“From Page2Pixel” is authored by Isaiah Beard, Digital Data Curator for Rutgers University Libraries. The main purpose of this blog is to document some of the experiences and lessons learned while navigating the field of Digital Curation. The primary base of operations for many of the projects detailed in this blog are the Digital Curation Research Center (DCRC) located at the Scholarly Communication Center at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
Quite a few institutions, libraries, archivists, artists and hobbyists out there have collections of items that they’d like to preserve, whether it be physical materials that are deteriorating, or “born digital” items like digital photos, video or audio, that they’d like to make sure stays around for years to come. Some are very knowledgeable about digital formats, while others are just getting started and could use some help navigating the rapidly changing trends. It’s hoped that this blog will educate people on best practices to make sure they are doing right by their treasures.
Isaiah’s primary job at Rutgers is to establish standards and workflow practices for the digitization and encoding of digital assets, so they can be preserved in our digital repository known as RUcore. His background in digital preservation began with his avid interest in photography and videography, and in the issues facing the field as it shifts from analog film formats into an increasingly digital landscape. Having grow up in the final peak years of the film age, and having studied photography and preservation concepts at the dawn of photography’s digital age, the issues and concerns that this medium-shift presented were acutely felt in his own works.
He has researched and developed standards for the preservation of digital assets that have been adopted by a number of prominent agencies, including the Library of Congress, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in their use of PDF/A for digital document archiving, and members of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA). In 2010, he participated in the external advisory committee for the Media Preservation Team at Indiana University Bloomington, the purpose of which is to advise the university as they undertake a massive effort to identify and digitize an estimated 560,000 pieces of analog material in need of preservation. in 2012, Isaiah is serving in a similar capacity, on the External Reference Committee for Quality Assurance/Quality Control for the National Archives and Records Administration’s Digitization Services Branch.
An advocate of free and open source software and standards, he volunteers time to projects assisting aspiring artists, photographers, videographers and musicians in using these open technologies to their advantage. Isaiah’s current active projects include the Rutgers Community Repository (RUcore); the New Jersey Video Portal (NJVid), a New Jersey statewide resource for institutional video access; and the Video Mosaic Collaborative, a collaboration platform and tools designed to transform mathematics research, teaching and learning.
Contacting Isaiah (Feedback Form)
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