A glowing book and the wonder of archives
I focus on two posts this week, NARA's new Digital Preservation Framework, and much more!
Hello everyone! I hope you are all having a good week. Apart from two posts I published this week, I have a set of wonderful articles I’d share.
Continuing my series reviewing fictional libraries, I focused on a scholarly library in a 1980s animated show, which is central to the plot of one of the episodes. At one point, some of the characters end up finding a literally glowing book in the “inner library,” which seems like a stereotypical archives (which is rarely accurate in reality), connecting to what I wrote about records in some 1990s films, and they save the day. Also, the librarian is an old man, literally with a beard, yet another stereotype, all too common unfortunately, like the archivist (or are they are librarian), Madame Nu, in Attack of the Clones, a 2002 Star Wars film. Despite these negatives, it is unique this whole episode actually focuses on a library, as there aren’t many other examples of a library as a central part of an animated episode I’ve found so far, so this makes it unique. Next week, I may continue this series of focusing on depictions of libraries in popular culture, or I might complete my post about preservation of digital records on an old Weebly website I made for a National History Day project a couple of years ago. I haven’t completely decided yet!
I also wrote a short article looking at some places across the U.S. which have “Packard” in the name, as I am thinking of wrapping up that genealogy blog. So, its a good continuation of research on the Packard line, and hopefully it helps some people. It connects to Judy Russell’s recent post about how genealogical questions can easily be answered just be turning the page.
I’d also like to highlight the Digital Preservation Framework recently posted by NARA on GitHub. David Ferriero argues that this framework, which has been released for public comment, consists of the agency’s “approach to determining risks faced by electronic files, and our plans for preserving different types of file formats” with comments between September 16 through November 1, 2019 on GitHub. He also adds that digital preservation is critical to implementing their strategic plan and implementing the agency’s goal of transitioning Federal business and recordkeeping practice to a “fully electronic environment and…end the National Archives’ acceptance of paper records by December 31, 2022.” He further notes that they are trying to ensure their process for “identifying and mitigating risk in the electronic records that we preserve and make accessible is as transparent as possible” and notes that after comments end on November 1, 2019, NARA staff will “take all the feedback and update the matrix and plans, incorporating the comments” with final versions released, then adapted as needed. I think its also worth noting that some historians have voiced their concerns, while others have just made general comments so far.
I’d like to end this newsletter by highlighting two posts on Hack Library School, one comparing the library community and communal library, and another focusing on a student who just began library school. I’d also to highlight a post which summarizes an archives workshop in July, and a post about how records management is not dead, to name two posts specifically.
That’s all for this week. I hope you have a great rest of your week.
- Burkely