The Library of Congress Begins Publishing A Digital Preservation Blog

The name of the blog is, “The Signal” and can be accessed at: http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/

Bill LeFurgy points out in the blog’s first that the new publication is comes from NDIIPP (National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program)

Mr. LeFurgy goes on to say:

Over the last 10 years we [NDIIPP] have built a national network of collaborative partnerships to help preserve important digital content, build new tools and develop best practices. The partnerships span different communities, including universities, federal and state government agencies and the commercial creative content industry.  This is a new approach. Libraries, archives and other memory institutions traditionally have worked separately to acquire and manage their collections. But digital is different—it calls for a new kind of capacity that is difficult for a single institution to build on its own. The only practicable way forward is collaboration: in building technical infrastructure, in sharing knowledge, in developing best practices and in assigning roles and responsibilities for stewarding digital collections.

Collaboration is a great subject to talk about but hard to actually do. There are a host of barriers, often social, that can block action at any point.

That’s why it is often said that technology is the easy part of digital preservation; social is the hard part. We have always done our best to remember this, and have put a lot of effort into outreach and engagement.

The second post talks about a recent visit to LC by students from the Imagine Schools South Lake Middle School in Clermont, Fl as part of a class trip to Washington, D.C.

The visit included a discussion about digital preservation and more specifically, the preservation of digital photos.

Butch Lazorchak has a full report about the students visit along with a Flickr gallery of photos. Details and links can be found in a post titled, “What Do Teenagers Know About Digital Preservation? Actually, More Than You Think…”

Congrats to the entire NDIIPP team on the release of The Signal.

See Also: If you’re interested in learning more about what the NDIIPP does.  This report about activities during 2010 is a good place to begin.

Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Digital Collections, Digital Preservation, Interactive Tools, Libraries, Preservation, Publishing