Archive for February 2014 (17 posts)

NDSR at WebWise, and an Exciting Announcement!

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The following is a guest post by Lauren Work, a National Digital Stewardship Resident at PBS.

Trevor Owens (standing) and Butch Lazorchak (seated)

Trevor Owens (standing) and Butch Lazorchak (seated).  Photo by Lauren Work.

After our inaugural experience presenting just a few weeks ago at ALA Midwinter, the residents of the National Digital Stewardship Residency program headed to WebWise 2014 in Baltimore, MD on February 10th to present our project progress as well as our experience with planning and implementing digital preservation projects.

Residents presented as part of the “Level Up! Prioritizing Your Organization’s Next (or First) Steps for Digital Preservation” session hosted by NDSA and NDIIPP. The first portion of this session was devoted to a discussion of the NDSA agenda while the second portion focused on digital challenges that many cultural heritage institutions face. The latter discussion point provoked a rousing and welcome question and answer session about the NDSA Levels of Preservation, as many in the audience were curious about pragmatic ways these guidelines could be applied to their own collections.

Residents also presented during the second half of the session and the diversity of our projects was made clear by the myriad approaches and challenges that each of us faces in planning our digital preservation projects.

Jaime McCurry focused on promoting project awareness within an institution while Julia Blase discussed planned sustainability and support.  Heidi Dowding spoke about the importance of understanding institutional disposition, Emily Reynolds gave detail on automating processes where possible, and Lee Nilsson educated the room (and got the laughs with his “.cow” file format) on crowdsourcing file format action plans.

Jaime McCurry presents at WebWise 2014

Jaime McCurry presents at WebWise 2014. Photo by Lauren Work.

Molly Schwartz introduced her completed web accessibility toolkit and designing for users, while Maureen McCormick Harlow discussed the importance of project planning and time management. Margo Padilla spoke about documentation and transparency when developing access models, and Erica Titkemeyer documented the importance of constructing solutions from tools that already exist. For my part, I focused on the role that collaboration between institutions can play for successful digital projects as well as the importance of reliable and comprehensive metadata.

In addition to presenting, residents attended various sessions that covered topics from engaging users through crowdsourcing to APIs (one of my favorites). There was also an abundance of project demonstrations ranging from Mukurtu to the Great Ape Heart Project and various breakout sessions. It was a lovely experience and a conference I hope to return to next year, and I know many residents share this sentiment.

On to the announcement promised in the title of this post! The Library of Congress, IMLS, and the National Library of Medicine will host a National Digital Stewardship Residency symposium in the spring.

On April 8, 2014, the inaugural cohort of National Digital Stewardship Residents will present a symposium entitled “Emerging Trends in Digital Stewardship” at the National Library of Medicine. The symposium will consist of panel presentations on topics including preserving social media and collaborative workspaces, open government and open data, and digital strategies for public and non-profit institutions. It will also feature a demonstration of BitCurator.

All sessions will be held in the National Library of Medicine’s Lister Hill Auditorium, on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The symposium is free and open to the public. Pre-registration is encouraged.

Program:
Tuesday, April 8, 2014

8:30-9:30         Registration

9:30-9:45         Opening Remarks, George Coulbourne and Kris Nelson, Library of Congress

9:45-10:45       BitCurator Demonstration, Cal Lee, UNC-Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science

11:00-noon      Panel discussion on Social Media, Archiving, and Preserving Collaborative Projects

1:15-2:15         Panel discussion on Open Government and Open Data

2:45-3:45         Panel discussion on Digital Strategies for Public and Non-Profit Institutions

For other information about the symposium, please contact Maureen Harlow at [email protected]

All are welcome.

The residents are very excited to have the opportunity to coordinate this symposium and look forward to all members of the digital community being able to participate in this event. We hope to see many of you in April!

What Do you Mean by Archive? Genres of Usage for Digital Preservers

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One of the tricks to working in an interdisciplinary field like digital preservation is that all too often we can be using the same terms but not actually talking about the same things. In my opinion, the most fraught term in digital preservation discussions is “archive.” At this point, it has come to mean a […]

6 Emerging Initiatives for Digital Collections

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I was asked to present a talk today for an internal group at the Library of Congress based on my recent experiences participating in the Top Tech Trends panel at the 2014 American Library Association Midwinter meeting.  It was suggested that I present a “Leslie-fied” version of the always-inspiring landscape talks that my colleague Cliff […]

Responding to a Call to Action: Preserving Blogs and Discussion Forums in Science, Medicine, Mathematics and Technology

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The following is a guest post by Christie Moffatt, Manager, Digital Manuscripts Program, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine Developing case studies around digital content subject areas has been a major focus of the NDSA Content Working Group, and the activity has enabled members to share the concerns and challenges specific to their communities. […]

Getting Public Radio’s Legacy Off Ageing Rewritable CDs: An Interview with WNYC’s John Passmore

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While many kinds of analog media age with a kind of dignity, taking on a patina of age and the term “vintage,” the same is generally not true of digital media. Of the range of digital media out there, the humble rewritable CD is likely one of the least loved and most rapidly aging and […]

New NDSA Report: The Benefits and Risks of the PDF/A-3 File Format for Archival Institutions

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We’re lucky in the digital stewardship community that our challenges tend to be non life-threatening. Still, when we get fired up about something there is guaranteed to be spirited debate and passionate advocacy on all sides. Such was the case with the release of the PDF/A-3 file format specification in October 2012. We wrote about […]

When it Comes to Keepsakes, What’s the Difference Between Physical and Digital?

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I’m cleaning out my office in preparation for retiring on March 7. I’ve accumulated a few mementos during my career, and moving them out stirs up memories. One of my favorite keepsakes is a framed 1986 poster from the National Archives and Records Administration that proclaims “Our Records, Your Responsibilities.” It offers little in the […]

2014 NDSA Philly Regional Meeting: January 23-24

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The following is a guest post by Nicole Scalessa, IT manager at The Library Company of Philadelphia, an NDSA member. Digital stewardship is a prime topic for small institutions trying to keep pace with the increasing demands for digital content. The Library Company of Philadelphia, a special collections library founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1731, […]

The Heart of the Matter: An NDSR Project and Program Update

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The following is a guest post by Maureen McCormick Harlow, a National Digital Stewardship Resident at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland.  She is working on a project to build a thematic web collection. Greetings from the National Library of Medicine!  It’s hard to believe it, but I’m heading into the fourth quarter […]