Joyce Rambo, Nylink’s Reference and Digital Collections Librarian, has been working hard on a unique set of asynchronous training sessions for participants in the South Central Regional Library Council’s collaborative digitization initiative, Tools of History. Joyce became involved in the project at the suggestion of Matthew Hogan, SCRLC’s Manager of Digital Services & Resource Sharing.
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Registration is now open for the WebWise Conference on Libraries and Museums in the Digital World 2010.  And it is free! This conference, co-hosted by IMLS, the University of Denver, the Denver Art Museum and BCR, runs from March 3-5, 2010, in Denver, CO.  This year’s theme is “Imagining the Digital Future” and focuses on the future of collaborative digitization programs, the use of technologies for engaging audiences and sustainability of digital projects.

Attendees do have to pay for housing, food, etc but what a deal:  the conference and preconference are free.  Plus, you can enjoy some sun, networking and great outdoor adventures all in one.    Just make sure you register early, since space is limited.

OCLC is pleased to announce the release of CONTENTdm 5.2 with improved functionality and performance. With the new release, the CONTENTdm Project Client now supports auto updates, enabling users to get updates as quickly as they are available. It automatically checks for software updates in the background, so work is not interrupted. If updates are available, they are downloaded but not installed until the organization is ready.

"Auto update is an easy and efficient way to keep all of our staff up-to-date with the most current Project Client release," said Jennifer Ricker, Digital Collections Manager, State Library of North Carolina.

To better support text-based collections, PDF print quality can now be specified in the Project Client, enabling users to select a quality level when generating optional print versions of their compound objects. For users with large, full-text collections, several enhancements improve performance and reduce indexing times. Other enhancements include the addition of a new thesaurus, Canadian Subject Headings (CSH), and configuration options to filter hits in Usage Reports.

This new release is available to current CONTENTdm licensees at no additional charge.

CONTENTdm Digital Collection Management Software makes everything in digital collections available to everyone, everywhere. No matter the format—local history archives, newspapers, books, maps, slide libraries or audio/video—CONTENTdm can handle the storage, management and delivery of digital collections to users across the Web.

Learn more at www.oclc.org/contentdm/

How can cultural heritage institutions legally use the Internet to improve public access to the rich collections they hold?

A new digitization manual from Peter Hirtle, Cornell University Library’s senior policy advisor, can help professionals at these institutions answer that question."Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums," published by Cornell University Library, is based on a well-received Australian manual written by Emily Hudson and Andrew T. Kenyon of the University of Melbourne, and it conforms to American law and practice. See more information about this publication here: http://communications.library.cornell.edu/com/news/PressReleases/manual.cfm

“Could you please send me a picture of Secretariat?” was the most common request fans had for Mrs. Penny Chenery (then Tweedy) the owner of Secretariat who won the Triple Crown in 1973. 

For 5 days I sifted through and scanned fan mail sent to Mrs. Chenery about her super horse Secretariat and some including his stable mate Riva Ridge.  The National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs was loaned an old box of fan letters dated from the fall of 1973 through spring 1974 with the intent that they could scan them and then have full rights to those images.  While the letters themselves won’t be a part of the museum’s archives the digital images will be.

I was able to participate in the practical aspects of a scanning project including organizing the letters, scanning, and metadata creation.  It was a great opportunity to refresh my digitization skills and to be reminded just how long it takes to go through the process.  (Partly because I couldn’t resist reading many of the letters!)