Author Archives: Isaiah Beard

About Isaiah Beard

Isaiah's role at Rutgers University Libraries is to establish standards and workflow practices for the digitization and encoding of a wide array of digital assets. His background in digital preservation begins with his avid interest in photography, and in the issues facing the field as it shifts from analog film formats into an increasingly digital landscape. 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, and members of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA). 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 in addition to NJVid include the Rutgers Community Repository (RUcore); and advising developers of the Ubuntu Linux project in matters relating to media format compatibility.

Retrocomputing: Remembering technologies past

Posted on September 17, 2009 by Isaiah Beard

Even as technology marches on, there is a slowly growing enthusiasm for looking back on the history of computing, and preserving those still-working specimens of obsolete systems and vintage hardware and software that exist. The movement is known as retrocomputing, and although … Continue reading →

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The scanner: workhorse of photo and document preservation

Posted on September 14, 2009 by Isaiah Beard

Pretty often, I get questions by phone and e-mail from people who are just getting started with their digital preservation projects, and need to scan photos or documents.  Almost always, they seek advice about what kind of scanner to buy.  A … Continue reading →

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Polaroid Instant Film Dead Stock to go on sale today

Posted on August 21, 2009 by Isaiah Beard

If you’re interested in grabbing some of the last of Polaroid’s instant film, or even interested in picking up a Polaroidcamera, today may be your last remaining chance to do so, at least for a while.  Starting at 10:00 a.m. today, … Continue reading →

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Another film format extinction: Kodachrome’s last run

Posted on July 22, 2009 by Isaiah Beard

Today, Kodak announced the final production run of Kodachrome film, after a 74-year run.  Kodachrome is yet another  casualty of the long march towards digital formats, as fewer and fewer sales of Kodachrome film have meant continuing to mass produce … Continue reading →

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Original NASA moon landing tapes: probably gone for good

Posted on July 16, 2009 by Isaiah Beard

40 years ago, the Apollo 11 mission blasted off into space, making history as the first successful human landing on the moon.  Unfortunately, NPR reports that after much searching, it looks like the best possible copies of the video that recorded … Continue reading →

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