Digital Migration

If ever there was a need for migration of digital data, this is it:  the American people's response to a national tragedy.  Data was collected after Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963 in the form of punch cards.  After 9/11, a group wanted to replicate the study, but where to find the original data?  Please link to the following blog article in the Library of Congress' Digital Preservation blog The Signal:

http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2011/11/digital-preservation-and-the-1963-kennedy-assassination-study/

Such a wonderfully concise explanation.

Here's a pic of a punch card machine:

Punch Cards!, by DanCentury, on Flickr

NPR, the CIA and your MLIS

NPR had an interesting story on Monday, November 7th on the CIA using librarians to monitor facebook and twitter accounts overseas.  Robert Segal specifically mentioned that the CIA employs lots of people with MLIS degrees.  I can't wait until I get mine.  So here's an actual application of our Web 2.0 skills.  Here's the link to the story and audio on NPR or you can listen to it here too:

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/07/142111403/how-does-the-cia-use-social-media

BTW, the trees are finally turning here in Los Angeles.  Here's a beautiful example from my husband:

Enjoy!

Surveys

I used Mineful today for a survey in class.  It's very similar to Survey Monkey which I've used in the past.  These tools can be very useful, unless a number of people try to use the site at the same time.  I've experienced Survey Monkey's site being overwhelmed and crashing.  It's not pretty.  Doodle.com is also a great site for polling.  I've used that one before too.

And yesterday was National Donuts Day.  Here's a poster from NARA:

Let me just say I've never had to justify donuts to my kids!