the shrinking librarian

Apr 4

nypl:

The first Pony Express took place in 1860 from Missouri to California. Did you know that contrary to what most believe, the Pony Express only ran for 18 months!
There have been many myths surrounding the Pony Express over the years, mostly fueled by Buffalo Billy Cody and his Wild West Show. Check out an blog post written by NYPL to find out the truth about the Pony Express, along with a bibliography for those interested in learning more!

The first Pony Express took place in 1860 from Missouri to California. Did you know that contrary to what most believe, the Pony Express only ran for 18 months!

There have been many myths surrounding the Pony Express over the years, mostly fueled by Buffalo Billy Cody and his Wild West Show. Check out an blog po st written by NYPL to find out the truth about the Pony Express, along with a bibliography for those interested in learning more!

Mar 6

usnatarchives:

These two men are wearing coats with special pockets designed to hide and steal documents.

Barry Landau and Jason Savedoff posed as researchers in order to steal documents from archives, including the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York.

On Thursday, March 7, Mitch Yockelson of the Archival Recovery Team and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Warwick will discuss the Landau case.

during the investigatioitems were seized as evidence, including priceless documents in the hand of Frank Delano Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Sir Isaac Newton, and Charles Dickens

Landau was sentenced seven years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for conspiracy and theft of historical documents from cultural institutions in four states. Savedoff was sentenced to a year in prison.

“A Conspiracy to Steal History: Barry Landau and Jason Savedoff,” will be held Thursday, March 7, at at noon in the McGowan Theater in the National Archives Building.

(via uispeccoll)

Dec 19

thelifeguardlibrarian:

theparisreview:

Google is working with the Israel Antiquities Authority to put a number of ancient manuscripts online. Texts available at the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library include the earliest known copies of the Book of Deuteronomy and part of the Book of Genesis.

I don’t think “BAAALLLLINNNN’” is like the appropriate response, but I just said it quietly to myself.

Nov 25

myimaginarybrooklyn:

US Library Pulls Diaries, Letters From Civil War

WASHINGTON (AP) — Letters and diaries saved for 150 years from those who lived through the Civil War offer a new glimpse at the arguments that split the nation then and some of the festering debates that survive today.

The Library of Congress, which holds the largest collection of Civil War documents, pulled 200 items from its holdings to reveal both private and public thoughts from dozens of famous and ordinary citizens who lived in the North and the South. Many are being shown for the first time.

Robert E. Lee, for one, was grappling with divided federal and state allegiances. He believed his greater allegiance was to his native Virginia, as he wrote to a friend about resigning his U.S. Army commission.

“Sympathizing with you in the troubles that are pressing so heavily upon our beloved country & entirely agreeing with you in your notions of allegiance, I have been unable to make up my mind to raise my hand against my native state, my relatives, my children & my home,” he wrote in 1861. “I have therefore resigned my commission in the Army.”

Lee’s handwritten letter is among dozens of writings from individuals who experienced the war. They are featured in the new exhibit “The Civil War in America” at the library in Washington until June 2013. Their voices also are being heard again in a new blog created for the exhibition.

For a limited time in 2013, the extensive display will feature the original draft of President Abraham Lincoln’s preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and rarely shown copies of the Gettysburg Address.

Beyond the generals and famous battles, though, curators set out to tell a broader story about what Lincoln called “a people’s contest.”

“This is a war that trickled down into almost every home,” said Civil War manuscript specialist Michelle Krowl. “Even people who may seem very far removed from the war are going to be impacted on some level. So it’s a very human story.”

Curators laid out a chronological journey from before the first shots were fired to the deep scars soldiers brought home in the end.

While some still debate the root causes of the war, for Benjamin Tucker Tanner in 1860, the cause was clear, as he wrote from South Carolina in his diary.

“The country seems to be bordering on a civil war all on account of slavery,” wrote the future minister. “I pray God to rule and overrule all to his own glory and the good of man.”

A personal letter from Mary Todd Lincoln in 1862 was recently acquired by the library and is being publicly displayed for the first time.

In the handwritten note on stationery with a black border, Mary Lincoln reveals her deep grief over the death of her son Willie months earlier. Krowl said Mary Lincoln’s grief is also evident in the new movie, “Lincoln.”

“When you read this letter … you just get a palpable feeling of how in the depth that she’s been and she’s now finally coming out of her grief, at least to resume public affairs,” Krowl said.

All the documents in the exhibit are original. They include a massive map Gen. Stonewall Jackson commissioned of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley to prepare for a major campaign.

The library also is displaying personal items from Lincoln, including the contents of his pockets on the night he was assassinated, and the pocket diary of Clara Barton who would constantly record details about soldiers she met and would later create the Bureau of Missing Soldiers.

Some of the closing words come from soldiers who lost their right arms or hands in battle and had to learn to write left-handed. They joined a left-handed penmanship contest and shared their stories.

