Using YouTube to promote the Archives
Archives New Zealand recently posted a promotional video on YouTube on “its collections and how the Governments Archives are being used by researchers and the public.”
Documenting Sydney Communities
The new blog from the Dictionary of Sydney, Looking up – Sydney’s history from a new angle takes a look at some of it’s articles documenting the history of different cultural communities in Sydney.
One of most important tasks of the Dictionary is to document the histories of Sydney’s many different cultural communities, and we’ve made a good start.
The most recent community articles, on the Maori and the Russians, have just been released, and while the words and connections are all there, we are still working on the images and multimedia for these.
Smithsonian Crowsdsourcing Since 1847!
A recent New York Times article that called attention to some of the recent crowdsourcing projects currently underway at the Smithsonian also noted that crowdsourcing has long been a part of the Institution’s strategy. As a first step in my research—and with the help of Pamela Henson and Courtney Esposito of the Smithsonian Archives—I’ve been looking at some interesting projects the Smithsonian has developed since its founding that demonstrate the Institution’s longstanding tradition of involving volunteers in its mission to “increase and diffuse knowledge.”
Read the full post at The BiggerPicture – Visual Archives and the Smithsonian »
All of us, smarter than any of us. So let’s share
A couple of days ago, I added to my Twitter profile the phrase “all of us are smarter than any of us”. I seem to say it over and over to students. It is really the backbone idea around many of the things about which I am passionate – Open Source, unconferences, personal learning networks and libraries….What if we had something similar in libraryland? We already do.
LibraryHack – mashing it up
Libraryhack is a mashup and apps competition with great prizes designed to encourage the creative and innovative re-use of library data and digital content…run by the National, State and Territory libraries of Australia and New Zealand. (NSLA)
For the Libraryhack competition, participating libraries are making some of their collections and data freely available for anyone to mash up, remix and repurpose and create something new!
Report on “After Wikileaks is it all over for The Archives” available
On March 23 in Sydney, new recordkeeping and archives discussion group The Recordkeeping Roundtable, in conjunction with the NSW Branch of the Australian Society of Archivists hosted ‘After WikiLeaks, is it all over for The Archives? WikiLeaks and the future of recordkeeping in a connected world’.
The seeds for this event had been sewn a few months earlier, with the start of discussions on both the ASA’s ArchivesLive! and the Archives and records Australia Google Group . By late February a concept for a panel and discussion session had formed, with the group keen to involve speakers from outside the archives world.
Bathing at the National Library
I need to make a bath. Not for me; for a large sheet of yellowing brittle paper. Cleaning the paper reduces its acidity and will give it a longer life. As a bookbinder i don’t do extensive paper treatments, but I do have occasion to wash and line sheets of material, more specifically paper covers.
