SunSite at Berkeley

[Terry Huwe]

Another place where the concept of _long term_ digital preservation
is being pioneered is at Cornell's New York State School of Industrial 
and Labor Relations.  The Martin P. Catherwood Library at ILR 
has worked out an agreement with the U.S. Dept. of Labor to retain 
digital copies of government documents.  They've loaded several that 
have lasting import, e.g., the Dunlop Commission report on the "glass 
ceiling", and a recent report on child labor.  

This was all reported in a press release from Cornell.  The subtext, in 
my view, is that Cornell must have undertaken a political "hashing out"
to get this "content".  Seems to me like exactly the right step for 
librarians, who are (as a group) going digital fast.  I emailed the 
person in charge of this work, Stuart Basefsky, and he said that ILR 
_approached_ the DOL and proposed this digital archive.  

This is a good strategy, because government web sites will keep documents 
online for 1-6 months and then remove them, but the need for researchers 
to have sensible access is ongoing.  Probably we all have to be reach
out like ILR did to build and retain quality digital archives.  When we 
do, we get the chance to exercise good professional practices, and 
maybe leverage the library's image.

Check it out at http://www.ilr.cornell.edu!  Terry Huwe
***********************************************
Terence K. Huwe			
Director of Library and Information Resources
Institute of Industrial Relations
University of California at Berkeley
Voice:  (510) 642-1705
Fax:  (510) 642-6432
thuwe at library.berkeley.edu
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/autobiography/thuwe
***********************************************

On Thu, 1 Feb 1996, Roy Tennant wrote:

> I would be very interested to hear of anyone who has made provisions for 
> long-term preservation of digital material except for stating *intent*. 
> If you have a clear idea about what that requires please enlighten me. 
> Part of what the Digital Library SunSITE is all about is bringing people 
> together to research such vexing problems as the one you describe. We do 
> not have all the answers, nor do we claim to. Anyone who does is kidding 
> themselves.
> Roy Tennant
> SunSITE Project Manager
> 
> On Thu, 1 Feb 1996, Peter Graham, RUL wrote:
> 
> > 
> > From:  Peter Graham, Rutgers University Libraries
> > What provisions are being made at the SunSite for long-term provision and
> > preservation of information being made available, which Peter Lyman calls a 
> > "Digital Library"?  The blurb doesn't describe them at this point.  --pg
> > 
> > Peter Graham    psgraham at gandalf.rutgers.edu    Rutgers University Libraries
> > 169 College Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08903   (908)445-5908; fax (908)445-5888
> >               <URL:http://aultnis.rutgers.edu/pghome.html>
> > 
>