From the announcement:

The National Archives officially launches its new reading rooms following a £4 million transformation to accommodate its family records service, setting a new standard for archives in a digital age.

Now The National Archives brings together all of its family history and historical assets into a one-stop-shop of online resources, with practical face-to-face support to help researchers make the most of the wealth of information available.

Source: National Archives (UK)

Managing Archeological Collections

This online technical assistance and distance learning effort covers all aspects of caring for archeological collections — the activities dealing with all kinds of archeological collections (i.e., objects, records, reports, and digital data) in all kinds of places (i.e., the field, the archeologist’s office, the lab, and the repository.) Another word for this range of activities is “curating” or “curation”, which you will find a lot more about in the following sections.

Source: National Parks Service

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

National Treasure Expands: National Archives to Include Earth Imagery

The story of the Nation’s land during the last 75 years can be told impartially through records of earth observation — aerial photographs dating from the 1930s and satellite images dating from the 1960s. This vast reservoir of data supplies objective reference points that are essential in documenting land change and in understanding climate change. Preserving important records of the Nation’s history while providing convenient public access to them is a vital responsibility of government.

To meet this responsibility in the field of earth observation, Professor Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States, and Dr. Mark Myers, Director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), today signed an agreement creating a cooperative framework for how the two Federal agencies will together ensure the preservation and access of the massive earth imagery and geospatial data resources currently archived by the USGS at its Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

During the signing ceremony Dr. Weinstein remarked, “Today we are marking an important milestone for USGS EROS to become an affiliated archive within the National Archives system. This agreement between NARA and USGS is a guarantee that our Nation’s collections of aerial and satellite images of the world’s land areas will be permanently maintained, preserved, and accessible to the public. These records are crucial to scientists and policy makers around the world in understanding how man and society affect the natural landscape.”

Director Myers added, “The USGS EROS archive of historic satellite imagery and aerial photography is the largest civilian archive of such data in the United States. Occupying over 40,000 square feet and totaling nearly three petabytes (3000 terabytes) of electronic data and millions of film frames, the EROS archive is massive, essential, and irreplaceable. We have a daunting responsibility to care for this collection. Working with the National Archives, we will continue to preserve and make these records readily available to all users worldwide.”

Source: U.S. Geological Survey

Resource of the Week: Prelinger Archives
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

Warning! Time sink alert!

I’m not really sure how long it would take to to view all 2,000+ films in this collection, housed at the Internet Archive, but this site is really like a bag of potato chips. You can’t consume just one.

Prelinger Archives was founded in 1983 by Rick Prelinger in New York City. Over the next twenty years, it grew into a collection of over 60,000 “ephemeral” (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films. In 2002, the film collection was acquired by the Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. Prelinger Archives remains in existence, holding approximately 4,000 titles on videotape and a smaller collection of film materials acquired subsequent to the Library of Congress transaction. Its goal remains to collect, preserve, and facilitate access to films of historic significance that haven’t been collected elsewhere. Included are films produced by and for many hundreds of important US corporations, nonprofit organizations, trade associations, community and interest groups, and educational institutions. Getty Images represents the collection for stock footage sale, and almost 2,000 key titles are available here. As a whole, the collection currently contains over 10% of the total production of ephemeral films between 1927 and 1987, and it may be the most complete and varied collection in existence of films from these poorly preserved genres.

Interested in learning more about “ephemeral films?” You can download a copy The Field Guide to Sponsored Films (PDF; 755 KB), written by Prelinger and published in January 2007 by the National Film Preservation Foundation.

Where to start? You could do worse than browsing the list of “Most Downloaded Items Last Week” on the righthand side of the page. Near the top of the list you’ll almost always find the 1951 Cold War classic, “Duck and Cover” - “Famous Civil Defense film for children in which Bert the Turtle shows what to do in case of atomic attack.” The entire “Atomic-nuclear: Civil defense” category is a fascinating look at a slice of American history. Icing on the cake — reviews posted by users, the vast majority of whom seem to be intelligent and articulate, unlike the general viewing audience at…well, YouTube. BTW, a longer list of Most Dowloaded items is available by clicking the “More” link. Further down on the righthand side, you can browse “Most Downloaded Items Last Month,” “Most Downloaded Items” (ever), and “Staff Picks.” (”Duck and Cover” is present on every one of these lists.)

Another interesting way of browsing here is via the ginormous tag cloud. You’re all but guaranteed to stumble onto some delightful serendipitous finds; I fished out the following half dozen jewels at random:
+ Trees to Tribunes (1937): “How newspapers are produced, beginning in the forest.”
+ Who’s Boss? (1950): “Husband and wife struggle to attain a balance of power in their marriage. This neorealist social guidance film was directed by Alexander Hammid.”
+ 6 1/2 Magic Hours (1958): “The comfort and delight of transatlantic air travel at the beginning of the jet age.”
+ Holiday from Rules? (1959): “‘Lord of the Flies’ from an adult’s point of view, starring four willful and confused children.
+ Motivation and Reward in Learning (1948): “Uses white rats to picture trial-and-error problem solving and to demonstrate the importance of motivation and reward in the learning process.”
+ Behind the Freedom Curtain (1957): “Sales film for voting machines, promoting them as engines of governmental efficiency and practical democracy.”

