What's All This About?

This morning, I took a look at The DIGITAL Archive blog, specifically the 'about this blog' blurb to the right, and I wondered if the words I had written several months ago describing the blog accurately reflected the nature of the blog and its readership.

After some thought (and editing), I believe I nailed down a more simplified description:

The DIGITAL Archive focuses on the Web and its impact on information professionals in libraries and archives..and anyone anywhere fascinated by the Web...

I eliminated the long list of web-related technologies, such as new media and social web technologies, and special topics, such as digitization and digital preservation, in favor of something more brief, succinct. However, I removed these words only for the sake of brevity.

For me, the Web (Web 2.0) covers all these areas - from digitization to social networking - and all the areas yet to be developed.

I still want to focus on the impact of these technologies on information professionals in libraries and archives, so that remains intact.

However, when I write, whether on the topic of technology or personal matters such as opinions on the archival profession, I have a type of reader in mind: It is someone who is not necessarily a librarian or archivist but simply someone who is enthusiastic about the Web, fascinated by technology, and whose vocabulary does not include the words "It can't be done" or "That's impossible" in regards to thinking or doing things differently.

Finally, I often fool around with The DIGITAL Archive's tag line. This week it is:

It's my digital archive, in Technicolor

Well, it is my digital archive, in color. When I blog, I do not write on behalf of any institution or archival association. I avoid archival public policy issues because, quite frankly, I do not know enough on the subject. As writers in other fields suggest, write what you know about, and that's what I try to do, with color.

Too often, people imagine the archives as nothing but boxes, darkness, dampness, dust, more boxes, and black & white photographs. While there is some truth to this, the buried truth, which needs to be unearthed (Archives 2.0 hint hint), is that there is so much color, so many colorful characters and events, so much rich content!

I guess I am a content agnostic. I do not have a preference. I will work with all kinds of content as long as there is a benefit to the audience. But being a history grad and a lover of stories, I guess I have a bias for archival content.

(Geez...so much for my sabbatical.)

Get a Life, Google!

Google is digitizing LIFE magazine's photo collection.

Take a look!

Google News Archive Search: History Becomes Content (with ads)

Google has launched Google News Archive Search, a new search tool that searches through historical archives from sources such as newspapers that Google and its partners have digitized or through existing online archival material that Google has crawled. For some, access is free, others fee-based.

But perhaps the most impressive aspect is how Google has taken historical archives and transformed it into accessible content.

I remember the days (and nights) sitting in the library in front of a big, bulky microfilm machine, squinting at the screen, and cursing under my breath as the film got tangled in the spool or when I simply could not find what I was looking for.

Ah yes, the good old days.

But in spite of those drawbacks, there was something wonderful, perhaps even magical, in turning the spool and watching all those images from newspapers dating back to the early 1900s (or even earlier) pass by, reading headlines that still have as much impact as they did on the day when the paper was printed.

Now, Google News Archive Search provides a similar experience via the Web.



Without a doubt, I am impressed. I am impressed by the digitization workmanship and the delivery mechanism. In the past, I performed large-scale scanning (historical photographs) and coordinated imaging projects (documents) and I know how difficult these projects can be, particularly in achieving high scan quality (readability) and searching (optical character recognition). It is difficult to achieve respectable results in both of these critical areas, but Google has managed to create very good quality output.

The delivery mechanism is equally impressive. After selecting an item from the results page, the new webpage divides into three windows: A large primary window to display the section of the newspaper with the searched keywords or article headline; a smaller window displaying a macro view of the newspaper; and below another small window displaying related links and (by God, no) Google Ads.

The large, primary screen is equipped with several useful page navigation tools, including Zoom In/Zoom Out, Full Screen, and Fit to Height. Meanwhile the small screen reminds me of another Google service, Google Maps. Imagine the newspaper is a map. The smaller screen has a little blue highlight box that can be moved around the page, magnifying the location in the large, main screen. The related window pane offers some helpful related links and a few ads.

Seeing Google's ads leaves me with mixed feelings, I must admit. Is historical content but another platform upon which Google can append its ads?

As a proponent for making content (historical or otherwise) more accessible (Lord knows, I've done my fair share of work in this area), I definitely support Google's initiative and urge people to test and evaluate the service for themselves.

But I want Google News Archive Search users to experience the magic in viewing the past, the stories that defined and continue to define our world, without seeing the sight of crass consumerism (i.e. Google Ads) on the screen. My only consolation is that the ads are not intrusive.

National Film Board of Canada Digitzing Its Collection

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB), Canada's public film producer and distributor, recently launched beta.NFB.ca, a website created to showcase the Film Board's wealth of films, documentaries, animated shorts, trailers, news clips, and other productions found in its 70 year old vaults.

According to the beta.NFB.ca website, whose "mission is to make these films accessible to all Canadians," there are so far 300 full-length films and clips digitized and ready to view on the website. Furthermore, beta.NFB.ca intends on adding more films every week. The website explains that this "project was facilitated by Canadian Culture Online, which has been helping us [NFB] to digitize our film collection since 2001."

Although the website is currently in proverbial Web 2.0 beta, the website nonetheless has some very promising and impressive Web 2.0 features. Besides offering high-quality streaming video, in addition to a robust hardware and software set-up (details here), the website has these notable user-centric features:

• Browse documentaries and animated films or search them by keyword search;


• Film selection is accompanied by a related films column (similar to YouTube) and a descriptive note by a Film Board curator, if available;


• Favorite films can be given a thumbs up (recommended) and shared with the social Web via such popular tools as delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon, or FaceBook, or be embedded in one's website or blog, or shared by email;


• Viewing history panel is available resembling a roll of film (some work could be done on this);


• Three RSS feeds;


• News blog updating site additons and changes.

The beta.NFB.ca website looks and feels very good. The black background color invokes a movie theater, highlighting the films. The website's main navigation is clean and simple with four primary categories. As the user drills down, more navigation choices emerge but thankfully remain simple on all levels. A reasonably rugged search engine is available, though I found browsing for films more successful and rewarding. Speaking of browsing, the labels attributed to the four categories are intuitive, though I would recommend replacing "Explore All Films" with "Browse All Films."

Overall, this is a very slick web production, one that Canadians should be proud of - and the rest of the world can thoroughly enjoy.

You think you know Canada, eh? Well spend a few minutes (or hours) here and you'll learn something new. Guaranteed.

Interesting People, Interesting Blogs (Part 7)

Another installment to what has become a personal favorite of mine.

I came across Dan Cohen's Digital Humanities Blog while examining one of his books, Digital history: a guide to gathering, preserving, presenting the past on the web (which seems like an equally good read as well, but that's another topic).

I like this blog because it focuses on how research in the humanities can benefit from current and emerging technologies such as digitization and Web 2., including a cool Firefox add-on called Zotero, a social bookmarking and citation organizer tool that harnesses the community of researchers in the humanities field. Very cool.

arch.i.vi.us Updated

I spent the last couple of hours revisiting my experimental website called arch.i.vi.us. My so-called Social Bookmarking Blog for Research Archivists has been dormant for some time, too long, in my opinion.

I believe the reason is I really have no time to 1) scan the headlines on or about digitization and digital preservation and 2) post them to the blog.

That said, I decided to not only revamp the page layout and design but to update the Blogger template from the old static version to the new dynamic layout, where one can click and drag page elements across the template. Each page element has some pretty powerful features such as being able to grab RSS feeds. It is so easy, it is dummy proof.

With the redesign I hope the blog becomes more useful because now, without any further intervention on behalf, the blog is pulling in content from across the web: news items, delicious tags, videos, etc. I love it, and I hope you will too!