Before It’s Too Late: A Digital Game Preservation White Paper

Over the last four decades, electronic games have profoundly changed the way people play, learn, and connect with each other. Despite the tremendous impact of electronic games, however, until recently, relatively few programs existed to preserve them for future generations of players and researchers. Recognizing the need to save the original content and intellectual property of electronic games from media rot, obsolescence, and loss, the Game Preservation Special Interest Group of the International Game Developers Association has issued a white paper summarizing why electronic games should be preserved, problems that must be solved to do so, some potential solutions, and why all these issues should matter to everyone interested in electronic games and play in general. In the white paper, the editing of which was partially supported by the Preserving Virtual Worlds project and by funds from the Library of Congress, its editor and six authors (Rachel Donahue created a survey for IGDA members not included in this article) issue a call for heightened awareness of the need to preserve electronic games—endangered by relatively rapid electronic decay and intellectual neglect alike—for play scholarship and for the culture of the twenty-first century

Morgan Papers: Exploring the Correspondence of California’s First Female Architect

Descriptive metadata and full-text transcripts have long been valued for their roles in powering search engines and faceted browsing. But as the morganpapers.org web application demonstrates, such textual data (both structured and unstructured) can be leveraged to build a variety of tools which provide deeper and broader insight than simple searching and browsing. The Robert E. Kennedy Library at Cal Poly recently completed digitization of a unique body of correspondence between architect Julia Morgan and William Randolph Hearst, carried out during the construction of what is now known as Hearst Castle. The structure is a masterpiece and the crown jewel of Morgan’s illustrious career throughout California, where she worked as the state’s first female licensed architect. The collection consists of over 2,500 letters, telegrams, notes, and other documents (totalling over 3,200 pages), spanning the years 1919-1941. The pieces were written in several places across the United States and overseas. As each piece of correspondence was digitized, it was ingested in the library's archival repository along with its MODS-based metadata, and full-text transcripts (for both typescripts and manuscripts)

Morgan Papers: Exploring the Correspondence of California’s First Female Architect

Descriptive metadata and full-text transcripts have long been valued for their roles in powering search engines and faceted browsing. But as the morganpapers.org web application demonstrates, such textual data (both structured and unstructured) can be leveraged to build a variety of tools which provide deeper and broader insight than simple searching and browsing. The Robert E. Kennedy Library at Cal Poly recently completed digitization of a unique body of correspondence between architect Julia Morgan and William Randolph Hearst, carried out during the construction of what is now known as Hearst Castle. The structure is a masterpiece and the crown jewel of Morgan’s illustrious career throughout California, where she worked as the state’s first female licensed architect. The collection consists of over 2,500 letters, telegrams, notes, and other documents (totalling over 3,200 pages), spanning the years 1919-1941. The pieces were written in several places across the United States and overseas. As each piece of correspondence was digitized, it was ingested in the library's archival repository along with its MODS-based metadata, and full-text transcripts (for both typescripts and manuscripts)

Software Sustainability and Preservation: Panel - iPRES 2016 - Swiss National Library, Bern

Digital content and data require software for interpretation, processing, and use. This requirement raises the issue of sustaining software functionality beyond its prime use, when it is fully supported and maintained. Virtualization and emulation are two techniques that can encapsulate software in its functional form; furthermore, emulation has recently gained traction as a viable option for long-term access to digital objects. At the same time, archivists, librarians, and museum curators have begun concerted efforts to preserve software that is essential for accessing the digital heritage. In this context the members of the panel will discuss relevant work that they have been involved in to address the goal of software sustainability and preservation