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In: Baldwin

The University of Florida’s Digital Library Center regularly receives requests for copies of digital files. The UF Digital Collections contain many items not in the public domain, but for which the rights owners have granted permissions and for those we refer requests to the rights holders. If the files are UF’s and in the public domain, the DLC is happy to share the files. We do ask for attribution to the UF Libraries so that users of the new materials can find more related items and we ask for news of where the images are being used so we can share that information with ourRead More →

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In: dloc, language, translations

Google recently released the Google Translator Toolkit. The Translator Toolkit allows users to easily upload text, has Google Translate’s existing functionality to automatically translate the text, and then adds “Translation Memories” which is a database of prior human translations. A translation memory (TM) is a database of human translations. As you translate new sentences, we automatically search all available translation memories for previous translations similar to your new sentence. If such sentences exist, we rank and then show them to you. Comparing your translation to previous human translations improves consistency and saves you time: you can reuse previous translations or adjust them to create new,Read More →

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In: ACLS, fellowships, UFDC

ACLS has a number of fellowships and applications are due by September 30, 2009. The information on the fellowship programs won’t be updated until July, but it’s not too early to start planning a project. I’m hoping that someone is already planning a fellowship proposal on Caribbean Studies, Florida history, newspapers, children’s literature, or another topic that connects easily to the the Digital Library of the Caribbean, the Florida History and Heritage Digital Collections, the Florida Digital Newspaper Library, the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature Digital Collection or another of the collections supported by UFDC. The ACLS/SSRC/NEH International and Area Studies Fellowships, the ACLSRead More →

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In: Academia, access, copyright, ifla, open access

International Publishers and Librarians Agree to Enhance The Debate on Open Access Geneva/The Hague 20 May 2009 – For immediate release A joint statement released today by the International Publishers Association, the International Association of Scientific Technical and Medical (STM) Publishers, and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) calls for a more rational, evidence based debate on open access. It encourages experimentation and piloting of new concepts and ideas, whilst acknowledging that the differences in the different academic disciplines and publishing traditions may lead to differentiated approaches and business models in support of authors. The joint statement is intended to move theRead More →

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In: Digital Library, standards, technologies

In practice, development doesn’t stop. Recognise this and deal with it. “The coolest thing…” The biggest risk is that premature proscription prevents the coolest thing. Is this a problem? Only if the system is considered as a whole. Decompose system into independent components that are tractable. – Neil Jefferies, “Persistent IT Architectures: Building Digital Archives That Last” from the Digital Repositories Workshop: Tools and Infrastructure,23 April 2009.Read More →

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In: tools, UFDC

Several popular browsers have a built in search box next to the address box which can be used to quick-search against specific search engines or sites. We recently allowed UFDC to be added as a search engine choice in your browser. First, however, you will need to follow the steps below: Go to the UFDC main home page. Locate the small browser search box in the upper right hand corner of the browser (to the right of the page URL box). There is a drop down menu which exposes several search tool options. After clicking the drop down, Select “Add UFDC Search” After doing that,Read More →

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In: dloc, fdlp, UFDC

The Documents Department of the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida is a Regional Federal Documents Depository serving Florida and the Caribbean. In the digital era, the idea of access to “networked information” seems fairly standard and it seems tied to the technological delivery system. That’s far from the truth though because the concept of shared, accessible, connected information has been supported by programs like the Federal Document Library Program for so much longer. The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) was established by Congress to ensure that the American public has access to its Government’s information. Since 1813, depository libraries have safeguardedRead More →

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In: Baldwin, microfilm, UFDC

I haven’t had quite as much exciting news to share lately because the Digital Library Center has been focusing any free time–aside from keeping up with current projects–on trying to load some old files for the most recent segment of a multi-phased grant. The older files are from 1998-2004 and were included in the earlier grant phases, and were microfilmed instead of being digitized. The microfilm was later digitized, but the color pages still had to be scanned and so now we’re re-combining the grayscale and color pages, processing the images, adding bibliographic metadata, and loading and archiving the files. The process is slow goingRead More →