Archives Outside

For people who love, use and manage archives

Archives Outside - For people who love, use and manage archives

May link roundup post

#AskArchivists on 9 June 2011

Did you always want to ask archivists about their profession and about the collections in Archives?

Ask away on #AskArchivists Day!

June 9, 2011, it will be #AskArchivists Day on Twitter. Join us that day and ask everything you allways wanted to know.

Learn More

Want to get published? I can help you with that.

Well, not if it’s your sword-and-sorcery fantasy novel or revisionist archives romance novel. I can’t help you there….But if you want to write a book on archives, libraries, cultural heritage organizations, or information science, I can help you.

Find out more at ArchivesNext

Digital legacy: Respecting the digital dead

Not much software has yet been developed for the analysis of digital archives, so John has borrowed many techniques from digital forensics, which takes a similar approach: “Don’t change the information; analyse the information without changing it; and show that you haven’t changed it.” Forensic tools, unlike standard-issue computer maintenance or disc analysis software, are built with these principles in mind – and observe them well enough for their findings to stand up in court.

Read more at New Scientist

Crowdsourcing and the Citizen Archivist Program

Concert Crowd (Osheaga 2009) - 30000 waiting for Coldplay

At the National Archives (United States), we’re always trying to think of new ways to make our historical records more accessible to the public.  We have only a small fraction of our 10 billion records online, so it’s clear we’ve got to get creative.It’s vital that we learn how other institutions address this challenge.

One approach we’re seeing is for institutions to engage citizens in crowdsourcing or microvolunteering projects. These projects leverage the enthusiasm and willingness of online volunteers to transcribe or geotag historical records online.
View the video of the program at the blog AOTUS: Collector in Chief

National Jukebox Project (From Caruso to Tin Pan Alley)

The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives.

Listen to some tunes on the National Jukebox homepage

Australians and Digital Media

In only a few short years, the rise of social media has created a fundamental shift in consumer behaviour. Today, 62% of Australian internet users use a variety of social media platforms, with many visiting every day and most at least a few times a week.  Clearly, social networking meets a core human need for contact, community and comment……………..

………..Yet most small to medium sized businesses, and half of Australia’s large businesses surveyed don’t have a social media presence

Read the full report from AIMIA/Sensis

Monument to Mark Horror on the Railways

Just as Australia remembers its war dead, those who lost their lives building the country’s railways are remembered, at the Australian Railway Monument in Werris Creek, New South Wales, near Tamworth.

The monument includes a roll-call of employees killed while working on railways across Australia.

Check out the full article at the Sydney Morning Herald

Via @RAINbyte “Crowdsourcing Platform Helps to Find and Identify Lost Films”

Lost Films is a new online project that collects and documents film titles believed to be missing. Funded by the German Federal Cultural Association, it is a collaborative effort by film societies in Germany, France, Poland, New Zealand and other countries. The archive currently contains over 3500 lost films. By using this portal, it is hoped that many films can be identified by the public through crowdsourcing. Members can submit film titles, video clips and images from unknown movies, or add and update information to ones already uploaded.

Learn more at INFOdocket

The fight for release of “Jack the Ripper” records

A tribunal of Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office, which adjudicates freedom-of-information applications, is deciding if it will force Scotland Yard to release secret files that just might provide a definitive answer to the identity of the man, or men, who held London hostage in a reign of terror 123 years ago.

Read more at the Sydney Morning Herald 

Via @RAINbyte “Google archive decision astonishing to Ottawa originator”

Google’s decision to end support for its newspaper archival services is distressing news for the Ottawa businessman who sold Google the technology to digitize records.

“It’s disappointing, especially when you consider what I thought that this would do,” said Bob Huggins, former chief executive officer and co-founder of PaperOfRecord.com, which Google bought in 2008 for an undisclosed sum.

Read more at the Ottawa Citizen