Invest to Save: Report and Recommendations of the NSF-DELOS Working Group on Digital Archiving and Preservation

Digital archiving and preservation are important areas for research and development, but there is no agreed upon set of priorities or coherent plan for research in this area. Research projects in this area tend to be small and driven by particular institutional problems or concerns. As a consequence, proposed solutions from experimental projects and prototypes tend not to scale to millions of digital objects, nor do the results from disparate projects readily build on each other. It is also unclear whether it is worthwhile to seek general solutions or whether different strategies are needed for different types of digital objects and collections. The lack of coordination in both research and development means that there are some areas where researchers are reinventing the wheel while other areas are neglected. Digital archiving and preservation is an area that will benefit from an exercise in analysis, priority setting, and planning for future research. The WG aims to survey current research activities, identify gaps, and develop a white paper proposing future research directions in the area of digital preservation. Some of the potential areas for research include repository architectures and inter-operability among digital archives; automated tools for capture, ingest, and normalization of digital objects; and harmonization of preservation formats and metadata. There can also be opportunities for development of commercial products in the areas of mass storage systems, repositories and repository management systems, and data management software and tools.

American Studies and Digital Archives. A Forum on Collaborative Knowledge Preservation, Accessibility, and Pedagogy

This forum features interviews with scholars and creators of digital archives in the field of American Studies and investigates questions at the intersections of theory and practice. By creating a dialogue among diverse projects, we seek to explore and compare their pedagogical affordances, the relationship between content and informational architecture, and the ability for digital archives to write, or re-write, history “from below.”Questo forum contiene interviste con studiosi e creatori di archivi digitali nell’ambito degli studi americani, concentrandosi su questioni all’intersezione tra teoria e pratica. Mettendo una moltitudine di progetti in conversazione tra loro, il forum ne esplora e confronta le capacità pedagogiche, le relazioni tra contenuto e infrastrutture informatiche e l'abilità degli archivi digitali di scrivere, o riscrivere, la storia “dal basso”

No file left behind: the predicament of archival appraising in the digital age

Technology is continually changing. New advancements in technology allow records creators to employ a plethora of different mediums. Records created born-digitally are entering the archives, and archivists are challenged in appraising records that may be available only on outdated or unreadable software or hardware platforms. This thesis examines key issues regarding working with, especially appraising, born-digital materials in archival collections. The archival profession confronts inadequate education on technological challenges, a need to reexamine archival theories and methodologies regarding appraisal, and a general terror when it comes to working with born-digital material. Through use of interviews, this thesis explores the practical side of appraisal through a discourse on what current archivists are working on, their methodologies, and their advice and recommendations for those just starting to work on born-digital material. The thesis argues that even the smallest steps to address challenges with working with born-digital material mark a step in the right direction

The Greatest Book You Will Never Read: Public Access Rights and the Orphan Works Dilemma

Copyright law aims to promote the dual goals of incentivizing production of literary and artistic works, and promoting public access and free speech. To achieve these goals, Congress has implemented a policy that acknowledges the rights of both the copyright holder and the public, which vest with the fixation of the work. However, as Congressional action has strengthened copyright protection, the rights of the public have been narrowed. Orphan works – works to which the copyright owner cannot be located or identified – present a unique problem, in that achieving free access and use of the works is often impossible. This note argues that the public has a recognizable right in both gaining access to and using orphan works – a right which emanates from, but is tangential to, the First Amendment right to free speech

Back to basics: Supporting digital humanities and community collaboration using the core strength of the academic library

© Emerald Publishing Limited 2018. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. Licensed re-use rights only. "Conditions of deposit – for journal articles and book chapters As a signatory of the Voluntary STM Sharing Principles, Emerald supports sharing research via affiliated Scholarly Collaboration Networks (SCNs) and other non-commercial research collaboration groups. If you have received direct funding with a mandate that stipulates your work must be made open access but funding is not available to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC), upon official publication, you may deposit the AAM of your journal article or book chapter into a subject or institutional repository and your funder's research catalogue, free from embargo. To deposit your AAM, you will need to include the DOI back to the Version of Record within www.emeraldinsight.com, and all of the relevant metadata (for journal articles: article title, journal name, volume, issue etc, for Book chapters: chapter title, book title, volume, issue etc.)."Peer ReviewedPurpose: To describe how academic libraries can support digital humanities (DH) research by leveraging established library values and strengths to provide support for preservation and access and physical and digital spaces for researchers and communities, specifically focused on cultural heritage collections. Design/methodology/approach: The experiences of the authors in collaborating with DH scholars and community organizations is discussed with references to the literature. The paper suggests how research libraries can use existing expertise and infrastructure to support the development of digital cultural heritage collections and DH research. Findings: Developing working collaborations with DH researchers and community organizations is a productive way to engage in impactful cultural heritage digital projects. It can aid resource allocation decisions to support active research, strategic goals, community needs and the development and preservation of unique, locally relevant collections. Libraries do not need to radically transform themselves to do this work, they have established strengths that can be effective in meeting the challenges of DH research. Practical implications: Academic libraries should strategically direct the work they already excel at to support DH research and work with scholars and communities to build collections and infrastructure to support these initiatives. Originality/value: The paper recommends practical approaches, supported by literature and local examples, that could be taken when building DH and community-engaged cultural heritage projects

The Greatest Book You Will Never Read: Public Access Rights and the Orphan Works Dilemma

Copyright law aims to promote the dual goals of incentivizing production of literary and artistic works, and promoting public access and free speech. To achieve these goals, Congress has implemented a policy that acknowledges the rights of both the copyright holder and the public, which vest with the fixation of the work. However, as Congressional action has strengthened copyright protection, the rights of the public have been narrowed. Orphan works – works to which the copyright owner cannot be located or identified – present a unique problem, in that achieving free access and use of the works is often impossible. This note argues that the public has a recognizable right in both gaining access to and using orphan works – a right which emanates from, but is tangential to, the First Amendment right to free speech