preservation

Kudos for Print Archiving | Editorial

By Michael Kelley on April 4, 2013 Leave a Comment

Collaboration among libraries has been a grand tradition, but the need to collaborate has, perhaps, never been more pressing than now.

The lack of available space, budget cuts, uneven usage, and availability of electronic resources and new technologies help give impetus to large-scale efforts, but there is a layer of collaboration that is less provocative and does not always receive the spotlight but which, nevertheless, is driven even more so by these factors and is just as integral to the future of libraries.

Filed Under: Editorial, Future of Libraries, LJ in Print Tagged With: preservation

Sounds of Copyright Reform | Editorial

By Michael Kelley on March 22, 2013 Leave a Comment

This country’s fascinating and invaluable patrimony of recorded sound and culture is at risk. Libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies have approximately 46 million recordings in their collections and more than six million are “in need” or “in urgent need” of preservation, according to the National Recording Preservation Plan released by the Library of Congress (LC) in December. The condition of another 20 million of the recordings is unknown, and these numbers do not include important material in private hands.

Filed Under: Copyright and Fair Use, Editorial, LJ in Print Tagged With: copyright, Library of Congress, preservation, Sound recordings

The Library of Congress and CLIR Release National Recording Preservation Plan

By Gary Price on February 13, 2013

From a LC Announcement: The Library of Congress today unveiled “The Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Plan,” a blueprint for saving America’s recorded sound heritage for future generations. The congressionally mandated plan spells out 32 short- and long-term recommendations involving both the public and private sectors and covering infrastructure, preservation, access, education and policy [...]

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: archives, audio, Library of Congress, LJ, preservation, TDS

DPLA, Europeana Launch Joint Virtual Exhibition Detailing Immigration Connections

By Matt Enis on December 18, 2012

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and Europeana today announced the official launch of Leaving Europe: A new life in America, a jointly curated virtual exhibition that tells the story of European emigration to the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries. The exhibition includes digitized photographs, manuscripts, broadsheets, paintings, letters, audio, government documents, and other materials from U.S. and European libraries, museums, and archives, curated to describe the experiences faced by different groups emigrating from Europe to the United States.

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: digitization, DPLA, LJ, preservation, TDS

Next Gen OCR Project Reaches Back into Early English History (and Databases)

By Matt Enis on November 26, 2012

The eMOP project led by Texas A&M will use page images from ProQuest’s Early English Books Online and Early European Books, Gale Cengage’s Eighteenth Century Collections Online, and other sources to create a database of early typefaces used in English books and documents, and then train optical character recognition (OCR) software to read these documents.

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: digitization, discovery, Gale Cengage, LJ, preservation, ProQuest, TDS

Judge’s Ruling a Win for Fair Use in Authors Guild v. HathiTrust Case

By Gary Price on October 10, 2012

The Honorable Harold Baer, Jr., yesterday held that the HathiTrust’s mass digitization is fair use, in spite of the challenges raised in a lawsuit by the Author’s Guild and others, both associations and individual authors. Crucial to his reading of the case is Baer’s rejection of the plaintiff’s theory that section 108 of the copyright law prevents libraries claiming fair use as a defense.

Baer said in his opinion, “I cannot imagine a definition of fair use that would not encompass the transformative uses made by Defendants’ MDP, and would require that I terminate this invaluable contribution to the progress of science and cultivation of the arts that at the same time effectuates the ideals espoused by the ADA.”

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: Author's Guild, copyright, Hathitrust, LJ, preservation, TDS

Vinyl-Loving Librarian Speaks About Preservation Week [video]

By Josh Hadro on April 28, 2011

Brian Schottlaender, University Librarian at the University of California, San Diego, is a person who likes records. In a video produced for Preservation Week, he describes his personal collection and philosophy on preservation.

Filed Under: Library Services, LJ Insider Tagged With: preservation, records, UCSD, vinyl