CoOL moved to AIC

After Stanford University Libraries announced it could no longer support Conservation OnLine (CoOL), the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) moved to assume responsibility for the indispensable Web-based resource. The preservation community is indebted to Walter Henry and Stanford for 22 years of invaluable service and to AIC for taking on this important work.

For more information about the transition, go to the “CoOL and DistList Updates” in Quick Links at www.conservation-us.org/.

Digital sustainability

Ithaka S + R, the strategy and research arm of Ithaka, has published Sustaining Digital Resources: An On-the-Ground View of Projects Today by Nancy L. Maron, K. Kirby Smith, and Matthew Loy. The 39-page report examines different financial models used by 12 digitization projects. The projects are BOPCRIS Digitisation Centre at the University of Southampton (UK), Centre for Computing in the Humanities at King’s College London (UK), DigiZeitschriften, Göttingen State and University Library (Germany), eBird, Information Science Department at Cornell University (US), Electronic Enlightenment at the University of Oxford (UK), Hindawi Publishing Corporation (Egypt), Inamédiapro and ina.fr, L’Institut national de l’audiovisuel (France), Licensed Internet Associates programme at The National Archives (UK), Middle School Portal 2: Math and Science Pathways at the National Science Digital Library (US), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at Stanford University (US), Thesaurus Linguae Graecae at the University of California-Irvine (US), and V&A Images at the Victoria and Albert Museum (UK). Analysis of the 12 projects identified key factors for sustainability, including the role of entrepreneurial leadership, creating value, minimizing direct costs, developing diverse revenue sources, and establishing accountability and metrics for success.

For a free copy of the report, go to www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/strategy/ithaka-case-studies-in-sustainability/report/SCA_Ithaka_SustainingDigitalResources_Report.pdf.

CCAHA workshops

The Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) is offering “A Race Against Time: Preserving our Audiovisual Media” for the last time October 20–21, 2009, in Atlanta. This completes a three-year national tour for the workshop. CCAHA is also offering “Environmental Management: Stewardship and Sustainability” November 12, 2009, in Philadelphia.

The registration fee for “Race Against Time” is $200. “Environmental Management” is $85 for CCAHA members and $100 for non-members. For more information and to register online, go to www.ccaha.org/education /program-calendar.

LC “Preservation News”

The Preservation Directorate of the Library of Congress (LC) has instituted an update service that will deliver announcements about preservation research, staff publications, and other topics of interest to the preservation community.

The service is available by e-mail or RSS reader. To subscribe, go to “Topics: Collections Preservation” at www.loc.gov/rss.

World Day for AV Heritage

UNESCO has declared October 27, 2009, as World Day for AV Heritage to call attention to the importance of moving images and recorded sound to the cultural record of the 20th and 21st centuries. The theme this year is “Fading Heritage: We Can Save It.”