-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Two Major Reports on Digital Preservation
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000 12:54:34 -0500
From: Gerry Mckiernan <GMCKIERN@gwgate.lib.iastate.edu>

           _Two Major Reports on Digital Preservation_

   I recently learned about two major reports relating to the issues
surrounding digital preservation and believe that they will be of
interest to MyWebColleagues.

  The first of these was prepared by Gail Hodge of Information
International Associates on behalf of the International Council for
Scientific and Technical Information  (ICSTI) [http://www.icsti.org/ ].
The publication, _Digital Electronic Archiving: The State of the Art and
the State of the Practice_ was published in April 1999. It is accessible
at the following addresses:

             http://www.icsti.org/icsti/whats_new.html

             http://www.icsti.org/icsti/99ga/digarch99_TOCP.pdf
                     [Table of Contents]

             http://www.icsti.org/icsti/99ga/digarch99_ExecP.pdf
                     [Executive Summary]

             http://www.icsti.org/icsti/99ga/digarch99_MainP.pdf
                      [Main Report]

  The second is a report prepared by a committee for the National
Academy of Sciences (NAS) and provides recommendations on the digital
preparedness and the Library of Congress in collecting and preserving
digital resources. A general summary of the report recently appeared in
the New York Times on July 27 2000 ["Saving The Nation's Digital Legacy"
/ by Katie Hafner
(
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/07/circuits/articles/27libr.html
)

[NB: This article was also published as "Library of Congress Lags in
Archiving Digital Preservation" in the July 26th NYTimes Web edition ]

[NOTE: A free account is required to access this article]

The title of the report is _LC21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of
Congress_. The Library of Congress (LoC) commissioned the study. The
report's  recommendations are more fully described in a press release
available from the LoC [http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2000/00-100.html ]

  A *pre-publication* copy of the report is available at:

       http://www.nap.edu/books/0309071445/html/

/Gerry McKiernan
Theoretical Librarian
Iowa State University
Ames IA 50011

gerrymck@iastate.edu

         "Life is What Happens While You're Making Other Plans"