EDITOR'S
NOTES
Play It Again, Sam
by Dick Kaser
If the cover and theme of this issue look familiar, don’t worry yourself about having déjà vu.
Digitization on a Mission was also the theme of our November 2010 issue, and the cover did, indeed, feature a pair of loving hands embracing archival objects.
As I said in my Editor’s Notes back then, we had so many interesting submissions on the topic of digitization that we didn’t want to shortchange the subject, so we booked the theme again for this month.
Adding to the November issue’s coverage of initiatives ranging from the Ohio Memory Project to the digitization of local community private collections, we’re pleased this month to share the experience of Purdue University’s efforts to preserve a collection of rare orchid photos that was “born digital.”
Maybe you’re not employed by the state of Ohio or a big research university such as Purdue, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be successful at digital preservation. In this issue, solo digital librarian Jane Monson shares her experience in getting a digital project off the ground in less than a year.
And as for librarians who “still rely on cheaper or free technology that they can use on a daily basis either to organize their staff members’ lives or to help answer quick questions from their users,” we provide a set of juicy “digital tidbits” from authors Maha Kumaran and Joe Geary.
As always, our columnists have interesting points of view to add. This month I would especially recommend Marshall Breeding’s column about how new digital formats and content distribution models will have an impact on tomorrow’s digitization and preservation efforts.
Many of our columnists and authors are on the program for the upcoming Computers in Libraries conference. I look forward to seeing many of you at the event in Washington, D.C., this March.
Dick Kaser, Executive Editor
kaser@infotoday.com
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