The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

Introducing The Source

A Guide to Distributed Digital Preservation (Note: PDF)

From the MetaArchive Cooperative website

Authored by members of the MetaArchive Cooperative, this guide is the first of a series of volumes describing successful collaborative strategies and articulating specific new models that may help cultural memory organizations work together for their mutual benefit.
This volume is devoted to the broad topic of distributed digital preservation, a still-emerging field of practice for the cultural memory arena. Replication and distribution hold out the promise of indefinite preservation of materials without degradation, but establishing effective organizational and technical processes to enable this form of digital preservation is daunting. Institutions need practical examples of how this task can be accomplished in manageable, low-cost ways.
This guide is written with a broad audience in mind that includes librarians, archivists, scholars, curators, technologists, lawyers, and administrators. Readers may use this guide to gain both a philosophical and practical understanding of the emerging field of distributed digital preservation, including how to establish or join a network.


Rethinking libraries in terms of learning and working collaboratively: An interview with Mary Somerville (Note: Opens as a pdf)

From the Collaborative Librarianship journal website

The interview discusses the context and basic assertions of the book, "Working Together: Collaborative Information Practices for Organizational Learning" by Mary Somerville, University Librarian and Library Director at the Auraria Library.


The big issues in public libraries (Audio)

From the Australian Policy Online website

What are the key challenges facing Australia's public library services? In this seminar, held at the State Library of Victoria on 16 November 2009 as part of the Big Issues symposium, leading thinkers and policy-makers address the big social issues and government policies that will shape the public library service Australia-wide over the next five years.
The speakers explore topics including learning and literacy, digital citizenship, social inclusion and community partnerships, and health and ageing.


Thriving or Surviving: National Library of Scotland in 2030 / Martyn Wade, National Librarian and Chief Executive (Note: PDF)

From the National Library of Scotland website

The National Library of Scotland (NLS) is increasingly conscious of the need to maintain an eye not only on the immediate future but on a more distant horizon. Many strategic decisions - for example on organisational capacity or capital investment - are best considered in the context of this timescale. This paper looks at the influences that will shape NLS over a twenty-year timescale.
The paper includes two pieces of original material commissioned by NLS, which are published as part of this report. These are firstly, a piece looking at developments in digital libraries, and secondly, a record of a series of interviews with a number of influential library thinkers around the world on the opportunities and challenges they see for smaller national libraries in 2030.
This paper is very much intended as a discussion document (it does not represent formal NLS policy) and feedback on the ideas and topics contained in the paper are appreciated.