Associate Librarian for Strategic Initiatives Laura E. Campbell has just named Mary Rasenberger as director of program management for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP). Rasenberger most recently served as the policy planning adviser for special programs in the U.S. Copyright Office. Rasenberger also helped to establish the independent Section 108 Study Group, which is studying possible recommendations for changes to the Copyright Act to make it more applicable to the handling of digital materials by libraries and archives. Read the news release for more information.
The Library has also launched a Web site devoted to the effort to capture Web sites for preservation purposes. The Web Capture project is directly related to the larger National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. Since 2000, the Library has been collecting sites in areas such as the recent Supreme Court nominations; Hurricane Katrina; and the papal transition following the death of John Paul II. Current collecting projects include the crisis in Darfur, Sudan; the Iraq War; and the upcoming Election 2006.
The Office of Strategic Initiatives, which oversees the digital preservation program, also oversees the Library's award-winning Web site. The site has just won the prestigious People's Voice Webby Award from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Read the news release for full details.
In other NDIIPP news, the Library of Congress and the British Library have agreed to support a common archiving standard for electronic journals. To help ensure long-term access to electronic journals, the two institutions will support the migration of electronic content to the NLM DTD standard, where practicable. The libraries hope that their advocacy of migration to this standard will help ensure long-term access to electronic journal content. The news release has the complete story.
The Library of Congress is an active participant in the American Library Association's semiannual meetings. The next meeting will be held in New Orleans. If you will be attending this important event, please stop by the Library's exhibit space, booth No. 2158. There will be daily presentations, June 24-27, about NDIIPP and other Library of Congress programs.
Since September 2004, NDIIPP has been working with eight consortia comprising 36 institutions as part of its digital preservation network. Several interviews with NDIIPP partners as well as staff at the Library who help manage these projects are available. This month's new interview is with staff at the MetaArchive project at Emory University. The MetaArchive Project is a collaborative venture of Emory University, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Florida State University, Auburn University, the University of Louisville and the Library of Congress. The project is supported by an in-kind award from the Library. The partner institutions of this project are engaged in a three-year process to develop a cooperative for the preservation of at-risk digital content with a particular content focus: the culture and history of the American South. The MetaArchive staff provide fascinating insights into this project in this interview.
Finally, in a continuing series, a new Webcast is available from an NDIIPP presentation held at the Library on May 10. This Webcast features Eileen Fenton of Portico, an NDIIPP partner. Other presentations are also available, on the Archive Ingest and Handling Test and the Preserving Public Television project with Channel 13.