We think that teachers and public speakers in particular will find much useful content here; everything is available under the Creative Commons Public Domain license. Which, not surprisingly, has led to a related collection, Prelinger Archive Mashups.

What happens when you make close to 2,000 ephemeral public domain films freely available on the Web? People make art and more films are born!

Here’s a sample of films created with Prelinger Archives footage and uploaded to the Internet Archive. However, Rick Prelinger suspects thousands more are uploaded on other video sites. If you have a video you created using footage from the Prelinger Archives, please let us know so we can include it here.

The archive is also keyword searchable, and most of these films are available for streaming or download in a variety of formats. You can also view a series of thumbnails for each movie if you don’t want to commit to watching the entire film.

But if you’re a librarian, like both of your editors, you should definitely watch this one.

The American Civil War Online: Free Access Through June 30
From e-mail:

Alexander Street Press is pleased to announce the beta release of our newest online Civil War collection: Images of the American Civil War: Photographs, Posters, and Ephemera. This deeply indexed collection of 70,000 contemporaneous images lets you easily find and view images covering casualties, home life, prisons, hospitals, weaponry, transportation, political and military leaders, and more. Search for images associated with a particular battle or campaign; find images by place, photographer, or publisher; or locate pictures by setting (interior, exterior, or studio photographs). This collection has been designed to meet the needs of history scholars and researchers.

The current beta release features just a small sample of what the collection will soon offer. Most of the photographs in Images of the American Civil War will be rare, previously unpublished, and never before available online; and all are deeply indexed, carefully represented in high resolution, and cross-searchable for the first time.

As part of our comprehensive Civil War package, The American Civil War Online, access to the beta version of Images of the American Civil War is freely available through June 30th. No registration is required and you can begin your research immediately.

Includes:

• Illustrated Civil War Newspapers and Magazines: Important and Rare Periodicals from Confederate, Union, Abolitionist, and British Presses
• The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
• The American Civil War Research Database®
• Images of the American Civil War: Photographs, Posters, and EphemeraSource: Meg Keller, Alexander Street Press

From the announcement:

Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein announced today the establishment of the “Controlled Unclassified Information Office” (CUIO) within the National Archives and Records Administration. Weinstein also announced that William J. Bosanko, director of the Information Security Oversight Office, will head up this newly-formed office.

The Office is being created in response to the Memorandum for the Heads of Departments and Agencies on the Designation and Sharing of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) issued by President Bush on May 9, 2008. The Presidential memorandum designated the National Archives as responsible for overseeing and managing the implementation of the CUI framework.

Source: NARA

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

New from the Library of Congress:
The Polish Poster : from Young Poland through the Second World War : Holdings in the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

The Library of Congress published The Polish Poster: from Young Poland through the Second World War in 1993 to commemorate the centennial of the Polish art poster movement. This book recently has been digitized and made available through the two links above, for viewing via “page-turner” display or searchable .pdf.

The Polish Poster describes over 130 posters drawn from the Library of Congress’ collection of approximately 3,000 Polish posters created between the years 1900-1945. The 130 posters are grouped into six time periods and then listed alphabetically, by artist, within each period. Each section begins with a historical description of Poland during that period, followed by the then-current groupings, styles and trends in Polish art. The book also contains biographical notes for each artist and a select bibliography

Source: LC

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From the news release:

On Tuesday, May 6, 2008, Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein submitted a report, entitled The Founders Online, to the Committees on Appropriations of the U.S. Congress. This report is the National Archives response to concerns raised by the Committees that the complete papers of America’s Founding Fathers are not available online. The Founders Online is a plan for providing online access, within a reasonable timeframe, to researchers, students and the general public. The report is available electronically at the National Archives website: http://www.archives.gov/nhprc/publications.

Source: NARA

From a Beta News post:

NBC News’ educational arm NBC Learn has launched iCue: part social network, part news source for students age 13 and up, built upon NBC’s vast video news archive…The “21st Century Classroom” is a major interest for NBC news, which in 2007 launched Archives on Demand –current and historic digital videos teachers can use for instructional purposes — which are available through a partnership with HotChalk, a library of teacher-contributed lesson plans and digital content for instructional usage, and Alloy Media’s ChannelOne, the 12-minute daily TV show, which has been available since 1989 to nearly 6 million middle- and high-school students in 8,000 schools.

Source: BetaNews