Week 13 Muddiest Point

I have no muddiest point this week.

Week 12 Muddiest Point

I have no muddiest point this week.

Week 11 Muddiest Point

I have no muddiest point this week.

Week 10 Muddiest Point

I have no muddiest point this week.

Week 9 Muddiest Point

I have no muddiest point.

Week 9 Readings

All of the assigned articles dealt with the archival side of digital libraries.  "The Open Archive Information System Reference Model" went into great detail about how an OAIS-compliant system should be set up and function.  I personally appreciated not just the easy to follow explanations, but also the real world examples given in each section.

"Actualized Preservation Threats" and "Research Challenges in Digital Archives" delve into another side of this issue.  As implied by their titles, digital libraries and archives have some kinks that need to be managed and worked out.  "Research Challenges" covers the broad overview of problems including how digital collections are large and full of a variety of items, making preservation and organization difficult.  "Actualized Preservation" is more of a case study, following a particular digital library and the problems its staff encountered.  These, by the very nature of the article, tend to be narrower in scope than "Research Challenges."  Threats cited in this article included media, hardware, and software failures along with human errors.

"Preservation Management of Digital Materials" is an extensive handbook that seems to include all of the concepts and issues presented in the other readings.

Week 8 Muddiest Point

I have no muddiest point this week.

However, I am curious to know how the Hurricane/Frankenstorm Sandy might affect the FastTrack weekend.  I'm flying in from Virginia and I keep hearing that major prolonged power outages are expected for even Pittsburgh.