Hello Everyone!!PolVam
I’m Sara, one of many in the class. 🙂 This is my second year in the MLIS program following the Archives and Digital Curation track. This past summer, I was a Junior Fellow at the Library of Congress working in their Prints and Photographs division inventorying a collection that will eventually be digitized. Currently, I work part-time in the University Archives specializing in athletic archives on campus. Additionally, I do metadata collation and quality review for the Maryland Historic Newspaper Project.
In every internship or job that I’ve held/hold there is always mention of digital preservation. While it has been mentioned throughout those opportunities; I have neglected in getting more acquainted with what it means. Pushing further into the archives profession it become more and more prominent that digital preservation is just as important as non-digital items are. Seeing this course being offered allows for me to dig into the ideas/practices of digital preservation and gain that knowledge that will make me a better professional.
The articles this past week were great foundation into the start of the class. Personally, I started with reading “The Definitions of Digital Preservation” that was developed by ALCTS. It gave a good starting point to understand what digital preservation is. The best part is that they built on a single definition. It is interesting that within the definition the group identified terms that needed further discussion. Basically, saying that the definition is and will be a work in progress.
As for the other two articles, they developed conflicting opinions and feelings both personally then throughout the class. Vint Cerf idea of digital vellum is a great idea overall. The conflict with his idea that presented itself, especially in class, it that it seemed like he was trying to promote his software to make a buck. Even if that was the case, the idea that he has is start (though many have hinted at in before him). As technology and software advances something needs to be done that will help preserve the knowledge that came with it.
The blog post done by Lyons was interesting. In my opinion any publicity is good when it comes to certain issues and digital preservation is one. It might hurt some egos that the profession isn’t doing anything to help with the supposed “digital dark age”. I saw the NPR story as an articles that wasn’t necessary for our profession but others outside. It an avenue to get people aware of what is going on and to get them thinking.
I’m looking forward to what the rest of the course will hold and learning from the variety of backgrounds that make up the class!