Running head: BOOKMARKING PAPER
Bookmarking Paper
Megan L. Anthony
San Jose State University
School of Library and Information Science
1
BOOKMARKING PAPER
2
Abstract
This paper will discuss the trending tags from the social bookmarking web service
Delicious. For 11 weeks, a total of 781 links were added to the site, along with at
least 5 tags per link. This paper will explore the emerging trends that have been
recognized through the 11 weeks. For instance, the growth of digitally preserving
archives, the specific types of the more popular archives that are being digitized, the
types of publications that are appearing most often, and the institutions and schools
that are trending. Many of these tags overlap with one another, which will also be
discussed in this paper. For example, the many overlapping tags from historical
events include the holocaust from World War II and Rosa Parks within the Civil
Rights movement. Such archives from these historical events are looked at in
greater detail in this paper. The advancements that are being discussed in film
preservation will also be mentioned, as well as the types of blogs that examine
archives.
Keywords: digitalization, digital archives, digital preservation, historical documents,
film preservation, blogs
BOOKMARKING PAPER
As to be expected, the top tags that occurred the most had to do with
digitalization. Appearing 78 times was digitization, 51 times was digital archives,
and 49 times was digital preservation. The discussion of new and emerging
technology is no longer that, a discussion. Archival and record organizations are
looking to preserve their information in a digital format, and newspapers,
organizations, libraries, and schools are writing about it.
While most of the emerging trends have lots of overlapping, the main goal is
to preserve history and make it available to those intending to benefit from the
historical documents. Historical documents received 31 tags, placing it in the top 10.
Historical Archives are going online, and there are lots of events and articles from
prestigious organizations to prove it. The Wellcome Library in London has digitized
“mental health records from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries” (Gannon). By
digitizing documents relating to the United Kingdom’s medical history, the
searchable database that the texts and images are being uploaded to “will bring
some rare and important historical material from a fascinating period of medical
history into an open and free online resource,” Simon Chaplin said in a statement in
the Gannon article. The works of art that are now digitized will provide historical
insight into that period of time. Those that can benefit from these archives could be
researchers, literature and history professors, mental health professionals, and
more.
The Vatican Apostolic Library is also making documents available online, but
to its website rather than a database. Digitizing their “valuable ancient religious
manuscripts” (Russon, 2014) and making them available for the public to view for
3
BOOKMARKING PAPER
free will provide the most precious history to those seeking them. One of the more
valued articles from the assignment, with the most popular tag digitization, we are
given information on what else the Vatican Apostolic Library also has digitized. For
instance, drawings and notes by artists and scientists such as Michelangelo and
Galileo, treaties from all eras of history, and other “irreplaceable ancient texts”
(Russon, 2014). The act of preserving such old documents requires a lot of
equipment and as Hunter (2003) writes, “Preservation involves both the protection
of records from physical deterioration and damage and the restoration of previously
damaged items” (p. 5). Due to the copious amount of ancient physical documents,
there is great purpose in digitizing the documents to preserve them.
Digital archives is the second most popular tag, and this article lends its
resources into discussing the Getty Research Institute for over 100,000 images and
texts on art history. As stated by Neuendorf (2014), “The material from the Getty
Research Institute's library and special collections dates back to the 15th century
and contains useful records of art dealers' bookkeeping and painting inventories as
well as letters written by renowned artists such as Edouard Manet.” Preservation is
the fourth most popular tag, with 41 mentions, however preservation also landed
itself as tag number 3 with digital preservation. The preservation of historical
documents serves to preserve history for many years to come.
Archives are digitally preserving documents and images from specific
historical events; for instance, WWI was a popular tag, appearing 9 times, while
written out as World War I is seen 5 times for a total of 14 tags for the First World
War. A museum in Ypres, a town in Belgium that found itself at the center of the
4
BOOKMARKING PAPER
western front during the First World War, is planning to digitally archive the Irish
War Memorial Records. Lynch (2014) reiterates what the Irish Ambassador stated
as the idea behind expanding and correcting the archive in that its aim is to bring
history of the First World War closer to Ireland. Improving the knowledge that has
been gathered concerning the Irish men who have died from World War I is the
main objective to preserving such time specific information.
The National Archives has digitized more than 1.2 million pages of 300,000
diaries of soldiers during the First World War. According to Cowburn (2014), the
diaries have been digitized “in an attempt to build a more authentic picture of life
during wartime.” Not only can family members gain access to personal thoughts and
motives from their lost family members, but also people everywhere can now
digitally access diaries from such specific events in history. In this case, the focus is
on the horrors of the First World War, details on the battles, the many casualties, life
in the trenches, and more. Cowburn (2014) shares words from the culture secretary,
Maria Miller, in that this “new online vehicle gives a very public voice to some of
these soldiers, through which we will be able to hear their thoughts and feelings.”
