Launch of PEPRS e-journals preservation registry service

From the announcement to DIGITAL-PRESERVATION@JISCMAIL.AC.UK on April 28, 02011:

EDINA and the ISSN International Centre are pleased to announce the Beta release of PEPRS, the e-journals preservation registry service. This is the product of JISC-funded project activity, and provides freely available means to discover which e-journals are being preserved by the leading archival organisations - highlighting those e-journals for which no arrangement is on record.

The PEPRS Beta service is available at http://www.peprs.org/

PEPRS is officially recognized by the ISSN Governing Board and officially launched it in Paris, France, on April 28, 02011.

The five archiving agencies that have been participating in the project and have made metadata available to the PEPRS Beta service include:

- British Library
- CLOCKSS Archive
- e-Depot at the Konjinklijke Bibliotheek
- Global LOCKSS Network
- Portico

USA President Obama's birth certificate posted on the White House site

Today, April 27, 02011, the White House posted President Obama's birth certificate on its Web site.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/04/27/president-obamas-long-form-birth-certificate

Free poster to promote Preservation Week 02011 among libraries & archives

From the announcement on various mailing lists on April 25, 02011:

The National Archives and SAA’s Preservation Section and are pleased to present an e-poster in recognition of Preservation Week 2011. We encourage you to share this poster with staff and the general public. It is sized to 8 1/2" x 11" so that it can be printed on any color printer.

You can download the free poster on the SAA Preservation Section website: http://www2.archivists.org/groups/preservation-section and NARA’s Preservation and Archives Professionals page: http://www.archives.gov/preservation/.

SAA has partnered with ALA in Preservation Week 2011. It is an opportunity for libraries, archives, and other cultural institutions to connect to our communities through events, activities, and resources that highlight what we can do, individually and together, to preserve our personal and shared collections.

This is a great tool for outreach.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) freely available

From the April 25, 02011 announcement on various mailing lists comes this exciting news from the digital humanities:

The University of Michigan Library announced the opening to the public of 2,231 searchable keyed-text editions of books from Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO). ECCO is an important research database that includes every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom during the 18th century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas. ECCO contains more than 32 million pages of text and over 205,000 individual volumes, all fully searchable. ECCO is published by Gale, part of Cengage Learning.

The Text Creation Partnership (TCP) produced the 2,231 keyed texts in collaboration with Gale, which provided page images for keying and is permitting the release of the keyed texts in support of the Library’s commitment to the creation of open access cultural heritage archives. Gale has been a generous partner, according to Maria Bonn, Associate University Librarian for Publishing. “Gale’s support for the TCP’s ECCO project will enhance the research experience for 18th century scholars and students around the world.”

Note that the plain-text version can only be obtained through 18thConnect while the SGML/XML version has to be requested via the ECCO-TCP office. As of April 25, 02011 there is no link to the ECCO-TCP content on the 18thConnect site.

Archiving 02011 Conference

From the announcement for the Archiving 02011 Conference:

FamilySearch and the Society for Imaging Science and Technology invite you to Archiving 2011, the international digital archiving conference covering the most pressing issues in imaging technology, digital access and preservation.

Archiving 2011 offers a unique opportunity for imaging scientists and those working in the cultural heritage community (curators, archivists, librarians, etc.), as well as in government, industry, and academia, to learn from peers and experts about:

• Developing a digital archive with appropriate processes and flows
• Preserving and providing access to digital artifacts
• Latest trends in imaging science technology

The conference will be held May 16-19 in Salt Lake City, Utah at the Salt Lake City Marriott Downtown.

The Archiving 2011 Conference Committee has put together a technically rich meeting that balances an exciting papers program with fun and interesting networking events.

The stimulating program includes more than 30 oral presentations and a host of interactive papers. The program also contains behind-the-scenes tours of cultural institutions and the following industry-leading keynote speakers:

• David Ferriero, 10th Archivist of the US National Archives: Creating a Digital Future: The National Archives and Information Technology
• Jay Verkler, President and CEO, FamilySearch International: Preservation in a Digital Age
• Michael Wash, Deputy CIO, US Department of Transportation: Preservation Starts from the Beginning

The Archiving 2011 program and additional information are available at http://www.imaging.org/ist/conferences/archiving.

National Portal To Historic Collections from American Heritage and AASLH

Started in 2007, American Heritage and the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) currently sponsor the National Portal To Historic Collections. According to the About page,

"... the National Portal is a massive, multiyear project to provide information on 4,000 historical sites, including easily searchable online access to digital images and descriptions of millions of artifacts housed in the collections of American museums, historical societies, National Parks, and other institutions across the country.
The objects being added to this national “clearinghouse” include documents, photographs, paintings and artifacts, and run the gamut from military artifacts to artworks to the tools and mementos of everyday life."

AuthentiCity, the City of Vancouver Archives Blog

While they've had a Twitter presence for a while now, I'm very pleased to learn that the City of Vancouver Archives recently launched a blog they call AuthentiCity. It's running on the popular WordPress platform.