Antioxidants to the Rescue

Antioxidants to the Rescue via Wired News

I've mostly been working with digital preserrvation lately, but this comes as welcome news. The InkCor project is working to neutralize the corrosive destruction caused by inks using iron gall.

From the Ink Cor site
"Libraries, archives and museums worldwide are faced with the immense problem of preserving countless paper documents, endangered by the corrosive properties of iron gall ink. InkCor project aims to significantly improve the present know-how of the phenomenon of ink corrosion and establish best conservation practices for iron gall ink containing documents, enabling their preservation and undisturbed access."

People often think that digitization serves a preservation function. In many cases it's really about access, but digitization snapshots of self-destructing materials like those containing iron gall inks can help in the long term if properly managed and maintained. Good digitization practices can only assist in achieving "undisturbed access."

Nice to see Wired paying attention to non-digital materials.

How the DMCA ruined my day.

One of my favorite radio stations of all time is WXPN 88.5 in Philadelphia. I hadn't listened for a while and decided to tune in today. Turns out their doing their annual "top 25" albums countdown for the year, but because of the DMCA they can't stream the live broadcast. They can broadcast entire albums over the air, but can't stream them online. They are offering a nice sameple from the top 25, but still not the same. And to think of the hassel they've had to go through to provide this alternative stream.

And behind door number2? To PhD or not to PhD

For a little more than a year I have been a MLS student at the University of Illinois. Mid-way through completing my degree as a distance education student I decided to accept an on-campus assistanceship. At the time, I saw this as an opportunity to not only complete my MLS, but to also consider pursuing a PhD. Then it was just a thought, but the time for action is quickly approaching.

Between now and January I will be working through the pros and cons of whether to stay and pursue this or move on with my MLS. Earlier this year Meredith posted about her library job search and I thought it would be useful to include the process of my decision here. I'd also love feedback from professionals and faculty out there with opinions about your own choices, good, bad and ugly.

Art Spaces Archive Project

Art Spaces Archives Project [AS-AP] is a non-profit initiative founded by a consortium of alternative art organizations, including Bomb Magazine, College Art Association, Franklin Furnace Archive, New York State Council on the Arts [NYSCA], New York State Artist Workspace Consortium, and The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, with a mandate to help preserve, present, and protect the archival heritage of living and defunct for- and not-for-profit spaces of the “alternative” or “avant-garde” movement of the 1950s to the present throughout the United States.

With funding provided by NYSCA, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, AS-AP has a mandate to begin the documenting process by constructing a national index of the producers of avant-garde art.

Deconstructing Google bombs

Here's an article from the new issue of First Monday about google bombing (created by GSLIS alum, Adam Mathes).

Deconstructing Google bombs: A breach of symbolic power or just a goofy prank?
by Clifford Tatum


In this study I compare two Google bombs using Melluci’s (1996) social movement framework. Viewing the Google bombing practice as a social movement provides an informative lens from which to analyze the nature and goals as well as the results of this form of online collective action. The empirical basis for this research relies on analysis of the content and context of Google bomb hyperlinking using an approach informed by Beaulieu’s (2005) notion of sociable hyperlinks. From this study I conclude that the Google bombing practice is an online protest technique not unlike the "media mind bomb" developed by the late Bob Hunter of Greenpeace (2004) fame. In the case of Hunter’s mind bombs, sounds and images were used to form alternate constructions of reality in the news media. Similarly, Google bombs are constructed by manipulating the relative ranking of an Internet search term and thereby creating alternate constructions of reality through collective action online.