From 1914 up until 1919, 300,000 unit diaries are preserved digitally for a global
audience. Access to such specific era driven history enlightens people and opens the
door to never before seen knowledge and information.
WWII was also a popular tag, more popular than WWI. WWII had 11 tags,
however while written out as World War II, it received 6 tags for a total of 17.
Photographs of the U.S. from World War II have been recently digitized online and
organized through Photogrammar. “Photogrammar not only allows you to easily
5
BOOKMARKING PAPER
search for all these gorgeous historic images, it places each of them on a map, colorcoded by photographer” (Walker, 2014). Another main objective in digitizing
archives is not just to preserve them, but also to find relevant ways to search and
use them, which Photogrammar assists in doing by “creating visualizations that help
to interpret and organize the photos, collecting them geographically but also by
subject, photographer and year” (Walker, 2014).
Relating to the World War II tags are Nazis with 8 tags and Holocaust with 11.
People with access to an online photo database through the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum and the International Center for Photography can now view Jewish life
right before, during, and following the Holocaust. Thompson (2014) shares that the
goal with releasing these images is the hope that someone might recognize
something or someone, because the negatives and printed images they have lack
captions. A benefit to digitizing photo archives is the hope for others to learn more
and gain different perspective from the information. The trend with digitizing
historical archives, (images and documents), is only growing with the need to
preserve important information for future generations.
Not all 11 Holocaust tags were about the genocide that occurred during
World War II. Destruction, disaster, and Genocide are all synonyms of the noun
Holocaust. For instance, one article discusses the Armenian Genocide, while this
next article plans to digitally restore Lithuanian Yiddish archives (Shubert, 2014).
Millions of dollars are being put towards the project to digitally preserve the many
pages of documents and books of Lithuania, starting from 1941. Preserving the
culture and history from these historical events will allow current and future
6
BOOKMARKING PAPER
generations to remain knowledgeable about their history and the history of others.
Digitally preserving archives allows for worldwide access and an abundance of
knowledge.
Civil Rights was also a popular tag, with 10 appearances. With 6 tags, Rosa
Parks was an emerging trend in the archive profession. There are certain pieces of
history that hold more significance than others, and the civil rights events that led
from Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on the bus is one of them. Schuessler
(2014) writes that the Library of Congress will be the temporary home of a Rosa
Parks collection of more than 1,500 items. Archives often hold exhibitions with their
more popular items. Rosa Parks’ collection will be included in the Library of
Congress’ “Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom” exhibit
(Schuessler, 2014).
Since digitally preserving historical archives is such an emerging trend, it
only makes sense for literary pieces to become part of the digital world. The focus
will be on pieces of literature that have been published by more well known writers,
rather than, for example, St. Vincent De Paul’s 17th century handwritten letters (“St.
Vincent De Paul, 2014), which isn’t necessarily considered literature. Mary Shelley’s
“Frankenstein” for instance is a piece of literature that is known worldwide.
Schuessler (2013) informs readers of the beginning phases of the online ShelleyGodwin Archive, which will contain the original manuscript of her well-known
novel. In an interview, one of the project leaders Mr. Fraistat discusses the ongoing
debate of the true author of “Frankenstein,” whether that is Percy Bysshe Shelley or
his wife Mary. Mr. Fraistat shares that ‘“It’s one of those moments that makes you
7
BOOKMARKING PAPER
step back and recover the freshness of their collaboration…you won’t see that in the
printed edition of ‘Frankensten’ ’” (Schuessler, 2013). By collecting all of the known
documents involving this piece of literature, archivsts and eventually the public will
have access to a fresh perspective of something that was otherwise sacred and
private. Classic literature will now be put online thanks to the Loeb Classical Library
Foundation and the Harvard University Press. Digitizing such classic literature
introduces “the capability to annotate and search the texts…[and brings] these texts
to an even wider audience” (The Crimson Staff, 2014). A series of 520 volumes of
ancient Greek and Roman literature will be among the main pieces being digitized.
Film preservation had an alarming 22 tags and film had 12, proving that
audiovisual archives are an emerging, popular trend. Fujifilm wrote on their website
about a process to preserve the film of motion pictures (“Topics: A film”). The article
also states that a challenge that the field of audiovisual archives faces is the constant
altering of technological advances. Bryony (2014) writes about a film restoration
project concerning Alfred Hitchcock’s films. The discussion of the varying versions
of the films is brought to attention as one aspect of the project. Film archives belong
to a special collection, which was tagged 21 times.
Many blogs have already been utilized thus far to assist with the emerging
trends and popular tags. Byrd (2014) defines a blog as a frequently updated online
personal journal or diary. Bloggers can be anyone and they can share anything.
