Metadata Health Check Done By OCLC

OCLC researchers Wouter Kool, Brian Lavoie and Titia Van der Werf did a health check of digital preservation, and share their concerns about the current state of metadata in their twenty page report.

-DD

eBooks and Libraries

Brian Mathews recently posted about the pressure on library directors to discard the printed books and move toward an all electronic library . A comment on the post noted that some Canadian Libraries have already lost valuable historical data due to a similar government demand.

-DD

Scanning Information

Digitization by Google and the Library of Congress is bringing collections of books and photos online. Keith Shaw has published an article on portable scanners that might be useful for researchers to take into an archive "Honey, They Shrank the Scanners." Be sure to obtain permission before using such equipment in an archive -- many archives are concerned that scanning might fade or mutilate their irreplaceable documents.


-DD

Creating A Personal Database

Dr. Alexander Halavais reocunts his experience with "digitizing the personal library" in an article by that name authored by Jennifer Howard for the Chronicle of Higher Education. She notes that Dr. Halavais posted additional thoughts digitization on his blog, A Thaumaturgical Compendium, and it is interesting to read what others think of his work.

-D.D.