CLIR Seeks Public Comment on White Paper
Preservation in the Age of Large-Scale Digitization By Oya Rieger
CLIR Seeks Public Comment on White Paper: Preservation in the Age of Large-Scale Digitization
The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) seeks public comment on a white paper examining preservation issues relevant to large-scale digitization projects such as those being done by Google, Microsoft, and the Open Content Alliance. The paper, Preservation in the Age of Large-Scale Digitization, was written by Oya Rieger, Interim Assistant University Librarian for Digital Library and Information Technologies at Cornell University Library. It is available at http://www.clir.org/activities/details/mdpres.html.
The paper identifies issues that will influence the availability and usability, over time, of the digital books being created by large-scale digitizing projects, and considers the relationship of these new resources to our print collections. It concludes with a set of recommendations for rethinking a preservation strategy.
In issuing this paper, CLIR aims to stimulate discussion among stakeholders and to generate productive thinking about collaborative approaches to enduring access. To this end, CLIR invites those who submit comments to indicate whether they would like their comments posted publicly on our Web site. CLIR will make public only those comments accompanied by permission to post (let us know if the comments are to be anonymous or signed), and all such comments will be moderated. Comments received without permission to post will be shared only with CLIR staff and the author.
Public comment is sought through Friday, October 5. Please address comments to Kathlin Smith (ksmith@clir.org). CLIR will issue a final print and electronic report later this fall.
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Bookmobile day 12: Home
Our 2 week bookmobile trip has finally wrapped up with our last stops today in Willits and Ukiah (both in Mendocino county). We just got home to San Francisco. We are not able to write all our thoughts but we can tell for sure it was truly fun and learning experience.
We learned about the crucial roles that libraries play in rural communities. For many communities, the library is not just a place where you can check out books; it is the social, cultural and educational hub and more. People come to the library to join writing and knitting groups, book club, to fill out resumes and apply for jobs, submit their taxes, surf the Web, and on and on. It's been great to visit those 11 libraries over the last 2 weeks to see in person the central role that libraries play in their communities -- despite the budget cuts, staff shortages, lack of tech support, knowledge and infrastructure. Academic libraries could learn a lot about building and sustaining communities simply from observing small, rural libraries.
We'll write more tomorrow, and will post more flickr images as soon as we get a new camera cable (which I lost somewhere between Blue Lake and Willits :-) ).
Continue readingWorld Law Bulletin now available
Thanks to Steven Aftergood, the World Law Bulletin is now available.
For its own peculiar reasons, the Law Library [of the Library of Congress] has declined to make this serial available to the public....
But now a collection of back issues of World Law Bulletin, dating from October 2000 to March 2006, has become publicly available through alternate channels.
"World Law Bulletin", Secrecy News, September 10, 2007.
Continue readingBookmobile day 11: one grueling day
Day 11 was one grueling day - driving and setting up/breaking in Hoopa Indian Reservation, Blue Lake and Eureka for the Oysters & Ale library benefit for WiFi. When we got back to the Arcata hotel around 9:30pm we were so tired that we decided to have a blogging/flickr-ing moratorium. It was worthwhile since we had a full day of excitement and interesting conversation with community members. We can't wait to blog about it when we get back to San Francisco.
6:20am this morning we got woken up from a sound slumber by a call from the front desk telling us that the bookmobile was about to get towed to make room for the Saturday farmers' market. James as the official bookmobile driver, got up, threw some clothes on and stopped the Man from towing us. Whew! Nobody can tow the bookmobile!!
Now we're up and on our way to Mendocino for a day at Willits and Ukiah before heading home. We'll wrap up the goings on these last two days tonight or tomorrow. Stay Tuned!
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Yellow tap water: thoughts on local government, part II
And now for my second tale of local government information and intrigue from Tacoma, Washington.
I live in a 1920's era house, and I have to admit that sometimes the first spurts of water out of the tap are slightly rusty (nothing to worry about, the plumber assures me, as if anyone would believe that). But in this past month, I noticed that the water had a slightly tinted look to it, even after I'd let it run for a while. It wasn't anywhere near as cloudy as the tap water I'd seen in Vancouver BC last year when I visited that city during a boil-water advisory. No, this tinted water looked a little off, tasted fine, didn't seem to kill me, and froze right up into sort of mod-looking ice cubes. Normally, I'm skiddish about such things, but I didn't think too long and hard about my not-quite-right water. I was thirsty, so I'd been drinking it anyway.
I was suprised to see in last week's mail, mixed in with the Val-pak coupons, cable TV come-ons, and various unwanted bills, a blanket-mailing to all Tacoma residents from the Tacoma Public Utilities water management superintendent. The content of the letter said basically, hey, the water's yellow, we know about it, it's a normal seasonal occurence, and it happens when naturally-present iron and manganese pass through our treatment process. Problems or concerns? There's a phone number I can call. I didn't call it, because I felt satisfied with the information, but I'm glad the phone number is available.
Mass mailings direct from government, aside from those related to taxes or elections, have always interested to me. Here at work, we have agreed that the nuclear fallout shelter designs from FEMA, delivered en masse to American doorsteps through the early 1980s (as near as we can figure), are some of the most seductive. By far our favorite is Home Fallout Shelter: Snack Bar, Basement Location, Plan D. I went trolling about on Worldcat, the open web, and Google Books, looking for a digitized copy from a .gov or .edu. Found one on a web site called Millionaire Playboy(TM) which I approached with trepidation; it appears that Millionaire Playboy(TM) is a commercial outfit that reviews and sells kitsch to the pop culture and video gaming communities. Why have these folks beaten us to the digitizing of these government classics, which they've no doubt gotten from a federal depository library (or from some hopeless collector with a worse hoarding impulse than mine)? (Scroll down to the bottom of this off-putting Mr. Stinkhead column and you'll see a bunch of them.)
I'm signing off for the day. The web has wearied me. I've rambled too long, when all I wanted to tell you about was my yellow tap water and how my local public utility gave me the resources to learn more about it.
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