Cataloging of Resources Digitized for Preservation


Book Description




LC21


Book Description

Digital information and networks challenge the core practices of libraries, archives, and all organizations with intensive information management needs in many respectsâ€"not only in terms of accommodating digital information and technology, but also through the need to develop new economic and organizational models for managing information. LC21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress discusses these challenges and provides recommendations for moving forward at the Library of Congress, the world's largest library. Topics covered in LC21 include digital collections, digital preservation, digital cataloging (metadata), strategic planning, human resources, and general management and budgetary issues. The book identifies and elaborates upon a clear theme for the Library of Congress that is applicable more generally: the digital age calls for much more collaboration and cooperation than in the past. LC21 demonstrates that information-intensive organizations will have to change in fundamental ways to survive and prosper in the digital age.




A Guide to Distributed Digital Preservation


Book Description

This volume is devoted to the broad topic of distributed digital preservation, a still-emerging field of practice for the cultural memory arena. Replication and distribution hold out the promise of indefinite preservation of materials without degradation, but establishing effective organizational and technical processes to enable this form of digital preservation is daunting. Institutions need practical examples of how this task can be accomplished in manageable, low-cost ways. This guide is written with a broad audience in mind that includes librarians, archivists, scholars, curators, technologists, lawyers, and administrators. Readers may use this guide to gain both a philosophical and practical understanding of the emerging field of distributed digital preservation, including how to establish or join a network.




Digital Preservation for Libraries, Archives, and Museums


Book Description

This new edition of Digital Preservation in Libraries, Archives, and Museums is the most current, complete guide to digital preservation available today. For administrators and practitioners alike, the information in this book is presented readably, focusing on management issues and best practices. Although this book addresses technology, it is not solely focused on technology. After all, technology changes and digital preservation is aimed for the long term. This is not a how-to book giving step-by-step processes for certain materials in a given kind of system. Instead, it addresses a broad group of resources that could be housed in any number of digital preservation systems. Finally, this book is about “things (not technology; not how-to; not theory) I wish I knew before I got started.” Digital preservation is concerned with the life cycle of the digital object in a robust and all-inclusive way. Many Europeans and some North Americans may refer to digital curation to mean the same thing, taking digital preservation to be the very limited steps and processes needed to insure access over the long term. The authors take digital preservation in the broadest sense of the term: looking at all aspects of curating and preserving digital content for long term access. The book is divided into four part: 1.Situating Digital Preservation, 2.Management Aspects, 3.Technology Aspects, and 4.Content-Related Aspects. Digital Preservation will answer questions that you might not have even known you had, leading to more successful digital preservation initiatives.




Why Digitize?


Book Description

This paper is a response to discussions of digitization at meetings of the National Humanities Alliance (NHA). NHA asked the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to evaluate the experiences of cultural institutions with digitization projects to date and to summarize what has been learned about the advantages and disadvantages of digitizing culturally significant materials. Findings revealed that digitization often raises expectations of benefits, cost reductions, and efficiencies that can be illusory and, if not viewed realistically, have the potential to put at risk the collections and services libraries have provided for decades. One such false expectation--that digital conversion has already or will shortly replace microfilming as the preferred medium for preservation reformatting--could result in irreversible losses of information. This paper defines digital information; identifies weaknesses of digitization as a preservation treatment; discusses the benefits and drawbacks of digital technology for access; and highlights issues institutions must consider in contemplating a digital conversion project. (AEF)




Preserving Digital Information


Book Description

Cultural history enthusiasts have asserted the urgent need to protect digital information from imminent loss. This book describes methodology for long-term preservation of all kinds of digital documents. It justifies this methodology using 20th century theory of knowledge communication, and outlines the requirements and architecture for the software needed. The author emphasizes attention to the perspectives and the needs of end users.




Practical Digital Preservation


Book Description

A practical guide to the development and operation of digital preservations services for organizations of any size Practical Digital Preservation offers a comprehensive overview of best practice and is aimed at the non-specialist, assuming only a basic understanding of IT. The book provides guidance as to how to implement strategies with minimal time and resources. Digital preservation has become a critical issue for institutions of all sizes but until recently has mostly been the preserve of national archives and libraries with the resources, time and specialist knowledge available to experiment. As the discipline matures and practical tools and information are increasingly available the barriers to entry are falling for smaller organizations which can realistically start to take active steps towards a preservation strategy. However, the sheer volume of technical information now available on the subject is becoming a significant obstacle and a straightforward guide is required to offer clear and practical solutions. Each chapter in Practical Digital Preservation covers the essential building blocks of digital preservation strategy and implementation, leading the reader through the process. International case studies from organizations such as the Wellcome Library, Central Connecticut State University Library in the USA and Gloucestershire Archives in the UK illustrate how real organizations have approached the challenges of digital preservation. Key topics include: • Making the case for digital preservation • Understanding your requirements • Models for implementing a digital preservation service • Selecting and acquiring digital objects • Accessioning and ingesting digital objects • Describing digital objects • Preserving digital objects • Providing access to users • Future trends. Readership: Anyone involved in digital preservation and those wanting to get a better understanding of the process, students studying library and information science (LIS), archives and records management courses and academics getting to grips with practical issues.




History and Electronic Artefacts


Book Description

We are now entering a world of electronic communications where an increasing amount of contemporary information is created and retained only in electronic form. How will such unstable flows of information be preserved for future historians? Will the future have a past? Will the history of ourcontemporary world be lost to our descendants? History and Electronic Artefacts is the first publication to examine the implications of this revolution for historical research. Historians are used to handling paper and parchment record in archives. These are actual pieces of correspondence which passed between historical actors. They are alsorelatively stable artefacts which can be preserved easily. Two factors introduced by the electronic revolution threaten the existence of paper archives: the dissociation between information content and the media by which it is transmitted ruptures the solidity of the archival object. The ability tostore electronic information anywhere and access it remotely via networks could make the central paper archive redundant. Experts from the fields of information management and technology, data archiving, library science, as well as historians, consider the issues raised in depth. The authors also place a unique emphasis on European developments.







Online Ecological and Environmental Data


Book Description

Discover important Internet resources for research data made public individually and collectively by researchers from a variety of entities in the fields of environmental studies and ecology Online Ecological and Environmental Data explores innovative projects from a diverse array of institutions that have made environmental and ecological research information freely available online. You will find a wealth of Web site listings with URLs and complete descriptions, data field descriptions, controlled vocabulary examples, and Web screen shots that demonstrate how to use a specific site. The book will help you locate the data, procedures, instruments, notes, and other descriptive information that scientists and engineers need for replicating and building on the research of others. With Online Ecological and Environmental Data, you'll gain a better understanding of: * the cooperative design, development, and management of interdisciplinary data * cataloging multidisciplinary environmental data * data networking * new developments in information science and technology * extracting and compiling data * the convergence and dissemination of information via the Internet This unique resource explores the potential of distributing actual research data on the Web. The information you'll find in this book will enable science and technology librarians to provide effective access to library patrons. Online Ecological and Environmental Data will give librarians and other information specialists—as well as faculty and students in library sciences and technology—cutting-edge knowledge to meet the global data and information needs of the scientific community. The projects described in this book can serve as models for other disciplines, especially for the various aspects of handling data made available online, and for making this data more available and usable on the Internet for researchers and students.