I did quite a bit of recommended reading Thursday morning in the hopes of giving myself some context for what it is I'm REALLY doing in working with the digitized newspaper files of the Old Gold and Black. A couple of things I noted while reading:
1. An Elevator Pitch for File Naming Conventions by Meghan Frazer
I like that part of the reason she wrote this article was to go beyond the "because I said so" rationale. While my file naming system at home is not very consistent, I learned the value of consistency in my life working at a newspaper, where being able to find an archived file meant not having to spend two hours re-writing the same information you've written three years in a row. I never quite thought of the naming itself, though, as being part of that preservation. Frazer says, "...in the interest of preserving access to digital files, we choose file name components that are least likely to cause a problem in any environment." I almost feel compelled to go through my computer and rename all of my personal files, although I'm not sure who in the future will care to access my notes for 50 different high school and college projects.
2. National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) Technical Guidelines
Quite honestly, reading this at first was a little bit tedious and slightly confusing. But with the context provided by the Draft Guidelines for Newspaper Preservation Readiness and an article from International Preservation News, it started to make sense. Even the little bit of work I've done with the OGB so far has made me realize how critical national and international standards are, not just for digital newspaper preservation, but digitization efforts in general. This was the first time I had heard of the JPEG2000 file format, one of the three standard formats required by the NDNP. Reading the guidelines raises a lot of questions for me, some of which I have done a bit of searching about. I'm curious about how to generate a JPEG2000 file format (is it through a plug-in that's available for programs like Photoshop?) I'm also curious about the difference between OCR text that is embedded in the image file versus being contained in a separate file. What are the pros and cons of each? And what programs are needed to create the separate files?
3. Beyond the Scanned Image: Assessing Scholarly Uses of Digital Collections by Trevor Owens
Although this article focused on the access of digital collections perhaps more than preservation (at least from users' perspectives), I think digital preservation is again an underlying theme here. Continued access depends on the ability to preserve those collections. I would definitely be curious to see the specifics of the survey results and how people are using these resources for their research. It could give some broad insight into what collections might be most valuable in digital form and possibly ways to make them more accessible or user-friendly.
1. An Elevator Pitch for File Naming Conventions by Meghan Frazer
I like that part of the reason she wrote this article was to go beyond the "because I said so" rationale. While my file naming system at home is not very consistent, I learned the value of consistency in my life working at a newspaper, where being able to find an archived file meant not having to spend two hours re-writing the same information you've written three years in a row. I never quite thought of the naming itself, though, as being part of that preservation. Frazer says, "...in the interest of preserving access to digital files, we choose file name components that are least likely to cause a problem in any environment." I almost feel compelled to go through my computer and rename all of my personal files, although I'm not sure who in the future will care to access my notes for 50 different high school and college projects.
2. National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) Technical Guidelines
Quite honestly, reading this at first was a little bit tedious and slightly confusing. But with the context provided by the Draft Guidelines for Newspaper Preservation Readiness and an article from International Preservation News, it started to make sense. Even the little bit of work I've done with the OGB so far has made me realize how critical national and international standards are, not just for digital newspaper preservation, but digitization efforts in general. This was the first time I had heard of the JPEG2000 file format, one of the three standard formats required by the NDNP. Reading the guidelines raises a lot of questions for me, some of which I have done a bit of searching about. I'm curious about how to generate a JPEG2000 file format (is it through a plug-in that's available for programs like Photoshop?) I'm also curious about the difference between OCR text that is embedded in the image file versus being contained in a separate file. What are the pros and cons of each? And what programs are needed to create the separate files?
3. Beyond the Scanned Image: Assessing Scholarly Uses of Digital Collections by Trevor Owens
Although this article focused on the access of digital collections perhaps more than preservation (at least from users' perspectives), I think digital preservation is again an underlying theme here. Continued access depends on the ability to preserve those collections. I would definitely be curious to see the specifics of the survey results and how people are using these resources for their research. It could give some broad insight into what collections might be most valuable in digital form and possibly ways to make them more accessible or user-friendly.