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July 25, 2008

A Reason to Digitize

Today the horrific news that the Swan’s Island Library near Bangor, Maine burned to the ground after being struck by lightening.  It was a small library, about 10,000 books, but also housed a lot of the local history collections for the community. Items that were lost included:

Photographs, letters, journals, toys and even hand-carved lobster claw pegs were among the items in the collection, she said. Much of it had been kept until recently in Seaside Hall, a local recreational hall built in 1905 for plays and dances, according to the town Web site, www.swansisland.org. The hall was sold last year, and since then many of the historical items had been moved into the library, according to Bailey.

Some artifacts, such as old photo albums and letters, had been moved into the library within the past few weeks, she said.

I don’t know about you, but that gets me a bit concerned. What’s your disaster plan for your library and, especially, your local history archives or even, what’s your disaster plan for your own personal treasure troves? Have you considered digitization? In this case, if they have anything digitized, they at least have most of the content so it’s not a complete and total loss. Maybe it’s time your institution joined Digital Past and made digitization a priority? Think about it and then give me a call and we’ll talk…

posted by Kay at 1:16 pm | Comments (0)

March 18, 2008

79,000+ Newspaper Pages Online

The Library of Congress has recently added over 79,000 pages of newspapers to their nearly half a million already up at Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers site. It represents 61 newspapers ranging from 1900-1910.

posted by Kay at 3:09 pm | Comments (0)

March 3, 2008

Robins! I want to see Robins!

I just ran across a very cool digitization site and for those who are as desperate to see Spring’s Herald, the Robin, as I am it gives hope! The University of Pittsburgh has put up the entire set of Audubon’s Birds of America, along with his Ornithological Biography. The plates are gorgeous and it’s very easy to search. Enjoy the art and THINK SPRING!

posted by Kay at 3:47 pm | Comments (0)

January 17, 2008

Library of Congress on Flickr

That’s right - the Library of Congress has put about 3000 images on Flickr and they are asking the general public to tag them From the few I looked at, it looks like it’s been a popular pasttime! Of course, they have no known copyright restrictions so go for it! Very cool…

posted by Kay at 11:35 am | Comments (1)

November 15, 2007

Updated Copyright Term Map

There is an updated “Copyright Term and the Public Domain” map on the Cornell site. It includes audio-visual materials and sound recordings now. Necessary reference for anyone involved in digitization….

posted by Kay at 11:00 am | Comments (0)

November 5, 2007

FamilySearch Indexing Project

Last week the Genealogy & Local History Networking Group had the Family History Center coordinator for the 7-state area out to talk about what was going on with FamilySearch, the FHCs, etc. Part of the presentation was about FamilySearch Indexing which is a project YOU can become involved in. They are looking for volunteers to help index/transcribe all sorts of genealogical data including censuses (censi?), birth, marriage, and death records from all over the world. Everything is done online from their site and through the software provided AND in small (half hour or so) batches. I thought this sounded like fun so I signed up last week.

After the initial read-through/click-through training provided on the site and downloading the software, I grabbed my first batch of records. I was trying to get some records from Germany, but that didn’t work so I hit the button that gave me whatever they thought was most important to get indexed at the time. I ended up with the Minnesota census, which was fine, I grew up in a town founded by the Swedish so I can read Johnson and Jorgeson just as well as the next person. I didn’t even get a full page - just 27 lines! However, as it was my first and I was getting used to the handwriting, it did take me more than half an hour, but not more than an hour. I’m sure as I do more I will get used to the handwriting.

The process is very cool though - it highlights each of the fields on the original so you know where you are and what you are entering in your table. It also tries to save your typing as much as possible giving you the option of choosing what you just typed in the field above. For example, if you’re doing a family and the parents were both born in Germany, it auto-selects Germany for you until you tell it something else. Very easy and really rather fun. There’s also the whole “hey, maybe I’ll run across one of MY relatives” treasure-hunt mentality and the feel-good aspect of knowing you’re helping someone else out.

Anyway, give it a try - if you’re anything like me you’ll find it a challenging, fun and rewarding experience!

posted by Kay at 1:14 pm | Comments (0)

September 27, 2007

Excellent Reference for Photographic Processes

I ran across this EXCELLENT reference from the Library of Congress today about photographic print processes (limited to what’s in their collection - but really? What are they missing?). Each process is put in a time line, has a brief explanation of it and then sends you off to examples in the collection plus some other good solid links about that process. This is a fantastic resource and I highly recommend that you bookmark it somehow (del.icio.us works for me!).

posted by Kay at 9:49 am | Comments (0)

September 7, 2007

Amazing New Image Technology

I don’t know if you’ve heard of SeaDragon or Photosynth yet but this video is mindblowing. These are digital camera or 300 dpi images he has on the screen - check out the level of detail on the zooming! I’d love to spend some time playing with this! It’s really hard to describe, so take the 7 minutes and watch it yourself! http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129

posted by Kay at 11:01 am | Comments (0)

August 16, 2007

Genealogy/Digitization News

Apparently good things are coming out of the FGS Conference. The Allen County Public Library (ACPL), Brigham Young University Harold B. Lee Library, and FamilySearch’s Family History Library announced a joint digitization project. It appears to be city and county histories as well as published family histories. All 100,000 or so items will be available at: http://www.familyhistoryarchive.byu.edu.

For the full story…

posted by Kay at 3:43 pm | Comments (0)

August 6, 2007

Holocaust Records to be Sent to Washington & Jerusalem

Last week the New York Times ran a story about the International Tracing Service, which is administered by the International Committee of the Red Cross and located in Bad Arolsen, Germany. Later in August, about the Tracing Service will transfer about 10 million documents to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and to the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem. The files include information from over 51 concentration camps & prisons, and include transportation lists, medical reports, entry documents and Gestapo prison records.

posted by Kay at 1:12 pm | Comments (0)

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