Digital documents last forever - or five years, whichever comes first Jeff Rothenberg (cited p. 740 by Roy Rosenzweig)

It is a repulsive decision of the AHR not to make the forum essay (nor the invitation to an online debate!) free online the great essay by Roy Rosenzweig: Scarcity or Abundance. Preserving the Past in a Digital Era (AHR 108: 2003, 735-762). Scholars should, demands the author, expand the public space of scholarship (with reference to the BOAI in note 66). And: A vigourous public domain is a prerequisite for a healty historical record (p. 762).

Historians are dependent on archives. They constitute the basic building blocks of our scholarship. However, Roy Rosenzweig argues in this Forum Essay, in the future, scholars trying to understand our time will likely face a very troubling and indeed ironic prospect: the archival record of our era may be too scarce or too abundant. In either case, the basic scholarly mission of historians will be challenged in fundamental ways. Rosenzweig argues that historians today have a professional and ethical obligation to address this issue now. It is, he insists, at the core of our responsibilities as scholars as much as is the production of scholarship itself. Indeed, he contends that the connections between these twin responsibilities must be remade, because we have allowed them to wither over the years. This can be done, he maintains, by first understanding the complexities of the problem and then devising solutions that include reestablishing connections with potential allies such as archivists. His message is clear: The problem is dire, the need for action immediate. Rosenzweig invites responses to his plea for understanding and action. (Introduction).

A main topic is the question how to preserve the internet. The article is dealing oftly with Brewster Kahle's Internet Archive.

With the author I regret the divorce of archival concerns of the historical profession, and I also support his statement: historians ignore the future of digital data at their own peril (p. 759).

Finally, open access is within reach of scientists and scholars today. They can launch an open-access archive whenever they like, at essentially no cost, and more and more universities and disciplines are doing so. With a bit more planning and investment, scholars can launch an open-access journal. Conventional journals can experiment with open access article by article, to learn the methods and economics of open-access publishing. But scientists needn't wait for conventional journals to make these experiments, and they needn't beg them to offer open access. They needn't wait for markets or legislation. The internet has already given scientists a chance to reclaim control of scientific communication. For the first time since the journal appeared on the scene in 1665, price needn't be a barrier to access. For the first time since the rise of the commercial publishing of scientific journals, scientific communication can be in the hands of scientists, who answer to one another, rather than corporations, who answer to shareholders. The only question is whether scientists are ready to seize this beautiful opportunity.
If you need a 1,000 word intro to open access, have a look on Peter Suber's article.

The Harvard Law School Library has launched a new website, the Nuremberg Trials Project, devoted to analysis and digitization of documents relating to the Nuremberg Trials. The site will make available on the web for the first time more than one million pages of documents related to the trials of military and political leaders of Nazi Germany and other accused war criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) and the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT). The collection can be found at nuremberg.law.harvard.edu.
More links in Vernica's weblog "thinking while typing".

On behalf of the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archive Associations, the Association of Moving Image Archivists is pleased to announce that the 2004 Joint Technical Symposium will take place June 24-26, 2004 in Toronto, Canada, at the Isabel Bader Theater. Preserving the AudioVisual Heritage – Transition and Access is the theme of this 3-day event, which is expected to draw 300-400 attendees from around the world.
Read more in the ica news.

Erpanet and Daedalus have launched the Erpanet ePrints Service, an open-access repository for the cultural and scientific heritage community.
[via Open Access News]

The four papers of section # 79. Genealogy and Local History at the Berlin IFLA conference are available as PDF on the conference website.
1. Benefits of archives, libraries and museums working together
Archives, bibliothèques et musées : les bénéfices de la coopération
RUTH HEDEGAARD (Vendsyssel Historical Museum and Archives, Hjoerring, Denmark)
2. Cooperation and Change: Archives, Libraries and Museums in the United States
Coopération et changements : les centres d'archives, bibliothèques et musées aux États-Unis
ROBERT MARTIN (The Institute of Museum and Library Services, Washington DC, USA)
3. If we can do it, so can you. The UK North Yorkshire digitisation project
Si nous pouvons le faire, vous le pouvez
ELIZABETH ANNE MELROSE (North Yorkshire Country Library, Northallerton, England)
4. Library innovation is hard work. Lessons from a Norwegian case study
Le travail d'innovation en bibliothèque n'est pas une chose facile: leçons d'une étude de cas norvégienne
BOZENA RASMUSSEN (Gjerdrum Public Library, Gjerdrum, Norway) and TORD HØIVIK (Oslo University College, Oslo, Norway)

English Monastic Archives (University College, London)
Project, in progress, to reconstruct catalogues of the medieval records of all the English
monasteries. This will provide detailed lists of the estates of each house, and of the
records produced by each - which include a wide range of material such as charters,
manorial documents and historical/biographical writings. This information will ultimately
be made available as an online database. At present, a list of the estates of Ware
(Hertfordshire) and catalogues of the records of Abingdon (Berkshire), Forde
(Devon/Dorset) and Marrick (North Riding of Yorkshire) are available as samples
[Medieval English genealogy - News]

The NYT (Registration necessary) has an article about the reconstruction of the shredded Stasi documents.

A unique library of medieval manuscripts, devastated by fire during World War II and considered lost by scholars, could be restored using technology developed to study the surface of planets. [...]
The medieval library at Chartres, France, was destroyed in an allied bombing raid on the evening of 26 May, 1944.
[...] But digital technology called multispectral imaging may now be able to reveal text on even the most badly burned manuscripts, allowing scholars to study them again.
[...] "The beauty of [multispectral imaging] is that it is not invasive," Professor Richard Janko of the University of Michigan, US, told BBC News Online.
"It's worth a trial [on the Chartres texts]. It could do a lot for the study of medieval literature," he added.
[...] Multispectral imaging is widely used on satellites that produce detailed images of the Earth. But it is now gaining ground as a technique in archaeological restoration.
Researchers take several images of a manuscript with a special multispectral camera.
The photos are then passed through different filters to produce a set of images viewed at different wavelengths of light.
These wavelengths range from colours in the visible spectrum to infrared and ultraviolet light - which are invisible to the naked eye.
This image set is then processed to show up subtle features on the page, revealing text previously concealed from human vision.
[BBC]
Reading this I remembered the famous "Red Book" of the former Benedictine monastery Lorch (near Schwäbisch Gmünd, Württemberg) also damaged in WW II (see my German lecture).

Excerpt of a preliminary report on the condition of the Iraq National Library:
1) The library building has been rendered unusable by two successive
fires and CPA authorities are hoping to move the library to a
temporary location in a garish modern massive officer's club at al-
Balat al-Malki. This move is envisioned in the next weeks, however,
Amb. Cordone, whose portfolio includes the library, is pessimistic.

2) It is estimated by library employees that between 30%-60% of the
collection is safe and held in three separate locations:

A: Behind a large steel door that has been welded shut by members of
the Haq Mosque's Hawza Group. The welded doors essentially seal off
a wing of the library's ground floor.

B: The Haq Mosque's Hawza Group was able to take what they claim to
be 300,000 volumes to their mosque in Revolution City (nee Saddam
City.) A visual inspection conducted by Hanssen and Watenpaugh
confirmed that they have this collection well in hand and that it
occupies approx. 150-200 cubic meters. Earlier reports of books in
Hebrew are true; what was also found were 50+ 50 liter sacks of
archival materials from the Mandate period through the Revolution of
1958.

C: The library staff also evacuated parts of the rare/forbidden books
collection to a "secret safe location." They informed the CPA of the
location of this stash two days ago.

3. We were unable to locate any Ottoman archival material whatsoever.
[CPProtNet]