“I think this exhibition will have a lot of resonance for people,” said exhibit director Cheryl Regan. “Certainly soldiers returning home from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are going to be incredibly moved by these stories.”

___

Civil War in America: http://myloc.gov/exhibitions/civil-war-in-america/

(via thelifeguardlibrarian)

Aug 31

Corporate History Buffs Find Hidden Treasure - WSJ.com

“Mr. Bullington is a member of a small cadre of workers who spend their days digging around on eBay, hitting up former employees and mining the corporate nooks and crannies for branded artifacts.

Their toils are the result of carelessness (items long ago lost) and ambivalence (items thought to be of little value). Nowadays, such corporate ephemera is prized for myriad reasons. Some can help a company define its legacy, flesh out its history, serve as décor—or even inspire new products.”

(via Library Stuff)

Backup Storage Media Lifespan Infographic - CrashPlan

(via Stephen’s Lighthouse)

Jul 24

livefromthenypl:

Doug Reside, the Digital Curator for the Library for Performing Arts, wrote this incredibly helpful step-by-step guide to retrieving data off of outmoded hardware: “Digital Archaeology: Recovering Your Digital History”.

Have you found any cool/weird/helpful old hardware lately?

(via nypl)

Jul 1

creativeusefularts:

Grateful Dead Archives Opens Today!!

Celebrate by (http://library.ucsc.edu/grateful-dead-archive) officially celebrating the grand public opening on June 29, from 1 to 4 pm, at McHenry Library, UC Santa Cruz, home of the Grateful Dead Archive. Other sites, http://archive.org/details/GratefulDead and http://www.dead.net have been a source for much of the music of the Grateful Dead. But nobody has a copy of the Grateful Dead Nativity Scene! The UC Santa Cruz has been busy putting this archive together. Katie Fortney and Sarah Lindsey deserve much credit with thanks to an IMLS grant. UC Santa Cruz received the archives in 2008. There is 600 linear feet of documents and 40,000 digital objects thanks in large part to a dedicated and well organized fan - Eileen Law since the early 1970’s

Peggy Hoon, University of North Carolina, helped with the process and policies needed with the Archive. Motivation is not financial. Rather, the intent is to provide access and preservation of these items. “Claiming fair use while wearing a Kevlar vest” The scope of the project, steps taken, and securing copyright permissions were discussed. They created their own digitization guidelines including the format, image quality, bit depth, metadata, resolution, images, scanning, encoding, compression, etc. They use the statement all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. All material are open, free and totally accessible. There is advice restricting reproduction or publication. UC Santa Cruz also provides freely available the information for licensing the information from http:/bitily/gdaocip2012, Deed of gift information can be obtained from the same site.

They only claim physical ownership of material. They reviewed and considered many copyright topics - CONFU, Orphan works, work for hire, Section 110.2, TEACH Act, for all types of material in the AGD collection. Examples of items include fan art, posters, album covers, tickets, photos, clippings, tshirts, back stage passes, and fanzines. Many of the works are covered by deed gift. Potential copyright holders were identified and attempts were made to contact them. Fair use guidelines were followed by sorting the format type and determining the governing sections of fair use, then the relevant case law. They want to develop good faith copyright guidelines.

(via thelifeguardlibrarian)

Jun 22

State Historical Society to aid in digitization of Civil War-era newspapers

“The State Historical Society of Missouri has been awarded a $74,623 grant to digitize several Civil War-era Missouri newspapers.

Now, the newspapers, dating from 1854 to 1876, are on microfilm and available for public viewing at the historical society, which is on Lowry Mall at MU.

The digitized versions will be freely available as part of the online Missouri Digital Newspaper Project. They will also be featured on the historical society’s American Civil War in Missouri website.”

(via Library Stuff)

Apr 26

“

Books have worked the same way, more or less, for centuries. They are a remarkably intuitive technology. Open, read, close. “Or if you have a photo album, you know exactly what that is,” says Bill LeFurgy, who works for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program at the library. “It’s self-evident. It’s self-describing.”

Now consider the disc, compact or floppy. The disc is not intuitive. The disc may contain photographs, but the disc will not show them to you unless you know how to open it — which, as everyone relocates to the Cloud, will become an increasingly antique skill. In 75 years, the disc will be modern civilization’s hieroglyph; the Rosetta Stone will be the yellowed user manual of an Apple IIe.

While books have endured unchanged, other forms of technology have bred with the speed of invertebrate insects, multiple generations each decade: 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, flash drives, Google docs, Pinterest boards — old things abandoned for new things in increasingly short life cycles.

“I worry about this,” LeFurgy says.

” Library of Congress’s collection preserves history of American culture (via thelifeguardlibrarian)

(via libraryjournal)

the shrinking librarian

A shy violet keeps a library & information science scrapbook.

Corporate History Buffs Find Hidden Treasure - WSJ.com

State Historical Society to aid in digitization of Civil War-era newspapers