Australia music collections
Robyn Holmes, in Music at the National Library of Australia (Fontes
Artis Musicae vol 58 no 2, July-September 2011) writes on the development of
the largest research collection of music, manuscripts and music information
in Australia and comments on a number of related issues including legal
deposit, digital collecting and archiving, the Australian ISMN Agency at the
National Library, collection management, and national collaboration. IAML
website: http://www.iaml.info
Australian performing arts collections
At its annual conference of the Museums Australia’s Performing Arts Special
Interest Group (PASIG) in Melbourne on 27-29 September 2010, presentations
included Peter Johnson (Theatre Architecture and Melbourne’s Historic
Theatres), Jenny Fewster (Sensationalism Run Mad – Cowboys and
Indians on Stage at the Alexandra), Frank Van Straten (Back in the
Spotlight: Rediscovering Florence Young), Julian Ashton, Paul Bray and
Carolyn Laffan (Timelines and Tightropes: Creating Online Resources for
Schools), Richard Stone (Having a Hectic Good Time: Research and
Archiving the Ballet Russes in Australia Project and Balletomaniacs Day Out:
the Ballet Russes at the University of Melbourne), Cheryl Hoskins and
Jenny Fewster (Digital Representation of Performing Arts Resources Using
the Case Examples of the Wilkie and Denton Papers from the University of
Adelaide Library), Janine Barrand (The Circus Diaries and Other
Stories) and the conference was held at Her Majesty’s Theatre,
Melbourne, and the Grainger Museum. Further details on PASIG:
http://www.museumsaustralia.org.au/site/page78.php
Concert programs
Rupert Ridgewell, in The Concert Programmes Project: History, Progress
and Future Directions (Fontes Artis Musicae January-March 2010),
describes a British project that begin in 2003 and its future directions,
which included the expansion of existing collection data sets to include
item-level records. Web: http:/www.concertprogrammes.org.uk/
Obituaries Australia
The National Centre of Biography has launched the website Obituaries
Australia, as a digital repository of obituaries published in newspapers,
journals, magazines and bulletins. The repository builds upon the Australian
Dictionary of Australia Biographical Register, maintained by the Centre
since 1954. While the ADB focuses on the lives of notable Australians,
Obituaries Australia offers a sample of the Australian experience by
reproducing, in a convenient online format, published obituaries relevant to
the history of Australia. The Centre is seeking assistance the help of the
public to expand the resource and has life summary forms to enable
contributions. Obituaries will also be linked to the National Library of
Australia’s Trove search facility to reveal any items about/by the subjects
held in the nation’s libraries and in the Australian newspapers that have so
far been digitised. Web:
http://oa.anu.edu.au/
Performing arts
The Library of Congress Music Division’s Performing Arts Encyclopedia is an
online guide to performing arts resources at the Library of Congress, It
provides information about the Library's collections of scores, sheet music,
audio recordings, films, photographs, and other materials and access to
digitised items, special presentations on topics and collections, articles
and biographical essays, finding aids to collections, information on
concerts at the library, a special Performing Arts Resource Guide which
contains entries for hundreds of Library collections, websites, databases
and exhibits, and databases for performing arts resources. It’s Showtime!
Sheet Music from Stage and Screen, for example, lists more than 67,000 songs
from over 18,000 shows and productions dating from the 1690s to the present.
Web: www.loc.gov/performingarts
Tivoli Theatre
James Cockington, in Tivoli is Just the Ticket (Sydney Morning Herald
Money Section 19 Jan 2011), gives a short history of the Tivoli Circuit in
Australia and the value of Tivoli memorabilia as collectible items. The
article includes an interview with Frank Van Straten, author of the book,
Tivoli.
Born-digital content
Ricky Erway, in Defining 'Born Digital' (Dublin, OH: OCLC Online
Computer Library Center November 2010), a 4-page PDF introduction to the
topic, identifies the diversity of born digital materials and related issues
such as deterioration and obsolescence, rights and access. Web:
http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/hiddencollections/borndigital.pdf
Matthew G Kirschenbaum, Richard Ovenden and Gabriela Redwine, in
Digital Forensics and Born-Digital Content in Cultural Heritage Collections
(Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2010),
examine key issues on the topic and provide recommendations for further
progress on the use of “the Janus-faced” digital forensic techniques by
cultural heritage workers. “More important than specific technical skills or
a large budget is a willingness to figure out what knowledge and tools are
necessary to get the job done, and how to go about acquiring them.” Their
recommendations for further action: (1) development of policy frameworks and
best-practice agreements for donor relations, liability, workflows, and
researcher access; (2) development of regional networks for collaboration;
(3) defining requirements for and developing new tools; (4) helping to
articulate a scholarly research agenda; (5) collecting more stories and case
studies; (6) facilitating training; (7) encouraging cross-publication of
research literature and cross-promotion of professional events’ and (8)
pursue terminology mapping. Web:
http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub149abst.html.
