The silo is a well-worn metaphor in information systems used to illustrate separateness, isolation, and lack of connectivity. Through the many iterations of system development, libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs) have sought to avoid silos and find the sweet spot between interface design and metadata interoperability. This effort is being…

In the mid 1990s, Encoded Archival Description (EAD) appeared as a revolutionary technology for publishing archival finding aids on the Web. The author explores whether or not, given the advent of Web 2.0, the archival community should abandon EAD and look for something to replace it. (Contains 18 notes.)

In 2009, after a year of planning and preparation, the second generation of Ohio Memory was launched. A collaborative effort of the Ohio Historical Society (OHS) and the State Library of Ohio, Ohio Memory is a repository for more than 75,000 digital items, including photographs, journals, and other manuscript materials, as well as print documents…

Recent surveys indicate that many colleges and universities have reached a pivotal moment in assessing the function and future development of their institutional repositories. Other surveys convey that archivists are participating in the development and implementation of institutional repositories at a variety of levels and have contributed to the…

Archivists are challenged by many competing demands on their time. The rise of institutional repositories, often located in libraries rather than archives, and the concurrent increase in attention to the changes in scholarly communication may be perceived by archivists as being a demand that is too far from the archives' core mission to warrant…

There is a general perception that as librarians, we know what constitutes and defines a rare book, that our heritage book collections are well-documented and their future survival is planned for and secure. This discussion paper asks whether our definitions of heritage material might be too narrow and whether they reflect the reality across all…

This article identifies and provides some commentary on the key issues emerging from research into the digitisation of Indigenous materials in collections conducted in collaboration with three state libraries. It situates the research project within the broader context of related activity aimed at addressing the ongoing challenges of access,…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine how technology presents both problems and opportunities for the historian, the researcher, small organisations, and cultural heritage institutions. Ways of safeguarding historical material in digital form are suggested, and the role of cultural heritage bodies as managers of sustainable digital collections is…

The National Archives of Australia holds the papers of many of "Australia's Prime Ministers," including Bruce, Lyons, Curtin, Chifley, Holt, Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating and Howard. From 2000 it undertook a four-year Prime Ministers' Papers Project to locate the records of all 25 men who have held the position of Prime Minister of…