That means the records date back to 1775, but also that the expectation is for the records to continue on for some time into the future (or maybe just that 9999 is the new 2012).

This is where you, fellow archivists, professional small collections managers, librarians, students, history buffs, Americans, or American enthusiasts come in to help preserve America’s history.

Personally I wouldn’t really want to rely on that scratched up copy of The Gods Must Be Crazy IV: Crazy in Hong Kong or a variable quality, cut-up YouTube version of Teen Witch as the sole formats to maintain my cultural heritage.

We’ve all been aware of the tightening of budgets and funding resources due to the economic downturn, but these situations with the Tully papers and Billy Name’s works have me thinking that there are other kinds of threats to archival collections that will be rippling out for some time from the various financial troubles.

The reality is that every system is vulnerable to this type of error regardless of its cost. And no matter how small the error, it is not an acceptable occurrence in a preservation transfer. The nature of digital interstitial errors makes them very difficult to identify using currently available methods and tools, and the truth is that they are often missed and overlooked. In short, the community needs better tools to identify and respond to errors such as these.

From NARA’s Historical Document of the Day, transcription of a note sent via messenger pigeon during World War I — The same kind of “media format” referenced in one of our banner images. I guess they had to do an “open with” and “save as” on a typewriter in order to access the attachment.

Even the big dogs have to deal with the impossible seeming task of producing more while spending less…

Chris Lacinak, founder of AVPS, was honored to receive a letter from Dr. Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States, thanking him for his contribution to the 21st Annual National Archives Preservation Conference held April 30th through May 1st, 2007. The title of the conference was “Managing the Intangible: Creating, Storing and Retrieving Digital Surrogates [...]

Every year the National Archives (NARA) puts together an impressive collection of topics and speakers to make up their Preservation Conference. This year will bring the 21st Annual Preservation Conference, titled “Managing the Intangible: Creating, Storing and Retrieving Digital Surrogates of Historical Materials.” Chris Lacinak of AVPS accepted the invitation to contribute to this conference [...]