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Category: Best Practices

Recommended practices for digital curation

Best Practices

ALCTS Presentation: Preserving Your Digital Life

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Preservationists like myself are heeding the call for help from he public in Personal Digital Archiving skills, and we’re starting to lend some of our expertise to the public. As part of this effort, myself and Krista White, Digital Humanities Librarian at Rutgers Libraries, gave a seminar both in-person and on the web that describes some of the terminology and technical issues that people need to be aware of when recording something for posterity. The session, titled “Preserving Your Digital Life” was sponsored by the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services.

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Best Practices

Evolving Standards: Updating our moving image digital specifications

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As part of preservation-level digital standards, myself and colleagues have worked since 2004 to develop a best practice specification for digitizing moving images.  Our initial standard document was developed for the NJVid Portal, and was very basic in its specification. Since then, some minor tweaks have periodically been added to the document.  But recently, some […]

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Best Practices

Library of Congress Announces National Recording Preservation Plan

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  A good portion of our nation’s heritage has been immortalized in sound recordings.  From the late 19th century to the present, sound recordings have been used to capture music, speeches and historic events, the oral histories of people who have lived through important events in our nation’s history. As with many electronic and mechanical […]

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Best Practices · Curation Incidents · Significant Events

Lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy, on the digital front

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No greater a test of our resolve and our preparedness exists than a true trial by fire, and the past two weeks have been living proof of this. There isn’t any way to overstate or exaggerate it. Hurricane Sandy devastated New Jersey, New York and other sections of the East Coast, taking away lives, homes, power, and safety. It could take years before a sense of normalcy is restored for the lives of those most impacted, and as has been stated by many officials and news outlets: it will never be the same.

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Best Practices · Curation Incidents

Indiana University Moves Forward with its Media Preservation Initiative

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The Media Preservation Site at Indiana University – Bloomington (IUB) makes its message plain and clear the moment you first set your eyes on it: “Our History is At Risk.” Home to at least 3 million media objects, including sound and moving image recordings, photos, documents, and artifacts, IUB has come to grips with the issue at hand: a great deal of their heritage is locked within obsolete electronic and analog playback formats for sound and moving images. And they’re doing something about it.

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