Canadiana
Canadiana has launched a beta version of a discovery portal about Canadian
history in various archive collections including libraries, museums,
universities and government agencies. Canadiana is a membership alliance
governed by a volunteer Board of Directors made up of distinguished scholars
and representatives of major memory institutions from across Canada. Web:
http://www.canadiana.ca/
NZ Digital archive
The New Zealand Government’s 4-year $12.6 million digital archive program
being implemented by Archives New Zealand and the National Library involves
large-scale transfers of government agency digital records such as email
messages, videos, databases and electronic documents, preservation
activities and provision of access. The program utilises Archives New
Zealand’s existing infrastructure and builds on functions developed for the
National Library’s National Digital Heritage Archive. Archives New Zealand’s
online search engine Archway will be extended to manage the necessary
digital record metadata and the department will develop new tools around
transfer and security in consultation with agencies. Web:
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/minister/nathan+guy
Personal digital archiving
Jeremy L John, Ian Rowlands, Peter Williams, and others, in Digital
Lives: Personal Digital Archives for the 21st century >> an Initial
Synthesis (London: British Library, 2010) report on findings of the
Digital Lives Project, coordinated by the British Library. Among other
topics, it covers organising, storing and finding personal information,
legal and ethical issues, technologies and computer forensics, information
media, networks and manipulation, and strategic imperatives. Personal
digital archives offer an unprecedented opportunity, it says, for advancing
humanity. There are new challenges as the power of digital technology
increases. Successful curation “depends on advocacy, research and pragmatic
demonstration of their exponentially increasing usefulness for society, for
research institutions and for individuals.” Web:
http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/files/digital-lives-synthesis02-1.pdf.
The 2012 Personal Digital Archiving Conference will be held at the
Internet Archive, San Francisco on 23-24 February 2012. Topics include
family photographs and home movies; personal health and financial data;
interface design for archives; scrap booking; social network data;
institutional practices; genealogy; email, blogs and other correspondence;
and funding models. Details: http://www.personalarchiving.com/2012/01/preliminary-schedule-pda-2012/.
Presentations at the 2011 Personal Digital Archiving Conference are
available at
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3Apersonalarchiveconf
The Semantic Web
The Pew Internet and American Life Project’s The Fate of the Semantic Web
(2010), reports on a survey of 895 experts who were asked to predict the
likelihood of a Semantic Web. 47% agreed with the statement: “By 2020, the
semantic web envisioned by Tim Berners‐Lee will not be as fully effective as
its creators hoped and average users will not have noticed much of a
difference.” 41% agreed with the opposite statement, which posited: “By
2020, the semantic web envisioned by Tim Berners‐Lee and his allies will
have been achieved to a significant degree and have clearly made a
difference to average internet users.” While experts were divided on whether
the original vision would be realised, there was broad agreement that
“progress will continue to be made in making the web more useful and
information retrieval and assessment more meaningful. There was no consensus
on the technical mechanisms and human actions that might lead to the next
wave of improvements – nor how extensive the changes might be. Many think
Berners‐Lee’s vision will take much longer to unfold than the 2020 timeline.
Critics noted that human uses of language are often “illogical, playfully
misleading, false or nefarious, [and] human semantics can never be made
comprehensible to machines. 12% of those who responded to the survey did not
venture a guess about the future of the semantic web – itself a sign that
there is still a good deal of uncertainty and confusion about the topic even
among those who are quite connected to the tech world. Web:
http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Semantic-Web.aspx
In a complementary piece Kirk L Kroeker, in Engineering the Web's
Third Decade (Communications of the ACM March 2010) speculates that Web
3.0 development will be "more evolutionary than revolutionary." Web 3.0
technologies may help filter the "wisdom of the crowd" so that it doesn't
become the "madness of the mob." From a technology standpoint, researchers
suggest a key aspect of Web 3.0 technology is moving beyond Web 2.0's
popular Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) model to one more infused
with semantic technologies that facilitate interlinked data and
customisable, portable applications that are device-neutral or
system-neutral. Despite promising developments, challenges in this area
remain. Web:
http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2010/3/76270-engineering-the-webs-third-decade/fulltext
Special collections
Anne Kenney, in The Collaborative Imperative: Special Collections in the
Digital Age (Association of Research Libraries’ Research Library Issues,
December 2009) proposes nine principles to guide large-scale digitisation of
special collections: (1) distinct collections demand extra vigilance in
digitisation; (2) libraries must respect any donor-imposed restrictions on
the digitisation and use of materials; (3) libraries should seek the
broadest possible user access to digitised content. (4) libraries should
receive copies of all digital files generated from their collections, with
the option for complete local access to the files (to the extent that
copyright law allows); (5) any enhancements or improvements to the digitised
content should be shared on a regular basis with the supplying library; (6)
restrictions on external access to copies of works digitised from a
library's holding should be of limited duration; (7) libraries should
refrain from signing nondisclosure agreements as part of digitisation
negotiations; (8) libraries should ensure that the confidentiality of users
is protected in the vendor's products; (9) libraries should refrain from
charging fees or royalties for access to or non-commercial use of public
domain materials held in their collections." Web:
http://publications.arl.org/pageview/prvp3/21
Technology developments
The Australian Communications and Media Authority, in Technology
Developments in the Digital Economy (August 2010), looks at recent
developments in the three key communications/information technology areas:
infrastructure (optical fibre networks and technologies, wireless
technologies, home network technologies, and digital identity management);
smart technology (smart devices and systems, ICT energy and efficiency); and
digital community (payment and mobile coupon technologies, location-aware
community, Web applications and developments in social media. “In a
networked society,” it says, “content creation and distribution channels are
available to anyone with broadband internet connectivity. It has become so
integrated in the media value-chain that the distinctions between social
media and media are difficult to make.” Web:
http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib311925/technology_developments_in_digital_economy.pdf
This issue of Cross Currents compiled by Paul Bentley
The
Wolanski Foundation would be grateful for feedback
on the scope, format and content of this bulletin..
