Who holds the particular book needed by a reader? What is the balance between the personal library and the institutional collection?
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Who holds the particular book needed by a reader? What is the balance between the personal library and the institutional collection?
The post Trust and the Personal Library appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
What are the likely impacts of the OSTP’s Nelson Memo on data sharing for researchers and repositories?
The post Guest Post — The Outlook for Data Sharing in Light of the Nelson Memo appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Continuing our fascination with unique libraries, today we look at an archive in an active salt mine.
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The restoration of a glorious portrait raises questions about the scholarly Version of Record.
The post Restoring the Version of Record appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
A look at the NASIG Digital Preservation Policy and a request for comments.
The post Guest Post — Seeking Feedback on a Model Digital Preservation Policy, a Project of the NASIG Digital Preservation Committee appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Since 1996, the Internet Archive has been capturing the World Wide Web but also doing so much more to preserve our digital world behind the scenes.
The post Celebrating 25 Years of Preserving the Web appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Curation takes on many forms. Here, the remarkable work that went into the restoration of Mark Rothko’s “Black on Maroon” after it was vandalized.
The post Restoring Rothko appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Human ancestors that walked the earth left few traces of their passage. Some of their footprints have lithified, or turned to stone, but some survive to this day, unlithified, in soft sediment such as silt. These fragile records of ancient footprints pose a sizable challenge to archaeologists today: how do you preserve the ephemeral? According to new research published in PLOS ONE, the answer may be to “record and digitally rescue” these footprint sites.
The authors explored two methods in this study: digital photogrammetry, where researchers strategically photograph an object in order to derive measurements; and optical laser scanning, where light is used to measure the object’s physical properties. To begin, the authors filled trays with mixtures of sand, cement, and plaster and instructed a participant to walk through these samples. Four wooden 1 cm cubes were then placed beside a select number of footprints and photographs were taken. A laser scanner was then used to measure the same footprints. This simple procedure was also replicated outside of the lab, at a beach in North West England.
In their results, they found that both methods offered similar levels of precision (though, the laser scanner was “slightly more accurate”) and that differences between the two were not statistically significant. These two methods are not, however, without their respective strengths and challenges. Photogrammetry can be an advantage in situations where records need to be taken quickly and inexpensively, as field work can be completing using a camera, tripod, and measuring equipment. This practice is, however, especially subject to human error. Additionally, the accuracy of the images – and consequently the measurements derived from the images – may be compromised by extreme lighting conditions and the depth of the footprint or impression. Alternately, laser scanning is more appropriate in conditions where a high degree of precision is required and footprints are more fragile (and thus unlikely to remain in an “optimal” condition). Laser scanners are, however, more expensive and require a large energy source. The authors advocate that both methods can, and should, be used in tandem to supplement each other.
These digital tools provide an innovative solution to preserving footprint records, especially in cases where traditional on-site, or off-site, preservation is impractical and costly. To learn more about this research and the merits and challenges of digital rescue archaeology, read the full text of the study here.
Image is Figure 6 of the manuscript.
Citation: Bennett MR, Falkingham P, Morse SA, Bates K, Crompton RH (2013) Preserving the Impossible: Conservation of Soft-Sediment Hominin Footprint Sites and Strategies for Three-Dimensional Digital Data Capture. PLoS ONE 8(4): e60755. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0060755