ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Preservation News

Jane Hedberg

Jane Hedberg prepares this column for the College Libraries Committee, Commission on Preservation and Access. Submissions may be made to: Jane Hedberg, Wellesley College; jhedberg@wellesley.edu

Sequel to Slow Fires available

Into the Future, On Preservation of Knowledge in the Electronic Age, the new film by Terry Sanders, is available for purchase. In much the same way that Slow Fires publicized the dangers of acid paper, Into the Future publicizes the fragility of electronic information. It is narrated by Robert MacNeil and features comments from Peter Norton, Tim Berners-

Lee, and others. It comes in two VHS versions, half-hour and hour. Copies are available from the American Film Foundation, P.O. Box 2000, Santa Monica, CA 90406; phone: (310) 459-2116; fax: (310) 394-1260. The half-hour version costs $39.50 plus shipping and handling; the hour version costs $59.50 plus shipping and handling.

Second LC/Ameritech competition

Ameritech has provided the Library of Congress with a $2 million gift to fund creation of digital collections for LC’s National Digital Library Program. The money is to be awarded by three annual competitions, and any nonfederal, taxexempt, nonprofit cultural repository in the United States that plans to digitize primary materials in the selected subject areas is eligible to apply. Ten award winners from the 1996-97 round were announced in April 1997. The application process for the 1997-98 round began early this fall, with a deadline of November 3, 1997. The subject area focus of this second round is collections of text and graphic materials concerning U.S. history and culture between 1763 and 1920. Entry guidelines are available at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/award/. For more information, contact program staff at (202) 707-1087 or lc_ameritech@loc.gov.

RLG announces imaging workshop

The Research Libraries Group will offer a new workshop, “Managing Digital Imaging Projects,” five times during 1997-98. The two and a half day workshops will cover realistic goals and objectives, imaging and indexing requirements, technical infrastructure, budgets, facilities and staffing, RFIs and RFPs, vendor selection and contracts, monitoring and scheduling, quality control, and providing access to and maintenance of digital collections. Anne Kenney and Oya Rieger of Cornell University will serve as faculty. The first workshop will be held October 27-29, 1997, at the Smithsonian Institution. (Registration deadline for the October workshop was September 8.) The rest of the schedule is tentative, but as of this writing, workshops will be held February 1998 in Chicago, Illinois, late May or early June in the United Kingdom (two workshops), and late summer or early fall in California. Registration is limited to 35 participants per workshop, with preference given to RLG members. Cost of the workshop is $250 for RLG members; $350 for nonmembers. The fee covers registration, a course notebook, three continental breakfasts, and two lunches. For more information, contact Robin Dale at (650) 691-2238 or BL.RLD@RLG.ORG. To express interest in any of the final four workshops, contact Fran Devlin at (650) 691-2239 or BL.FED@RLG.ORG. Anyone who expresses interest will be notified when firm dates and locations are announced.

Regional Alliance activities

The Regional Alliance for Preservation, a oneyear project created to facilitate cooperation among regional preservation services, has added the Upper Midwest Conservation Association (UMCA) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to its membership. Previous members were AMIGOS Preservation Service in Dallas, Texas; the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, Massachusetts; and SOLINET Preservation Services in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information, consult the Alliance’s new Web site at http:// clir.stanford.edu/rap/. It includes information about the project and each of the services, plus links to their Web sites and e-mail. B