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.

Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, dies

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Isaiah Beard

My colleagues and I sadly mourn the passing of a pioneer in digital curation.  Michael Stern Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, has passed away at age 64. While not a household name, Hart has an important place in modern … Continue reading →

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“Keeping Your Stuff Safe” – From Page2Pixel at Intervention 2011

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Isaiah Beard

I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about how to keep “big data” safe: research datasets, archival documents, that sort of thing.  But, the lessons we learn here are also pretty useful for smaller setups, artists, businesses… … Continue reading →

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The Cranberry Genome: RUcore’s first foray into research data sharing

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Isaiah Beard

Over the summer, the RUcore team has been working with a few researchers to better understand their needs, and to work on preserving and sharing our first samples of actual research data. In collaboration with the Philip E. Marucci Center for Blueberry and Cranberry Research and Extension, our efforts – if you’ll pardon the pun – have begun to bear fruit. Continue reading →

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Sony starts MiniDisc, a staple of broadcast audio playback, on its path to obsolescence

Posted on July 15, 2011 by Isaiah Beard

In an era where music is downloaded, synced, and played back wirelessly, the writing is on the wall for most physical containers of digital media, and MiniDisc could be among the first of many types of this physical media to go obsolete in the near future.

On July 7, Sony announced that production of MiniDisc playback equipment would cease in September, with the manufacturing of blank media to end approximately one year later. Soon to be gone, it shouldn’t be forgotten, as MiniDisc is a valuable case study in the effect of format wars, and how adoption of a medium can be hampered by Digital Rights Management and poor business decisions. Continue reading →

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In the Cloud, you can’t choose your neighbors

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Isaiah Beard

Some recent, high-profile security-related events are adding another wrinkle of complexity for those who are trusting the cloud for their data storage and content delivery: who your neighbors are, and what they might be doing. On June 21, the FBI … Continue reading →

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