Archive for the ‘Digitization Projects’ Category

Latest Edition of Digital Document Quarterly Now Available

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

The latest edition (vol 7, no 2) of Digital Document Quarterly, an online newsletter from HMG Consulting that offers perspectives on trustworthy information, is now available.

Source: HMG Consulting

Giving new life to out-of-print books: when publishers’ and libraries’ interests meet

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Direct to Full Text

by Vandooren, Françoise and Gass, Cécile (2008)

Source: Learned Publishing 21(3).

Abstract: The Library of the Université Libre de Bruxelles and Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles (EUB), the University’s publishing imprint, have recently agreed to collaborate to provide free online access to recent out-of-print books published by EUB. The e-books are available on the Digithèque website, a collection of digital copies of printed books created by the Library. This initiative is valuable for the scientific community and the general public who can freely access the books online, for the authors whose books have been digitized and widely disseminated, and for the publisher whose collections become more visible on the Internet, thereby generating more traffic on its website and potentially increasing sales of its other books. Around 20 books have been made available online
so far. This article describes the context of the agreement, how the collaboration operates, the options of file conversion vs. book scanning, issues relating to copyright and users’ rights, how access is provided to the digital copies, and future collaborative projects of the Library and EUB.

FlipSide: BLM: In search of history

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

FlipSide: BLM: In search of history

History runs deep at the General Land Office Web site, which debuted 10 years ago this month.

The Bureau of Land Management at the Interior Department established the Web site, at www.glorecords.blm.gov, during the dot-com boom of the 1990s that marked the early days of e-government.

The site’s mission is to digitize more than 9 million documents related to public lands that have been transferred to private ownership during the past 200-plus years. A team of 10 BLM employees scans those records and posts them online in a searchable database.

The team has digitized about 4.2 million records so far with a goal of posting another 200,000 this year. Now researchers who once had to wait two or three weeks for BLM staff to locate records often can find documents for themselves in a matter of seconds.

Source: Federal Computer Week

New Web Archive Online: The Mike Wallace Interview

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

From the site:

In the early 1960’s, broadcast journalist Mike Wallace donated 65 recorded interviews made in 1957-58 from his show “The Mike Wallace Interview” to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. The bulk of these were 16mm kinescope film recordings, some of the earliest recordings of live television that were possible, and that survive today. Many of these have not been seen for over 50 years, and they represent a unique window into a turbulent time of American, and world history. From Senators to strippers, Ku Klux Klansmen to Nobel Prize winners, Mike Wallace has interviewed them all, and we invite you to view The Mike Wallace Interview .

Source: The School of Information, University of Texas

Tutorial: DOHM: Digitisation of Heritage Matrials

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

DOHM : Digitisation of Heritage Materials

by Long, Andrew Stawowczyk (Date Created: Mar 2008) (Australia)

This training program in digital copying and archiving of still images was developed by the National Library of Australia for small organisations and groups with limited resources. It includes software and workflows tailored specifically for groups with limited budgets.

Source: National Library of Australia

The British Library 19th Century Book Digitisation Project

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

From the announcement:

The British Library has over 20 years of experience digitising its collections. The mass digitisation of 19th century literature in partnership with Microsoft is one of fifteen British Library-led digitisation initiatives, currently taking place…Approximately 75,000 pages are being scanned daily by the digitisation studios at the British Library. A further 40,000 out-of-copyright books will be scanned as agreed in the Library’s contract with Microsoft.

New Report: Keeping research data safe

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

From the JISC Exec Summary:

The rising tide of digital research data raises issues relating to access, curation and preservation for HEIs and within the UK a growing number of research funders are now implementing policies requiring researchers to submit data management, preservation or data sharing plans with their funding applications. This study provides: Research funders are implementing policies requiring researchers to submit data management, preservation or data sharing plans with their applications

Brief overviews of the potential benefits to HEIs of preservation of research data; issues that HEIs will need to consider when determining the medium to long-term costs of data preservation; and different service models. A framework and guidance for determining costs consisting of:

* A list of key cost variables and potential units of record
* An activity model divided into pre-archive, archive, and support services
* A resources template including major cost categories in TRAC; and divided into the major phases from our activity model and by duration of activity

A series of case studies from Cambridge University, King’s College London, Southampton University, and the Archaeology Data Service at York University, illustrating different aspects of costs for research data within HEIs. Recommendations for future work and use/adaptation of software costing tools to assist implementation

Source: JISC

National Archives [U.S.] Announces Digitizing Agreement with The Generations Network

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

From the announcement:

Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein and Tim Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer of The Generations Network, parent company of Ancestry.com, today signed and announced a five-year agreement to digitize selected records from the vast holdings of the National Archives. The Generations Network’s Ancestry.com web site currently has the largest online collection of digitized and indexed National Archives content, including the complete U.S. Federal Census Collection, 1790-1930, passenger lists from 1820-1960 and WWI and WWII draft registration cards.

