oct12_b2.indd


October 2012 563 C&RL News

Jane Hedberg is senior preservation program officer 
at Harvard University Library, e-mail: jane_hedberg@
harvard.edu; fax: (617) 496-8344

Draft digitization guidelines
The Preservation and Reformatting Section 
of ALA’s Association for Library Collections 
and Technical Services has proposed new 
guidelines to help libraries create digital 
content that will last. The authors of Mini-
mum Digitization Capture Recommenda-
tions reviewed previous research, practices 
at more than 50 organizations, and samples 
of digital documents to develop minimum 
specifications for creating sustainable digi-
tal content. The specifications are not in-
tended to dictate specific technical methods 
but to establish an understanding of what 
must be done to preserve digital content.

The draft is available for review and 
comment until December 31, 2012, at 
http://connect.ala.org/node/185648.

Digital image defects
Digital Production Services (DPS) at Stan-
ford University Libraries has mounted 
nearly 100 reference images of digital de-
fects that its staff members use for imaging 
and image quality control auditing. Each 
defect entry has an indication of whether 
it is acceptable or unacceptable at Stan-
ford and descriptions of its appearance, 
causes, and remedies. The entries can be 
sorted alphabetically or by look or cause. 
DPS has also mounted the cropping guide 
poster that hangs in its digitization labs 
and studios.

The defects catalog is available at 
https://lib.stanford.edu/digital-production-
services/quality-assurance-image-defects, 
and the cropping guide is available at 
https://lib.stanford.edu/digital-production-
services/quality-assurance-cropping-guide. 
Both are free-of-charge.

Care and handling slide show
Peter Verheyen at Syracuse University has 
arranged for digitization of Yale University’s 
1980 slide show, “The Care and Handling of 
Books.” Staff at Syracuse, with permission 
from Yale, digitized and synchronized the 
audio cassette with the slides and mounted 
a 28-minute version on YouTube. The slide 
show was originally developed to explain 
the nature of library materials, dangers to 
their preservation, and basic actions for 
their protection. Jane Greenfield and Gay 
Walker directed the 1980 project, which 
was produced by Anne Dutlinger, Peggy 
Madison, Jan Merrill-Oldham, and Pamela 
Spitzmueller.

The complete slide show is avail-
a b l e  a t  w w w . y o u t u b e . c o m / w a t c h ? v 
=3cLIhWprMq4, and the script is avail-
able at https://docs.google.com/file 
/d/0B1eGH1p97a4STXJTc3lOWFBEa2s 
/edit?pli=1.

Archiving the Arts
The Student Chapter of the Association 
of Moving Image Archivists at New York 
University and Independent Media Arts 
Preservation (IMAP) are hosting a one-
day conference October 13, 2012, in New 
York City. “Archiving the Arts: Addressing 
Preservation in the Creative Process” is 
intended to help independent media artists 
and archivists work together to preserve 
audiovisual works often produced by 
unconventional methods. Presentations 
will describe a variety of viewpoints and 
projects, including the Rhizome ArtBase, 
ArtLog, Electronic Arts Intermix, preserving 
Interactive Telecommunications Program 
theses at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, 
independent media preservation efforts in 
Canada and at the Museum of Modern Art 
and the Getty Research Institute. 

The conference is currently full, but for 
more information about the topic go to 
http://archivingthearts.blogspot.com/. 

P r e s e r v a t i o n  N e w sJane Hedberg