David Ferriero to be next U.S. Archivist

As expected, President Obama announced his plans to nominate David Ferriero, current Andrew W. Mellon Director of the New York Public Libraries, to head the National Archives. Read more about the appointment... And more about our next Archivist ...

US Archivist to be appointed today?

The National Coalition for History has learned from several sources that President Obama intends later today to nominate David S. Ferriero to the position of Archivist of the United States. Since 2004, Mr. Ferriero has served as the Andrew W. Mellon Director and Chief Executive of The Research Libraries at The New York Public Library (NYPL). Mr. Ferriero succeeds Professor Allen Weinstein who resigned last December Read more...

NASA Celebrates 40th anniversary of Apollo Mission

NASA is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Apollo Mission from July 16 through July 24. The main NASA site is amazing and incorporates many Web 2.0 features, including a cloud tag showing what people are interested in today and were interested in last 30 days and last 12 months. But today's focus should be on the Apollo mission. The home page of the celebration can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/index.html You can even follow the messages between earth and the members of the mission on Twitter at http://twitter.com/NASA

Playboy and Rolling Stone Archive Projects

If you were worried about the contents of these publications being lost to future generations, you can relax now. Bondi Digital Publishing selected Apago's technology to archive approximately 115,800 pages and 636 issues of Playboy magazine and more than 1,000 issues of Rolling Stone (125 pages average each). Apago focuses on PDF products and has a brief document addressing long-term preservation needs and the PDF/A standard.

Digital New Zealand & Memory Maker

If you're reading this and you're not taking my course Archivists: Meet Web 2.0 this summer, you may be wondering why the brevity of the messages which serve more as updates and news blurbs than journal entries. Now you know. Because time is short and there is so much to do, I'll continue to use this blog as a way to highlight some interesting (my opinion) developments. I hope you enjoy!

If you are in my class and reading this, you've probably already visited Digital New Zealand at http://ww.digitalnz.org/ when we discussed mashups and APIs. But you may not have come across the Memory Maker at http://remix.digitalnz.org/ The Memory Maker was added to honor the 90th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice between the allies and Germany to end World War I. Take a few minutes to play with this video mixing tool. Then think about the ways in which your own organization might employ a Memory Maker.

Along the same lines, you can search the memory of the Netherlands, which contains 401,851 objects from 73 collections of 68 institutions at http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/?/en/homepage

Collaborative Electronic Records Project (CERP)

The three-year Collaborative Electronic Records Project (CERP) of the Smithsonian Institution Archives and the Rockefeller Archive Center concluded in December 2008. Among the project outcomes, the CERP Email Parser was produced and is available to the archival and related communities as an open source software tool for the preservation of email accounts. The Email Parser migrates an email account and its messages (including attachments) into a single XML file using the Email Account XML Schema developed in collaboration with the North Carolina State Archives and the EMCAP project. To learn more ...

NARA Launches YouTube Channel

In conjunction with its 75th Anniversary, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has launched a YouTube Channel that will showcase exhibits such as the Charters of Freedom which include the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill or Rights. If you haven't yet, you should visit the US National Archives YouTube site.