Source: NARA

Canada: Databases: The Canada Gazette Now Digitised, Copies back to 1841 Online by End of 2008

Saturday, May 17th, 2008

From the introduction:

With this site, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), in co-operation with the Canada Gazette Directorate, Public Works and Government of Services Canada, will make the Gazette available online, in its entirety, for the first time.

Current issues of the Canada Gazette have been available to Canadians at most libraries and through subscription, and the Canada Gazette Directorate has a searchable database on its website of all issues since 1998 (http://canadagazette.gc.ca/index-e.html). However, an online database that includes all issues of the Canada Gazette dating back to 1841 and searchable by keyword is a major achievement that allows even greater access to this very important resource.

By the end of 2008, visitors to this site will be able to access all issues of the Canada Gazette, from its beginning in 1841 until 1998. For those issues currently available on this site, please go to Search the Canada Gazette.

The database comprises images taken from microfilm, microfiche and rare original copies of the Gazette held by LAC. The digitization of this material, which began in 2007, is still underway. By the end of 2008, visitors to this site will be able to access all issues of the Canada Gazette, from its beginning in 1841 until 1998. For those issues currently available on this site, please go to Search the Canada Gazette.

Source: Library and Archives Canada

Ensuring long-term preservation and usability of digital information

Saturday, May 17th, 2008

The National Diet Library of Japan (NDL) has announced the publication of “Ensuring long-term preservation and usability of digital information” on its website. This page describes the needs to ensure long-term preservation and accessibility of digital information, including Internet resources and packaged digital publications such as CDs, DVDs and software.

Direct to Full Text Report (in English)

Source: National Diet Library of Japan

The National Archives has published its Strategy for Digitizing Archival Materials, 2007–2016

Friday, May 16th, 2008

The National Archives has published its Strategy for Digitizing Archival Materials, 2007–2016.

Direct to Full Text

Source: NARA

Readability of Scanned Books in Digital Libraries

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

Direct to Abstract and Full Text Link
by: Quinn, A., Hu, C., Arisaka, T., Rose, A., Bederson, B. (May 2008)
Readability of scanned books in digital libraries. In Proceeding of the Twenty-Sixth Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Florence, Italy, April 05 - 10, 2008). CHI ‘08. ACM, New York, NY, 705-714.

Source: Human Computer Interation Lab, University of Maryland

Adapting Web Archive Catalogues for Dynamic Change

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Adapting Web Archive Catalogues for Dynamic Change.
Wu, Paul H-J and Ichsan, Tamsir P. and Nguyen, Ngoc Giang (2007)
In Julien, Masanes and Andreas, Rauber, Eds. Proceedings The Seventh International Workshop of Archiving Web, Vancouver, Canada.

Web archives are an important source of information. However, before a Web archive can be properly utilized, it needs to be catalogued. This is to ensure that the accessed materials yield the historical understanding intended by the researcher. At the same time, the dynamic nature of the Web will easily render these catalogues outdated, and there is a constant need to monitor when the Web catalogues become irrelevant upon change of the Web content. This means a substantial amount of human effort is required to maintain the catalogue records for the Web archives, adding additional burden to any institutions that maintain it. In this paper, we propose an automatic mechanism to monitor changes in Web content, so that human workload can be reduced. The system combines two component technologies to make this possible: (1) a contextualized annotation module and (2) an evidence change detection module. Contextualized annotation enables the cataloguing process to link content on the Web page (the evidence), to the value assigned for an element of a metadata schema. Thus, the metadata is “supported” by certain Web content that functions as evidence for a cataloguing decision. Regardless of changes in the webpages outside of the evidence, the metadata remains valid as long as all the evidence remains the same. In order to achieve evidence-specific change detection, we need to extend the traditional Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) based Diff engine using a Page Coordinate translation algorithm, which we argue, through a survey, is the first among many other Web content monitoring approaches.

Source: (via d-LIST)

New Issue Online: Library of Congress Digital Preservation Newsletter

Sunday, May 11th, 2008

Library of Congress Digital Preservation Newsletter

In this issue:

* Digital Preservation Pioneer: Caroline Arms
* Information about open sustainable formats
* Updates from digital preservation partners

Source: LC

Final Version of DCC Curation Lifecycle Model Now Available

Saturday, May 3rd, 2008

From the summary:

Our DCC [Digital Curation Centre] Curation Lifecycle Model provides a graphical high-level overview of the stages required for successful curation and preservation of data from initial conceptualisation or receipt. The model can be used to plan activities within an organisation or consortium to ensure that all necessary stages are undertaken, each in the correct sequence. The model enables granular functionality to be mapped against the it; to define roles and responsibilities, and build a framework of standards and technologies to implement. It can help with the process of identifying additional steps which may be required, or actions which are not required by certain situations or disciplines, and ensuring that processes and policies are adequately documented.


Direct to Complete Chart (1 page; PDF)

Source: DCC