNESCO, and activists in the ICA network throughout the world.

Google eBookstore launches in Canada

2011-11-02T10:45:00.000-07:00

Google has launched its competitive Google eBooks in Canada. They're going head to head against the likes of Amazon.ca and Indigo.ca (Chapters). Barnes & Noble does not have a Canadian presence. Google's offerings can be read on any current technology platform: Android operating system devices, smartphones, Apple products, Web browsers and "any dedicated ebook reader that supports the Adobe eBook platform, including the Reader™ from Sony".

While there are supposed to be around two million public domain books you can download for free, there is no one-click way to find them. You have to search for and then click the "Free Only" button on the search results page. There are, however, two "Best of the Free" lists, one for "classics" and one for Canadiana. The Canadiana one is rather short and I suspect is based on the number of times users have downloaded the titles.

The search results sorting options are also rather primitive: Any price or Free, and Relevance or Date published. The Date published is in descending order (most recent to oldest).

For this to be a useful tool, there need to be many more filtering options such as by author (A-Z and Z-A for starters), by title (A-Z and Z-A for starters), by date range (by decades and specific years for starters) and by publishers. How hard is it to figure this stuff out ahead of time Google?

Census of Canada, 1871 available at Library and Archives Canada

2011-10-09T10:35:00.000-07:00

The Library and Archives Canada launched in late August 02011 a full, online version of the Census of Canada, 1871. Previously, the census for that year was only available for the province of Ontario. The full census is searchable by name and several other key access points and provides access to a PDF or JPG digitized image of the microfilmed census schedule for each individual in the database.

The Keepers Registry for e-journals in beta release

2011-10-04T09:24:00.000-07:00

From the announcement on DIGITAL-PRESERVATION@JISCMAIL.AC.UK (02011 10 04):

EDINA and the ISSN International Centre are pleased to announce the Beta release of the Keepers Registry, the e-journals preservation registry service. The Keepers Registry is available online at http://thekeepers.org.
The Keepers Registry renames and replaces the PEPRS Beta service which was launched in April 2011. The Keepers Registry is the product of JISC-funded project activity and provides freely available means to discover which e-journals are being preserved by the leading archival organisations. The metadata from an additional agency, HathiTrust, has been included in this release of the Keepers Registry, as well as new functionality to support browsing by journal title and publisher.
The PEPRS project was initially funded as a two-year project to scope, design and build a prototype, during which user requirements were gathered from librarians and preservation agencies. The present funding, until July 2012, is geared towards implementation of a service-quality system. Suitable developments from the PEPRS project activity will be implemented into the Keepers Registry.
The work of the PEPRS project and the launch of the Beta release of the Keepers Registry will be discussed at the annual meeting of the Directors of the ISSN National Centres to be held in Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina, from 5th - 7th October 2011.
The idea for the registry was mooted in various reports since 2003 and the findings of a JISC-commissioned report carried out by the University of Loughborough and Rightscom and published in 2008. Further background information on the project and details of relevant reports are available on the PEPRS project website at http://edina.ac.uk/projects/peprs/index.html The six archiving agencies which have been participating in the project and have made metadata available to the PEPRS Beta service include:
- British Library
- CLOCKSS Archive
- e-Depot at the Konjinklijke Bibliotheek
- Global LOCKSS Network
- HathiTrust
- Portico
It is planned to extend the scope of the service by including metadata from other archiving agencies. Additional functionality will also be added to the service throughout 2011 and 2012 and details of this are set out in the FAQ section on the service.
A programme to test new functionality is being developed and the project team would welcome offers from users to assist in the testing process.
If you would like to get involved please contact us at edina@ed.ac.uk.

African Nova Scotian Diaspora: Selected Government Records of Black Settlement, 1791-1839

2011-09-23T09:32:00.000-07:00

The Nova Scotia Archives is pleased to present a significant new online resource features unique documents reflecting the struggles and survival of African Nova Scotians, as the world marks the United Nations' International Year for People of African Descent. It contains over 500 digitized and fully searchable government documents relating to early African Nova Scotian immigration and emigration. Many of the documents are rich in the names and reflect the experiences of Black Refugees who came here at the close of the War of 1812.

You can visit the exhibit at: http://gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/diaspora/

Source: ARCAN-L mailing list, 02011 09 23

Canadian Feature Film Database at Library and Archives Canada

2011-09-08T08:25:00.000-07:00

The Library and Archives Canada has a Canadian Feature Film Database. It appears to have been online since at least May 02010. Here is the blurb from the start page for the database:

The Canadian Feature Film Database is based on the printed Index (Canadian Feature Film Index) begun in 1972.

