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Resources and Tools

Jon Voss, the keynote speaker at SAA’s 2012 Annual Meeting, spoke of connections and collaborations, between individuals and across fields and specialties. He stressed the importance of reaching “beyond borders” utilizing linked and open data, with the resulting content holistically mashed up, creating a single information experience that is multidimensional and spans time. This allows the content to elucidate past and present, providing further insight into the subject matter. With the advent of linked and open data, users are able to not only gain this insight, but also more easily find the people behind the data and make connections. Archivists play a key role, as the archivist's job is to “archive things so that people can find them” (Lori Lindberg).

With that in mind, below is a preliminary list of resources and tools useful for archivists when working with digital archival materials. The resources range from expository material and how-to instruction to web publishing and data manipulation tools, thus providing archivists with background and tools to undertake the constantly evolving task of working with and archiving materials in the digital world. To enhance findability, the resources are categorized by their primary focus (Copyright and Intellectual Property, Data, Digital Materials and Social Media, Digital Preservation, and Web Tools and Technologies).

Comments are open in this section and we encourage you to discuss which resources you found helpful (or unhelpful). Based on your input, we will continue to update this list. Additionally, soon we will begin featuring reviews of sites and exhibits that utilize some of these technologies, as well as the technologies themselves.

Copyright and Intellectual Property

  • Creative Commons: Discusses the variations of creative commons licensing options: http://creativecommons.org/
  • Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the U.S. Created by Peter Hirtle, based on a work’s publication and registration status and type, this document provides the copyright term and what material is in the public domain in the U.S. as of 01/01/2012: http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm

Data

  • Bamboo Dirt: Resource and tool aggregator (lists a multitude of resources and tools broken down by category, including analyze data, collect data, visualize data, create a mashup): http://dirt.projectbamboo.org/
  • Resources and information on linked open data in libraries and museums: http://lodlam.net/ and #lodlam on Twitter

Digital Materials and Social Media

  • Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web, by Cohen, D. J., and Rosenzweig, R. Discusses how to present history on the web, also has a linked bibliography: http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/
  • Interactive Archivist (SAA): SAA site featuring a variety of information and links about digital archives, digital archivists, and Web 2.0: http://interactivearchivist.archivists.org/

Digital Preservation

  • Digital Preservation.gov:  Resource covering all aspects of digital preservation and the wide range of approaches and options: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/
  • Our Digital World- Resources for Digitization Projects: Provides links and tools to resources for digital preservation projects including project management, standards, copyright, best practices, etc.  http://ourdigitalworld.org/services/resources/

Web Tools and Technologies

 

Updated: 2012-11-27