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

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.

Direct to Full Text

Source: NARA

Articles include:

+ PREMIS With a Fresh Coat of Paint: Highlights from the Revision of the PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata

+ A Year of Selective Web Archiving with the Web Curator Tool at the National Library of New Zealand

+ Considering the User Perspective: Research into Usage and Communication of Digital Information

+ Adding Value to the Library Catalog by Implementing a Recommendation System

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)

From the post summary:

A US software developer, Jake Luciani, has determined the best days and times to publish blog posts, analyzing the connection between timing and popularity on social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit and Mixx.The conclusions are straightforward: Thursdays are the best day, and the best times are between 1pm and 3pm PST (after lunch) or between 5pm and 7pm PST (after work). The worst times to post are between 3pm and 5pm PST on weekends.Although these results are intuitive, this informal study can serve as a useful reminder to bloggers. On the other hand, it can also further lead to popularity-driven editing.For his experiment, Luciani used popularity ranking engine AideRSS. For more details about the methodology, which is subject click below.Times in the graphs are GMT.

Sources: ReadWriteWeb, Journerdism, Editors Weblog
Thanks Pete W.

From the article:

Computer scientists have unveiled details of a project to develop technology for the long-term storage of digital data.

“The problem is how to build a large-scale data storage system to last 50 to 100 years,” said Ethan Miller, associate professor of computer science at the Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Miller’s group has come up with a new approach to replace technologies such as tape libraries.

The Pergamum technology uses hard disk drives to provide energy-efficient and cost-effective storage.

Source: Information World Review

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

From the article:

Caroline Arms came to the Library of Congress in 1995 to work on the American Memory project, but the looming challenge of preserving digital content caught her attention.

Source: Library of Congress

From the British Library News Release:

Free engravings to give away to every reader, satirical stories about the Royal Family and advice on whether it is correct for a recently widowed husband to marry his sister-in-law: these aren’t press features from today’s newsstands but from papers 150 years ago. All of this material becomes freely accessible as the British Library, Birkbeck College, King’s College London and Olive Software launch a complete digital edition of six 19th Century newspapers and periodicals on 13 May. Selected for their rich variety and originality, the titles offer a fascinating glimpse into 19th century life, and will resonate with students, researchers and the general public interested in subjects ranging from history, theology and politics through to art and feminism.

The Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (ncse), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, is a unique digital resource, which gives the user an informative, accessible and authentic experience of 19th century newspapers. The collection illustrates the phenomenal growth and transformation of the press in the 19th century and brings to life a society and century in flux.

Source: BL

by: Fanning, Betsy A.

From the abstract/paper:

This 27p. report reviews PDF and the newly introduced PDF/Archive (PDF/A) format as a potential solution for long-term digital preservation. It considers the use of PDF/A as part of a comprehensive records management program, to archive electronic documents as a standard to aid preservation and future retrieval.

Source: Digital Preservation Coalition

16 pages; PDF.

From the introduction:

The aim of this report is to present some analysed quantitative data about the content of three Australian web domain harvests conducted between 2005 and 2007. It provides a substantial update to the data about the Australian web domain and domain harvests that has been publicly available in the Report on the crawl and harvest of the whole Australian web domain undertaken during June and July 2005. This report does not extend to an evaluative analysis of the data and any conclusions suggested in this report are only preliminary. The more modest ambition of this report is to
provide information that may be of interest to others for the purpose of comparison with other large scale web archiving activities.

Source: National Library of Australia

Archive-It, a subscription service of the Internet Archive, that creates and maintains permanent (and keyword searchable) archives of web content for clients has just passed the 500 collection mark*. Congrats to the A-I team. Unlike The Wayback Machine, Archive-It collections can be searched by keyword.

The two newest collections:
+ Moldovan websites (via Georgetown University)

This collection of Moldovan websites includes information about nongovernmental organizations and issues relevant to Moldova today.

+ Lao PDR Government and NGO Websites (via National Library of Australia)

Selected Lao PDR government and NGO web sites archived from 2008.

* That’s nearly 400 million URLs.

Here’s the opening portion of the job posting:

The Open Content Alliance is seeking an experienced individual for the role of Executive Director. This individual will become the leader and public face of a vital association of nearly 100 cultural and academic institutions that are working to build joint online collections and engage in activities that support the open sharing of information. The Director’s mission will be to lead growth of the OCA to a new level of influence and activity, possibly including evolution to an independent non-profit organization.

Source: OCA

Articles include:

+ Digital Desires: What Are Museums Up To?
by Layna White, Editor of Special Section

+ Doing the DAM: Digital Asset Management at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
by Shyam Oberoi

+ Securing Digital Content
by Sally Hubbard

ANNUAL MEETING COVERAGE

+ The Role of Universites in the Preservation of Cultural Memory
by Steve Hardin

FEATURES
+ Let Them Write English
by Elise Langdon-Neuner

+ Defining an Agenda for Human-Centered Computing
by Andrew Sears, Jonathan Lazar, Ant Ozok and Gabriele Meiselwitz

+ Exploring Exploratory Search
by Mark Nolan

Source: ASIST