The Database based on the Index:

compiles the principal credits of every Canadian feature film from 1913 to 2009

establishes a list of Canadian feature films from published information up to 2009

features currently over 4,300 films

Future updates:
addition of post-2009 films is planned for a future iteration of the database

Day of Digital Archives, October 6, 02011

2011-09-06T16:59:00.000-07:00

From the announcement on various mailing lists (2011 09 06) posted by Gretchen Gueguen, Digital Archivist, Digital Curation Services, University of Virginia Library:

The Day of Digital Archives is an initiative to raise awareness of digital archives among both users and managers. On this day, archivists, digital humanists, programmers, or anyone else creating, using, or managing digital archives are asked to devote some of their social media output (i.e. tweets, blog posts, youtube videos, etc.) to describing their work with digital archives. By collectively documenting what we do, we will be answering questions like: What are digital archives? Who uses them? How are they created and managed? Why are they important? This year’s Day of Digital Archives will be held on October 6 and entries will be gathered at the Day of Digital Archives blog.

What is meant by “digital archives” well, primarily archives, repositories, content management systems and other initiatives that collect or manage born-digital material. These initiatives don’t have to primarily collect born-digital materials…in fact they are more likely to only have some born-digital content as part of their mandate. Or, maybe they don’t really have a “mandate” at all…maybe someone will contribute their thoughts about managing their own personal digital content or social media presence. The thread ties the participants together is that they collect, manage, preserve, develop, use, think about or otherwise love born-digital content.

Do you create, manage, or use digital archives? Would you like to participate? Well then, drop me a line at gretchen[.]gueguen[@]gmail[.]com with your contact info and I’ll keep you up to date!

"Memory failure detected" article, Times Higher Education

2011-09-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

The Times Higher Education (THE) published an article online on September 1, 02011 about archiving the Web it called "Memory failure detected". The article is by Zoë Corbyn. The article looks at the various Web archiving research projects and current Web archive systems and facilities.

"Searching for the Stars" (the real ones in the heavens) through Searcher magazine

2011-09-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

My most recent article for Searcher magazine, "Searching for the Stars: Cosmic Views and Databases", made the cover of the September 2011 issue as you can see below and is available online (just select the hyperlinked article title in this sentence).

Searcher magazine cover, September 2011

Call for papers for Social Media Conference on December 2, 02011

2011-08-16T08:30:00.000-07:00

From the announcement posted to the WEB4LIB mailing list:

The new Texas Social Media Research Institute (TSMRI), located at Tarleton State University, will hold their first annual Social Media Conference at Tarleton State University on Friday, December 2, 2011.

This conference would consist of two tracks: a research presentation track as well as a training and development track. The conference planning committee is actively seeking papers, panels, and training workshops focused on, but not limited to the following topics:

* Facebook, Twitter, Linked In (How to Use the Technologies)
* Social Media in Business (Ideas for Entrepreneurs and Large Organizations)
* Social Media in Education
* Social Media in the Non-Profit Sector
* Social Media in Interpersonal and Intercultural Communication
* Practical Solutions for Social Media Problems
* Benefits and Disadvantages of Social Media in K-12 and Higher Education
* Social Media and Generational Communication
* Social Media and Information Sciences/Library Sciences
* Social Media and Mobile Applications and Devices

Additional Information:

Possible forms of submission include: panels (including roundtables and discussions), papers/abstracts, and training workshops.

Complete the conference submission form (http://www.tinyurl.com/SocialMediaConferenceCall/) and e-mail papers/panels to Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards (texassocialmediaresearch@gmail.com) no later than Friday, October 14, 2011.

If you have any questions, please contact the Texas Social Media Research Institute via e-mail (texassocialmediaresearch@gmail.com) via e-mail or telephone (254-307-8211).

DataBC, BC Government Open Data site opens

2011-07-19T19:50:00.000-07:00

On July 19, 02011, the British Columbia Government launched its Open Data initiative through its DataBC Web site. The data that's currently available appears to be heavily weighted towards geomatic applications. The government is encouraging the creation of Apps and provides links to various Tools "to mashup BC data."

The Signal: Digital Preservation Blog from Library of Congress

2011-07-11T15:24:00.000-07:00

The United States Library of Congress' National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) launched a blog dedicated to digital Preservation called The Signal: Digital Preservation on May 31, 02011.

The RSS feed URL for the blog is http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/feed/

International Archives Day 02011

2011-06-09T08:11:00.000-07:00

June 9, 02011 is International Archives Day around the world. This global event was created by the International Council on Archives in 2007 and the date marks the day in 1948 that the ICA was established under UNESCO.

Today archivists are using Twitter to engage their clients through #AskArchivists where you can ask them a question and hopefully get tweeted back with an answer. In the good old days we used a telephone.

European Union's SCAlable Preservation Environments, the SCAPE project

2011-05-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

The European Union is funding a project known as SCAPE, for SCAlable Preservation Environments. Here's the blurb from the SCAPE site:

The SCAPE project will develop scalable services for planning and execution of institutional preservation strategies on an open source platform that orchestrates semi-automated workflows for large-scale, heterogeneous collections of complex digital objects. SCAPE will enhance the state of the art of digital preservation in three ways: by developing infrastructure and tools for scalable preservation actions; by providing a framework for automated, quality-assured preservation workflows and by integrating these components with a policy-based preservation planning and watch system. These concrete project results will be validated within three large-scale Testbeds from diverse application areas.