Category Archives: Digital Collections

The Library of Congress presents Recommended Format Specifications

I hope you will take a look at the new Library of Congress Recommended Format Specifications. These specifications focus on both analog and digital acquisitions and recommend the best formats to use to collect items to insure preservation and access. You can learn more about these specifications from the National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program’s Signal blog.

I’d also like to put in a plug for the Signal blog itself. It is full of information on digital preservation and includes interviews with digital pioneer and digital innovators and is written by some of the coolest people I know including this year’s winner of the Archival Innovator Award, Trevor Owens.

Happy reading and have a good weekend.

With UELMA, Lots of Legislation Keeps Stuff Safe

This post was written by William “Butch” Lazorchak. Butch is a Digital Archivist for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program at the Library of Congress. Continue reading

Riding the Wave of Digital Information

One of the keynote speakers at the recent ARL membership meeting was Ingrid Parent, the University Librarian at the University of British Columbia and a past president of IFLA. Her focus was the evolving information environment which was the theme of her IFLA Trend Report, “Riding the Tide or Caught in the Waves: Navigating the Evolving Information Environment.” As I read her report I was stunned by one statistic: “In 2010, the quantity of information transmitted globally exceeded one zettabyte for the first time, and is expected to double every two years.” I can’t even imagine how much information that is or even how we as archivists will be able to deal with that much digital information. Continue reading