Legal Research

LOC embraces Social Networking

The iLibrary of iCongress
As essential printed content is increasingly available on-line through Google Books, Open Library, and other digitization projects, the Library of Congress has announced initiatives to upload more of other forms of media as well. Macworld and others report on the library's plans to post film, video, image, and audio materials on iTunes, Flickr, and YouTube, among other sites. Says Macworld:

Among the items Web surfers can expect on iTunes and YouTube are 100-year-old films from Thomas Edison's studio, book talks with contemporary authors, early industrial films from Westinghouse factories, first-person audio accounts of life in slavery, and inside looks into the library's holdings, including the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence and the contents of President Abraham Lincoln's pockets on the night of his assassination.

The articles also mention that the US General Services Administration has forged agreements with Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, and blip.tv that will allow other federal agencies to participate in new media, with more agreements to come. Says Library of Congress Director of Communications Matt Raymond: "Our broad strategy is to 'fish where the fish are,' and to use the sites that give our content added value."

These initiatives should provide more access to resources in the public trust, and even some useful content for arts education, promotion, and context. And they continue the trends set by our first YouTube president (well...not on YouTube anymore).

Source: The Artful Manager

Full post as published by LexLibris on April 02, 2009 (boomark / email).