There’s an article in today’s New York Times about David Ferriero, the archivist of the US. While the subtitle (”Collector in Chief Hoards Nation’s Irreplaceable Stuff”) betrays stereotypes about the ways that the work of archivists and the contents of archives are viewed, the article has some interesting tidbits for us to examine.

Several that jumped out at me:

• Digital record keeping has created new challenges: each agency has its own standards; since it consumes less space, the temptation is to avoid discretionary decisions and save more than is needed; electronic records are more subject to tampering; and emerging technology requires curatorial nimbleness. (The White House is hiring a social media archivist.)

The first part is something that has been discussed ad infinitum by NARA and others. Born-digital records come with built-in problems when we consider them using appraisal practices that are suited for a paper-based practice. That part isn’t news, and neither is the discussion of authenticity and migration, but I’m glad to see that it made the paper, anyway. The part that I found to be very interesting: the White House is hiring a social media archivist? I’m really curious to hear more about that.

• How many digitized records should be available online? “If I had my way,” he replied, “everything.”

OK, I like the idea of every digitized record being available online, in theory. What is the reality? In practice, NARA’s website (websites, if you include the presidential libraries, which also use the creaky ARC database) is woefully difficult to navigate, and even if much more content were made available, the infrastructure needs a significant boost. NARA holds some rich and magnificent resources, and like every repository out there, time, money, and backlog will always be issues. Ferreiro sidesteps the issue here (and for a general audience, perhaps he made the right choice), but I’d like to hear about the appraisal process for digitization at NARA and what the benchmarks and goals look like for improved research access to collection materials.

• The Obama administration has also given the National Archives responsibility for reviewing the declassification of 400 million pages of secret documents by the end of 2013. Mr. Ferriero’s goal, he said, is “to ensure that we have the user at the center of our thinking — historians, genealogists, open government folks. What can we do to make their lives easier?”

Obviously the newly established NARA declass center (NDC) will have something to do with this, but the last part of the paragraph was interesting to me. What is NARA doing to make research easier for users? I’m really looking forward to hearing more about this.

Full article here: The National Archivist keeps the Nation’s Heritage

 ”The electronic-records archives system may be able to take in a tremendous amount of e-mail and other records,” Brachfeld said. “But just because you ingest the data does not mean that people can locate, identify, recover and use the records they need.”

Full article from The Columbus Dispatch:  Bush’s electronic data a major archiving task

Hope everyone had a safe and lovely holiday break– and I’m hoping to be back on the blog more often once I make it home!

Announcements and Updates from consortiums and funding agencies:

Ann Russell, Executive Director, NEDCC, talked about their recent initiatives: dPlan, the online Preservation 101 course, and a digital preservation toolkit.  All of these tools could be useful for planning and understanding the scope of various collection-related issues, particularly at smaller and less-funded institutions.

Peter Wosh, SAA Publications director, spoke about a proposal for the development of a preservation manual in the same vein as the SAA Archival Fundamentals series.  There was some discussion regarding single author vs. multiple chapters/authors under a single editor, with the conclusion that either model would work for this type of manual. Contact Peter if you’re interested in working on this project. Additionally, a document that was originally intended for archivists looking at building/renovation projects is available in draft form/PDF on the SAA website. Link here.

Kathleen Williams, Executive Director, NHPRC, discussed the current funding situation. Basically, funding for NHPRC must be reauthorized every five years by Congress. It has been approved by the House, and was supposed to be introduced in the Senate sometime after Labor Day. However, being an election year, it’s possible that funding will fall under a continuing resolution (with the previous funding amount) in order to operate while everyone is out there on the stump. While I was looking for the above legislation, I found a bill introduced in the House to strike a commemorative coin for the 75th anniversary of NARA and NHPRC in 2010– HR. 6300. It’s interesting to realize how young our National Archives really is, particularly in comparison to those of other countries.

After all of the announcements, there was a panel titled “The Drive to Digitize,” which was followed by some discussion. My notes are a bit scratchy at this point, so I’m hoping that others will help fill in any gaps.

Thomas Clareson, PALINET:

-stated that priority to preserve that is driving digitization, and that he felt rumors of the demise of preservation funding in favor of digitization grants were exaggerated

-Trends helping cause: IMLS focusing more on preservation- possibly as a result of the 2005 Heritage Health Index; implementation money

- Concern: current (dormant) status of stabilization grants

-Best way to advocate for more funding is to use currently available $.  Use LoC list of preservation-friendly funding institutions, LSTA library state funding for preservation

Kaye Lanning Minchew, Troup County Archives, GA (funding recipient)

-Discussed digitization project originally slated for access purposes that turned into a preservation project.

Susan Malbin, IMLS:

-Talked about the custodianship of digital surrogates, post-grant project, and the importance of outlining future plans for these in the grantwriting process.

-Mentioned National Leadership & Laura Bush grants (deadline 12/15)

Kathleen Williams, NHPRC:

-Discussed drivers for dunding decisions

-Projects: preservation (archives and manuscripts) and documentary projects; trying to meet goals of preservation and access

-Make case that digitization needs to fall within preservation continuum, not vacuum

Joel Wurl, NEH:

-Digitization at core of institutional debate over preservation and access

-Anecdotally, digital funding has had some impact on preservation funding; not much increase in total agency funding

-Attempting to ensure future availability of resources> challenge: how to best harness interest/resources?

-Caution in thinking of granting agencies as drivers rather than listeners/facilitators

This is a fairly cut-and-dry instance, but my recent poking around has uncovered some other potential “land mines” that should be addressed within our collections. Some of the resources that I’ve found to be useful:

The Law of Libraries and Archives by Bryan M. Carson

The Stanford Law School Fair Use Project

Mary Minow’s LibraryLaw blog

While I was perusing the last of those, I saw a post of interest– titled “Free the Founding Fathers,” it discusses NARA’s report to Congress on planning for digital access to the papers of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. The NARA report can be found on the NHPRC website (pdf here), and I encourage you to read Peter Hirtle’s take on the situation at the LibraryLaw blog here.

Other tangents of interest: the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CETA)/“Mickey Mouse” Protection Act, Eldred v. Ashcroft, Public Domain Enhancement Act(PDEA), Warner Bros. Entertainment and J.K.Rowling vs. RDR Books

A Fair(y) Use Tale: A short film by Eric Faden discusses copyright using clips from the work of a company who has lobbied hard for extended copyright terms.