The Future of the Past by Alexander Stille

For those of you who, like me, are fascinated by the survivability of our electronic/digital culture as compared with the thousands of years of the historical record already preserved around the world, I can highly recommend Alexander Stille's book The Future of the Past (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002; Picador paperback ed., April 2003) as an essential read.

Building an Electronic Records Archive at the National Archives and Records Administration

Title: Building an Electronic Records Archive at the National Archives and Records Administration: Recommendations for Initial Development

Author: Sproull, Robert F. and Eisenberg, Jon, editors

Publisher: Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2003

Other Credits: Committee on Digital Archiving and the National Archives and Records Administration, Computer Science and Telecommunications Board

A sobering look at what NARA has achieved through its Electronic Records Archive (ERA) program and the many challenges that lie ahead if it's to successfully manage the projected volume of electronic records scheduled and yet to be acquired and preserved. 

 

Incentives to Preserve Digital Materials: OCLC Research White Paper by Brian Lavoie

"OCLC Researcher Brian Lavoie publishes analysis of the incentives for digital preservation.
Appropriate incentives are fundamental to the development of economically sustainable digital preservation activities. This white paper (PDF:747K/51pp.) identifies the key decision-making roles in the digital preservation process, characterizes a core set of organizational models under which decision-makers might undertake digital preservation, and examines the implications of these models for the incentives to preserve digital materials. (Posted 4 April 2003)"

April 7, 2003:  The white paper title is The Incentives to Preserve Digital Materials: Roles, Scenarios, and Economic Decision-Making (April 2003). OCLC Research announcement from its Web site (http://www.oclc.org/research/) following an e-mail sent to me by an OCLC employee advising me of this publication.

 

DigiCULT.Info Newsletter Hot Off the Phosphors

DigiCULT.Info: A Newsletter on Digital Culture,  Issue 3 (February 2003), can be downloaded as a high-resolution or low-resolution Adobe Acrobat PDF document from the DigiCULT site.

Archive Ouverte en Sciences de l'Information et de la Communication

Archive SIC (Archive Ouverte en Sciences de l'Information et de la Communication) is a pre-print server for information sciences and communication sponsored by URFIST Paris and its partners. The user interfaces for searching, browsing and other information are English and French. [PACS-L, February 10, 02003]

Copyright Issues Relevant to the Creation of a Digital Archive

Copyright Issues Relevant to the Creation of a Digital Archive: A Preliminary Assessment, June M. Besek, Washington, DC, Council on Library and Information Resources and the Library of Congress, January 2003. Commissioned for and sponsored by the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, Library of Congress. Document also available for download as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.

It Always Hurts the First Time: Experiences with Transferred Electronic Records

It Always Hurts the First Time: Experiences with Transferred Electronic Records, Marcel van Dijk, Cultivate Interactive, issue 9, February 2003, http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue9/amsterdammro/

Abstract: "In 2001, for the first time in its history, the Amsterdam Municipal Records Office received and processed records that had been electronically created by a government authority. In the course of the project a great many obstacles were faced and ultimately resolved. In his article on the ups and downs of this difficult process, Marcel van Dijk gives us a flavour of the challenges encountered and the hard lessons learnt."

Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory

Professor Richard J. Cox posted a long summary/review of the special issue Archival Science 2, issue 1-2 (2002), edited by Terry Cook and Joan Schwartz, titled "Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory." From a quick reading of his e-mail, it looks as though the authors got sucked into the morass of post-modernism that many historians only started extricating themselves from in the late 1990s. Not having access to the journal, I can only react to Professor Cox's excellent summary in which he quotes various observations and claims by Cook and Schwartz. Many of these statements are written in the inscrutable jargon favoured by post-modern writers. One might be accused of taking these phrases or quotations out of context, but since one of the central tenants of post-modernism is that everything is relative and evidentiary value is meaningless since all readings of a text are equally privileged, quoting out of context is itself allowed since a true post-modernist does this all the time.

I wonder how many of the claims, including this one from the introductory essay by the editors,

"central professional myth of the past century that the archivist is (or should be) an objective, neutral, passive . . . keeper of truth" (p. 5)

are supported by evidence. No educated archivist should ever make this elementary mistake. So if it is a myth, it's a pretty damning one.

I hope to have more to say on this provocative publication in the months to come....

Abstracts of the individual articles can be read at the journal's home page; subscribers can access the full-text of individual articles as Adobe PDF files: http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/1389-0166

DigiCULT Thematic Issue 2, Digital Asset Management Systems for the Cultural and Scientific Heritage Sector

Thematic Issue 2, Digital Asset Management Systems for the Cultural and Scientific Heritage Sector, December 2002, can be downloaded as a high-resolution or low-resolution Adobe Acrobat PDF document from the DigiCULT site.

Cox, Richard J. (1999), Declarations, Independence, and Text in the Information Age

"Declarations, Independence, and Text in the Information Age" by Richard J. Cox (First Monday, Vol. 4, no. 6, June 7, 1999) contrasts the efforts made to preserve the United States Declaration of Independence with the work of archivists and others to preserve electronic information. To check out efforts expended on the preservation of this document, visit the National Archives and Records Administration Web site.

DigiCULT Thematic Issue 1, Integrity and Authenticity of Digital Cultural Heritage Objects

Thematic Issue 1, Integrity and Authenticity of Digital Cultural Heritage Objects, August 2002, can be downloaded as an Adobe Acrobat PDF document from the DigiCULT site.