December 26, 2022

AFP: Iraqi conservators strive to preserve ancient manuscripts

AFP: Iraqi conservators strive to preserve ancient manuscripts. “In a country that bears the scars of decades of conflict and has seen antiquities and cultural heritage regularly plundered, the House of Manuscripts’ collection has managed to survive. It was safely stashed away in the Baghdad suburbs, while the national museum was ransacked in the turmoil following the 2003 US-led invasion…. The collection, now ensconced in the national museum in the capital Baghdad, includes books, parchments and calligraphy boards, some of them damaged by humidity, pests and centuries of use.”

Research & Opinion 0
October 19, 2022

Kotaku Australia: How Do You Preserve A Video Game?

Kotaku Australia: How Do You Preserve A Video Game?. “The National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) very recently appointed Chris Arneil as their Assistant Curator in Games, which is the first time they have had someone in a full-time role regarding video game curation in their archive…. To learn a little more about what goes into the work of preserving games, as well as how the NFSA will go about archiving the history of the Australian video games industry, I decided to sit down and have a chat with Arneil.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
September 29, 2022

Ars Technica: How hobbyist hackers are preserving Pokémon’s past—and shaping its future

Ars Technica: How hobbyist hackers are preserving Pokémon’s past—and shaping its future. “While Nintendo, the games’ publisher, hasn’t worked to make older Pokémon games accessible on modern hardware—or affordable on older gear—a certain demographic of dedicated fans has taken it upon themselves to not just preserve legacy Pokémon titles but to actively improve them. These volunteer ROM hackers and preservationists work to keep the passions of an aging generation of Pokémon masters alive, all while fighting occasionally brutal legal crackdowns from Nintendo.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
September 25, 2022

Phys .org: Support for art and other cultural objects can be strengthened by highlighting their collective value

Phys .org: Support for art and other cultural objects can be strengthened by highlighting their collective value. “New research into the sacredness of artistic objects shows that it’s possible to get people to see just about any artwork as sacred—even an amateur drawing—so long as they believe that the art connects humanity to something bigger than itself. And when people do that, they are more willing to put themselves out to ensure it’s protected.”

Research & Opinion 0
September 10, 2022

Wanted: New homes for historic bridges (Capitol Beat)

Capitol Beat: Wanted: New homes for historic bridges. “The Georgia Department of Transportation (DOT) is trying to find homes for historic bridges that have outlived their usefulness and need to be replaced. The agency’s Office of Environmental Services announced Wednesday the launching of a website that will spread the word about historic bridges that are available for relocation and preservation.”

New Resources 0
January 3, 2020

The Washington Post: 4 million cards. 4,000 drawers. And a whole lot of paper cuts. A coalition of book lovers rushes to save U-Va.’s card catalogue.

The Washington Post: 4 million cards. 4,000 drawers. And a whole lot of paper cuts. A coalition of book lovers rushes to save U-Va.’s card catalogue.. “They’d just finished setting up projectors to create a replica of the planetarium Thomas Jefferson had envisioned spanning the University of Virginia’s Rotunda dome when Neal Curtis and Sam Lemley stopped. They looked at each other. And they decided they had to come up with a plan — immediately They walked into the school’s Alderman Library and promised they wouldn’t leave that night until they had found a way to save the old card catalogue.”

Other Things I Think Are Cool 0
December 5, 2018

Phys .org: Novel digitization methods and restoration technologies for preserving cultural heritage

Phys .org: Novel digitization methods and restoration technologies for preserving cultural heritage. “How can we protect and preserve cultural heritage? Researchers from 16 Fraunhofer Institutes are collaborating on the executive board’s cultural heritage project to develop the technologies needed for this undertaking. Whether it is visible in historical temples, ancient statues, or paintings by the great masters, cultural heritage must be preserved. But maintaining historical art treasures is not solely the responsibility of restorers – this task calls for research and the high-tech solutions it can provide. A glance inside some of the Fraunhofer labs reveals numerous researchers working on just these kinds of solutions.”

Research & Opinion 0
May 25, 2018

Taipei Times: ‘Frozen ark’ to preserve species

Taipei Times: ‘Frozen ark’ to preserve species. “Taiwanese researchers are contributing to a global initiative to identify, document and preserve the world’s species and biodiversity by developing cryobanking, DNA barcoding and online database programs, officials from the Forestry Bureau and the Academia Sinica’s Biodiversity Research Center told a news conference in Taipei on Thursday.”

Research & Opinion 0
April 1, 2017

Live Science: ‘Doomsday’ Library Joins Seed Vault in Arctic Norway

Live Science: ‘Doomsday’ Library Joins Seed Vault in Arctic Norway. “Known as the Arctic World Archive, the vault will act as a library of sorts, a storage option for governments and scientific institutions, as well as companies and private individuals, to keep their data safe. Though the vault’s security is high-tech, the medium for the new data archive is analog — photosensitive film. (Whereas digital data is stored as discrete 1s and 0s, analog data refers to a continuous recording of physical signals, like a record player’s needle translating bumps and dips into music.)”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
October 11, 2016

South Carolina State Museum: Resources for Conserving Flood Damaged Photos, Antiques and Heirlooms

A resource list from the South Carolina State Museum, and I really hope you don’t need it: Resources for Conserving Flood Damaged Photos, Antiques and Heirlooms. “Due to the recent flooding disaster many of you may, unfortunately, be dealing with damaged family photos, antiques and other heirlooms. There is a lot of information available via the internet on how to save and conserve water damaged objects, so to make it easier for those needing these resources the State Museum has created a listing of links where you can find helpful information on how best to conserve these items.”

Useful Stuff 0
July 29, 2016

How Arches Is Being Used in the Middle East and Elsewhere

Voice of America has a story about the conservation software Arches and how it’s being used in the Middle East and elsewhere. “The system is being used by the American Schools of Oriental Research to monitor historic sites in Syria and northern Iraq, providing weekly updates and an online inventory of thousands of heritage sites. The American Schools’ Cultural Heritage Initiatives, which receives support from the U.S. State Department, has documented damage or destruction at hundreds of sites, and is developing protocols for post-war preservation.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
September 1, 2015

Web Site Preservation is a Big Fail

Librarians, you know this: Web site preservation is an enormous fail. “If the internet is at its core is a system of record, then it is failing to complete that mission. Sometime in 2014, the internet surpassed a billion websites, while it has since fallen back a bit, it’s quite obviously an enormous repository. When websites disappear, all of the content is just gone as though it never existed, and that can have a much bigger impact than you imagine on researchers, scholars or any Joe or Josephine Schmo simply trying to follow a link.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0

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