Blogs can be integrated from a school, organization, publications, state archives, or a
professional who is blogging their knowledge. For instance, one of the blogs that
was added as a link more than once belongs to the state archives of North Carolina
8
BOOKMARKING PAPER
(“History for all”). Another blog that was trending belongs to the Director of the
Master of Archival Studies Program at Clayton State University in Georgia. Many of
Pearse-Moses’ blog entries had the most popular tags in them including, digitization,
digital archives, and digital preservation. Publications like The Wall Street Journal
have blogs, and one was added as a link. Gershman (2014) writes about online
access to case archives in one blog entry. Another example of an overlap of content,
digital access to archives is something we are only going to see more of in the
coming future.
9
BOOKMARKING PAPER
10
References
Anthony, Megan. (2014, November 2) Retrieved from:
http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/8283466/LIBR_256
Byrd, Kenneth. What is a blog? [Blog Basics].
Retrieved from: http://blogbasics.com/what-is-a-blog/
Cowburn, Ashley. (2014, January 14). First world war diaries go online. The
Guardian. Retrieved from:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/14/first-world-wardiaries-online
Dixon, Bryony. (2014, April 24). Restoring Hitchcock #1: how a film restoration
begins. British Film Institute (BFI). Retrieved from:
http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/restoring-hitchcock-1-how-film-restorationbegins
Gannon, Megan. (2014, October 21). Thousands of historic archives from british
asylums to go online. LiveScience. Retrieved from:
http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-historic-archives-british-asylums-online182516940.html
Gershman, Jacob. (2014, September 19). Judiciary to restore online access to case
archives. [The Wall Street Journal: Law Blog]. Retrieved from:
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/09/19/judiciary-to-restore-online-accessto-case-archives/?KEYWORDS=archives
History for all the people. [State Archives of North Carolina Blog]. Retrieved from:
https://ncarchives.wordpress.com
BOOKMARKING PAPER
Hunter, G.S. (2003). Developing and maintaining practical archives: A how-to-do-it
manual (2nd ed.). New York: Neal-Schuman.
Lynch, Suzanne. (2014, October 29). Bursary to expand archive of Irish in First
World War. Irish Times. Retrieved from:
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/bursary-to-expand-archive-ofirish-in-first-world-war-1.1979854
Neuendorf, Henri. (2014, September 23). Getty adds 100,000 images to digital
archive. Artnet News. Retrieved from:
http://news.artnet.com/in-brief/getty-adds-100000-images-to-digitalarchive-110690
Pearse-Moses, Richard. (2014). Archives in the digital era. [Blogspot]. Retrieved
from: http://archivesinthedigitalera.blogspot.com
Russon, Mary-Ann. (2014, October 20). Vatican library making 4,000 ancient
manuscripts available online for free. International Business Times, UK
Edition. Retrieved from:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/vatican-library-making-4000-ancientmanuscripts-available-online-free-photos-1470911
Schuessler, Jennifer. (2013, October 30). ‘Frankenstein’ manuscript comes alive in
online Shelley archive. [Arts Beat Blog]. Retrieved from:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/frankenstein-manuscriptcomes-alive-in-online-shelley-archive/?_php=true
Schuessler, Jennifer. (2014, September 10). Rosa Parks collection going to Library of
Congress. [The New York Times: Arts Beat Blog]. Retrieved from:
11
BOOKMARKING PAPER
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/rosa-parks-collectiongoing-to-library-of-congress/
Shubert, Boruch. (2014, October 6). YIVO launches $5.25M project to digitally
restore Lithuanian Yiddish archives. Retrieved from:
http://jpupdates.com/2014/10/06/yivo-launches-5-25m-project-digitallyrestore-lithuanian-jewish-archives/
SJSU_LIBR256_FA14. Delicious Science, LLC. Retrieved from:
https://delicious.com/libr256fa14
St. Vincent De Paul’s 17th century handwritten letters go digital. (2014, September
19). Written by Press Release. Retrieved from:
http://enewspf.com/latest-news/school-news/55613-st-vincent-de-paul-s17th-century-handwritten-letters-go-digital.html
The Crimson Staff. (2014, September 25). Digitizing the Loeb classical library. The
Harvard Crimson. Retrieved from:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/25/harvard-loeb-classicallibrary/
Thompson, Helen. (2014, September 2). See Jewish life before holocaust through a
newly release digital archive. Smithsonian Magazine. Retreived from:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/see-jewish-life-before-holocaustnewly-released-digital-archive-180952582/?no-ist
Topics: A film that preserves the ageless value of motion pictures. Fujifilm. Retrieved
from:
http://www.fujifilm.com/products/motion_picture/topics/digital_archives/
12
BOOKMARKING PAPER
Walker, Alissa. (2014, September 3). Get lost in this map of 170,000 photos from
depression-era America. GIZMODO. Retrieved from:
http://gizmodo.com/get-lost-in-this-map-of-170-000-photos-fromdepression-1630121830
13