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Google and Piracy

the archivist — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:14:29 +0000

It’s been kind of a rough week here at ArchivesFound headquarters- but I plan to be back with a few new posts soon. For now, it’s Friday, thank goodness.

In celebration of an oft overlooked constituency, you can now translate your Google search into Pirate– just in time to celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day!

(check out Google Blog for more updates)

Remembering the fallen

the archivist — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:57:17 +0000

Library of Congress Web archive of September 11, 2001

The September 11 Web Archive

Stephen Colbert: National Treasure

the archivist — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:04:46 +0000

A late call to the Atonement Phone last night brought an update to the saga of Stephen Colbert’s painting: while April 1st was the last day the portrait was hanging in the National Portrait Gallery, apparently Brent Glass of the Smithsonian decided to take it for the next two weeks. Stephen’s portrait will be hanging in the Smithsonian as part of the Treasures of American History exhibit until April 13th. Because of the current renovation project at the American History museum, the exhibit is being held at the Air & Space Museum.

Titanic and the ravages of time

the archivist — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:48:34 +0000

This morning’s brief NYT article about the death of one of the last known survivors of the Titanic made me pause for a moment. Not because I’m a Titanic buff (I’m not, though I do find the story to be fascinating), but because of the mention that the deceased was one of the last two survivors of that fateful journey, a representative of the past. As time marches onward, memories fade and we begin to lose more and more “eyewitnesses” to history. Within my lifetime, the last Holocaust survivor, the last soldier present on D-Day, and others will slowly go “into that good night.” I’m not ready for that to happen yet. As an archivist charged with preserving history, I feel that I am always looking for ways to stave off a time when firsthand accounts are no longer available in the flesh. Of course oral histories look to fill that gap, but are there other things that we can do as keepers of the record to preserve the immediacy of speaking with someone who was there at Normandy? How can we, without overinterpreting or overemphasizing, better bring an accurate sense of the past to the present? What are the best ways to capture these things now, before the opportunity is lost?