![logo graphic appearing on the "WorldWideWeb SLAC Home Page" in 1993](https://swap.stanford.edu/was/20151211033644im_/http://library.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/styles/blog/public/blog/image/slac.xbm_.png?itok=8sQOAnw6 "logo graphic appearing on the "WorldWideWeb SLAC Home Page" in 1993")
The world's first websites were built for very different rendering and navigation interfaces than the comparatively advanced browsers available today. Thanks to the work of web archivists (e.g., CERN, SLAC), we can celebrate the incongruity of accessing some of these ancient websites using modern browsers. While a traditional goal of web archiving has been to preserve the "canonical" user experience of a website, this has been persistently impaired by (among other challenges) accessing web archives using software other than would've been available at the time content was archived.
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On September 2nd, 2015, I had the great privilege of conducting an oral history interview with John Chowning, Professor Emeritus at Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). Chowning, a pioneer in the world of computer music, is perhaps best known as the inventor of Frequency Modulation (FM) synthesis. His discovery was eventually licensed to Yamaha who integrated it into a number of instruments, most importantly, the DX7, the world’s first mass-produced digital synthesizer, released in 1983. The DX7 is generally regarded as one of the most important musical instrument inventions of the past 50 years, and was widely adopted by artists across multiple genres in the 1980s. My interview with Chowning is now available via the Stanford Digital Repository (SDR). Chowning and I principally sat down to discuss Leon Theremin’s visit to Stanford in 1991, which Chowning organized and oversaw. Stanford University Libraries recently digitize video footage of this visit which included a day long symposium at CCRMA and an evening concert in Frost Amphiteatre at which Theremin, Max Mathews, and many other notable figures from the world of electronic and computer music at the time performed. However, Professor Chowning and I also discussed additional topics including Chowning's background in computer music, his history at Stanford and the inception of CCRMA, and his close personal and professional relationship with Max Mathews.
Conservation Services is delighted to announce our new collection in the SDR, Stanford University Libraries Conservation Services treatment documentation. Beginning this past summer, we began depositing treatment reports, photographs, and videos.
In today's mail, the newspaper arrived. It wasn't the San Francisco Chronicle on the San Jose Mercury News though. It was a copy of the Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat, published in Turku, Finland. It wasn't until I turned to page 15 that I recognized something - a reproduction of the 1815 William Smith Map that we had scanned. William Smith published a map of Geology of what is now a good part of the UK, and earlier this year, we, along with the British Geological Society, celebrated 200 years since its publication. The map and article, all in Finnish of course, presumeably talks about the story of the man and how William Smith single-handedly authored and published this map. The newspaper used our scan both in the paper version and also in their online version.
For more on what we did with this map, please follow the links below:
William Smith Map Bicentennial Celebration by Branner Earth Sciences Library.
Digitizing the William Smith Map.
The URL to view our copy of the map is here.
View our map, georeferenced and other copies here at the UK site unveiled earlier this year.
By Deardra Fuzzell and Wayne Vanderkuil
A historic manuscript map and a gem of the Stanford Library Map Collection, the Ōmi Kuni-ezu 近江國絵圖 Japanese Tax Map from 1837 is hand drawn and painted in the round. This map is designed to be displayed on the floor with the viewer standing in its center. From this central vantage point, the map may be read with ease from any direction. As this display and viewing method is no longer possible for a map fast approaching its 200th birthday, Stanford has recently digitized this item to enable access for research, teaching and learning as well as preservation of the original object.
This the largest and most difficult oversized map Stanford has digitized thus far.
See how the Map Program went about imaging this unique item.
The Stanford Digital Repository (SDR) PURL pages have a new look and loads of new, compelling functionality. If you deposit content to the SDR, or if you write about content in the SDR, or if you help users of SUL's digital collections, then you will definitely want to read on!
It’s been more than a year since we announced the completion of the first phase of development of Spotlight, an innovative solution that enables libraries and other cultural heritage institutions to build high-quality online exhibits from content in their digital collections. Spotlight was built to make it easier for library curators, as well as faculty or students to create customized, feature-rich and searchable websites from the vast digital collections held by the Stanford University Libraries. The initial phase of development culminated in the first production exhibit built with Spotlight, Maps of Africa: An Online Exhibit. This online collection site was built primarily by SUL's Digital and Rare Maps Librarian, G. Salim Mohammed, with only minimal help from lbrary technical staff.
Use of the Stanford Digital Repository for archiving student honors theses continues to grow. At the end of the spring 2015 quarter, a total of 141 new items were deposited by students in 10 collections. Over the summer, these items were systematically indexed to SearchWorks and are now available for discovery and access. Some of the first users of this content in fact are the Stanford Class of 2016 honors students who are just now starting to plan their own theses projects to be deposited next spring. The seniors refer to the previously deposited works to familiarize themselves with the finished published product, the deposit process, and key issues to consider, such as licensing and embargo.
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