NDSA Update

• Congrats to our NDSA Content Working Group's Geospatial content team for launching their "Issues in the Appraisal and Selection of Geospatial Data" report today. Butch has a post about it on the Signal: http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2013/10/new-ndsa-report-issues-in-the-appraisal-and-selection-of-geospatial-data/
   
• The NDSA Content Working Group's web archiving survey is out. Details below and more in my blog post that appeared today:
  http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2013/10/archiving-web-content-take-the-2013-ndsa-survey/

• Are you or your employer involved in archiving web content? If so, you may be interested in the National Digital Stewardship Alliance's (NDSA) 2nd biannual survey of U.S. organizations that are actively involved or planning to archive web content. The goal of the survey is to better understand the U.S. web archiving landscape: similarities and differences in programmatic approaches, types of content being archived, tools and services being used, access modes being provided, and emerging best practices and challenges.

         The aggregate responses will be reported to NDSA members and summary results will be shared publicly, as was the case with the previous survey (see the final report here:      

         http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/ndsa/working_groups/documents/ndsa_web_archiving_survey_report_2012.pdf).

         Any U.S. organization currently engaged in web archiving or in the process of planning a web archive is invited to take the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ndsawebarchiving.

         The survey will close on November 30, 2013.
 

• The following Coordinating Committee members' terms of service are drawing to a close: Micah Altman, Blane Dessy, and Tyler Walters. We are all very grateful for their dedication and leadership since 2010.

  This leaves open three (3) Coordinating Committee positions for 3-year terms from December 2013  through December 2016. A description of the Coordinating Committee is available from the NDSA wiki, http://www.loc.gov/extranet/wiki/osi/ndiip/ndsa/index.php?title=Principles_of_Collaboration

  The Secretariat is now accepting nominations for these positions. If you have an interest in representing the NDSA community and serving on the Coordinating Committee, or would like to nominate someone you know who would be interested in serving, please send the following information listed below to ndsa@loc.gov<mailto:ndsa@loc.gov> by close of business Friday, November 8, 2013.

  All interested in serving are welcome to stand for election and current Coordinating Committee members are welcome to stand for re-election.

  ************

  Name:

  Organization and Program Representative:

  Brief biography (200 words):

  Interest in serving on the Coordinating Committee (200 words):

  Communities you represent:
   

• Register now for the Best Practices Exchange, being held November 13-15, 2013 in Salt Lake City, Utah! See www.bpexchange.org for details.

  The hotel deadline for conference rates is October 19th. You may book your room at http://www.radisson.com/saltlakecity/BPE. Please register for the conference itself by November 1st to help us with our planning. The registration form can be found here: http://archives.utah.gov/bpe-registration.html.

  We have a full schedule of presentations related to the preservation and access of electronic records. See the full schedule at http://71.2.17.12/bpexchange/images/docs/bpe-2013-schedule-long-descriptions.pdf. Some adjustments to this schedule have been made over the last few days, so if you haven't checked recently, you will want to know when to catch your favorite speakers.

  Highlights of the Conference:

  *             Former U.S. Senator Bob Bennett will open the conference and help us understand how we can influence the powers that be to financially support archives.

  *             Milt Shefter, from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be our keynote speaker, as well as provide a seminar for students and independent filmmakers.

  *             The Sundance Institute will screen one of its films, These Amazing Shadows.

  *             Experts in digitization with HUGE collections (FamilySearch and Ancestry.com) will be giving presentations as well as offering tours of their facilities.

  *             Updates will be given from the National Archives and Library of Congress about their initiatives

  *             Lots of tools, techniques, and collaboration/sustainability ideas will be offered.