http://www.richardpoynder.co.uk/Geist_Interview.pdf

See also
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/start-collecting-signatures-on-acta-declaration

"In 1946, Dr. David P. Boder, a psychology professor from Chicago's Illinois Institute of Technology, traveled to Europe to record the stories of Holocaust survivors in their own words.
Over a period of three months, he visited refugee camps in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, carrying a wire recorder and 200 spools of steel wire, upon which he was able to record over 90 hours of first-hand testimony. These recordings represent the earliest known oral histories of the Holocaust, which are available through this online archive."
Link zur Homepage

The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has embarked on a project to migrate its video recordings to high-resolution digital video files for the purpose of ensuring the long-term preservation of these unique records. This new development aims at enabling the Tribunal to permanently preserve the recordings which are expected to be 30,000 hours long at the end of the ICTR’s mandate.

Recently, therefore, the Tribunal entered into a contract with the internationally renowned Front Porch Digital (FPD) to conduct the digitization of the video recordings. FPD is a global leader in the migration and preservation of video tape to digital files, and is dedicated to developing technical solutions for the preservation, access and management of digital content.

The Tribunal has since 1999 produced video recordings of its trial proceedings. However video tape is subject to deterioration over time thus the need to transfer the video recordings to a new medium.

The digitization of the video recordings of the ICTR is part of a larger project undertaken by the ICTR to ensure the long-term preservation and to enhance the accessibility of the audio-visual recordings of the trial proceedings. Also conducted within the framework of this project is the in-house digitization of master audio recordings of the trial proceedings.

The process will also enhance the accessibility of these video recordings to the users of the ICTR’s archives, while also ensuring their long-term viability.

All digital audio and video files created as a result of this project will be reviewed and edited by the Court Management Section’s Audio-Visual Redaction staff. As a result, redacted versions of all recordings of the trial proceedings will be generated, which can then be made available to researchers, legal professionals, broadcasters and news agencies, the people of Rwanda, and the international community at large.
Link: Press release of the ICTR

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/20922



http://mis.historiska.se/mis/sok/bild.asp?uid=307684 CC-BY-NC-ND

[T]he BBC reports that a deal has been struck: some 14,000 items will be transferred to the library of Cardiff University, after the university, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales came up with £1.2 million to facilitate the sale. The university plans to digitize selected rare items from the collection and make them available online.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2010/03/cardiff-books-to-stay-in-wales.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_east/8550408.stm

See here:

http://archiv.twoday.net/search?q=cardiff

http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/reading/

The Harvard Libraries have launched a very cool new online project, "Reading: Harvard Views of Readers, Readership, and Reading History." In total, this digital library offers "more than 250,000 pages from 1,200 individual items, including 800 published books and 400 manuscript selections," from across the Harvard libraries system.

Among the most interesting sections to me is "Marginalia," where they've digitized works containing marginalia by Thomas Carlyle, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, Herman Melville, and Hester Thrale Piozzi. They've also digitized William Wordsworth's library catalog, and the highlights gallery is well worth a browse.

This digital collection/virtual exhibit is a perfect example of how of libraries can harness technological tools. Great work!

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2010/03/reading-at-harvard.html

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: changes at the British Library
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:42:31 -0600
From: voigtsl
Reply-To: voigtsl
To: MEDMED-L@ASU.EDU
References: A

Colleagues,

I have recently returned from a research trip in
England and write to report on another development
for those who study manuscripts. This information
is second hand, but it comes from a staff member
in the (now olim) Dept. of Manuscripts, so I believe
it is reliable. I do not want to be alarmist, but this
information may be of use if you have plans to work
in the British Library.

On 18 February, the CEO [sic] of the British Library
announced a re-organization of the BL. Many existing
Departments are being abolished, including the
Department of Manuscripts, which will, as I understand
it, be subsumed in something called History and
Classics. The head of MSS no longer has a position,
although he may apply for a new post. It is by no means
clear what all the implications of this change will be,
especially for readers, but one consequence appears to
be that MSS may now be catalogued in a new Department
of Cataloguing, and not necessarily by experts in
paleography and codicology as is now the case in the
Department of Manuscripts.

Again, this re-organization may have little impact on
readers, but at least it may be useful for those who
work with medieval manuscripts to know of these changes
at the British Library.

all best, Linda

p.s., I also was told from what I believe is a good
authority that a chair in palaeography at Oxford has
recently been endowed, although it will not be filled for
a couple of years. Perhaps Larry Eldredge can tell
us more about that.

Linda Ehrsam Voigts
Curators' Professor of English Emerita
University of Missouri-Kansas City
Kansas City, MO 64110 USA
VOIGTSL@UMKC.EDU