W. E. B. Dubois: A Digital Archive

African American History Month, and especially the last week in February, are especially appropriate times to celebrate the wonderful digital archive capturing the works of W. E. B. Dubois--author, scholar, educator, magazine editor, activist, international spokesman and founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Dubois was born in western Massachusetts on February 23, 1868.

The Papers of W. E. B. Dubois was the first archive collection digitized for Credo, the online repository at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries' Department of Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA).  In fact, Credo, the repository, is named in recognition of Dubois's Credo, a statement of his philosophy of pride, peace, liberty, education, and patience in achieving equality. The over 100,000 items in the Papers, from letters and speeches to novels, plays, and photographs, are available for browsing, searching, and exploring the life of this Renaissance man and prominent civil rights pioneer.   

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LLMC Digitial Database (Law Library Microform Consortium)

If you are looking for archival and legal history material, try the LLMC Digital database.  This database offers an extensive archival collection from state, federal, foreign and international jurisdictions and more.  The collection includes cases, statutes, reports, historical treatises, dictionaries and others.  Some titles included are Congressional Record, Annals of Congress, New York Case Digests, etc.  Some of the material dates back to the 15th century but there is some recent material as well.  Click here to learn more or to search this database.

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Free For All: Digital Images of Yale's Treasures

Yale University announced this week that it is making the digital images of millions of objects in its museum, library and archive collections--paintings, sculpture, rare artifacts and historical documents--freely available to the public online. Not only can anyone explore the digital images of these treasures from a new online collective catalog (currently holding over 250,000 images), but scholars, artists, and educators will have no concerns about licensing fees and restrictions on their use. The images are freely available, as the Yale announcement states, "for study, publication, teaching or inspiration." For an inspiring study break, spend a few minutes with this slide show highlighting some samples from the Yale collections.
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A Different Civil Rights Archive

The April anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., is a good time to mention a recent, unique addition to digital archives of the American civil rights movement. The Civil Rights Struggle, African-American GI's, and Germany brings together films, oral history videos, photos, and other materials that document the experiences of the 2-3 million African-American soldiers and civilian employees who lived in Germany between 1945 and the end of the Cold War. This fascinating archive is a collaborative project of German Historical Institute, Heidelberg Center for American Studies at the University of Heidelberg, and Vassar College. Take a look and expand your understanding of the civil rights story to encompass the role played by the largest group of African-American soldiers stationed outside the country at a time of great social change, and the impact of the American civil rights movement on the wider world community.


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Storing With Paper

This week, David Pogue posted an interview about "data rot" with the curator of the Computer History Museum. The crux of the interview is that electronic methods of storing information don't last very long at all and constantly need to be backed up. And it includes this quote:

consider paper as an archival medium. Some paper we have has lasted thousands of years. If Moses had gotten the Ten Commandments on a floppy disk, it would never have made it to today.

This means that if you want to have any of your written documents twenty years from now, consider printing them.






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