Happy New Year

Everyone here at the Student Chapter of the Society of American Archivists would like to wish everyone a happy new year. January 1st was also Public Domain Day, which is a celebration of all the works that enter the public domain every year due to copyrights expiring. To that end an interesting article on the subject was posted to the archives and archivists listserv. Titled "Public Domain Day 2011: Will the tide be turned?" it is an exploration of the progress that is being made towards less restrictive copyright laws. Click on the link in the previous sentence for the article, as well as the one above that for more information on Public Domain Day.

New Record Keeping Procedures for State Government

First of all congratulations are in order for all recent graduates. I wish you all the best of luck. The second thing I want to share with everybody is an article recently posted to the Archives and Archivists listserv. It details an Executive Order recently signed by Governor Paterson that provides for the development of a records management policy for his office. Click on the link above for the full article.

Supreme Court Questions Broad Use of FOIA

A recent article from the Washington Post was posted to the Archives and Archivists listserv. The Supreme Court recently heard a case involving a broad interpretation an exemption from the Freedom of Information Act to keep a set of maps from being released. It raises some interesting questions concerning government secrecy and what the public has a right to know. Click the link to view the article.

Something to look foreward to...

With the semester winding down, this cartoon was posted to the Archives and Archivists listserv. It is entitled "Why You Shouldn't Become an Archivist". The title basically describes the substance of it. While intended to be humorous, it has provoked a strong reaction from some members of the listserv. Enjoy (if you can)!

National Archives Having Network Diffifculties

A recent article from Information Week reported that the National Archives and Records Administration needs to purchase new networking equipment but can't because of its bidding process. The situation has gotten so bad that Office of General Counsel lost e-mail access for a whole day. Click on the link for the full story.

Personal Archives

Salon.com posted an interesting piece on Friday concerning the need for personal archives. The article advocates the creation of some kind of way to automatically archive the digital content (such as blog posts) that we create. It raises some interesting issues about how the material we create on the internet will be preserved, if it will be at all, and if it should be. Click on the link above to access the article.

Geocities Becomes Torrent File

As most of you are probably aware, Yahoo! closed there pioneering Geocities service last year. Despite the fact that they did not archive the sites it hosted a small chunk of it has been saved. The article was originally posted on the archives and archivists listserv.

Also, today is election day. For those of you reading this I would like to remind you to vote if you have done so already. Voting it the duty of every citizen. While it may not seem obvious, your vote does count.