I haven’t really seen this make the rounds yet, so I thought I’d write it up here – the Library of Congress just announced that it has launched a website to document the work of a new committee charged with investigating changes in current copyright law to accommodate the needs of digital preservation. Looking at the press release with my LAM-sensitive eyes, I couldn’t help notice that they only mention libraries and archives as the targeted beneficiaries of their work – museums, who struggle with the exact same issue, don’t seem to be on their radar. The sleuth on the LAM would like to know: Oversight or meaningful omission?
In the UK, on the other hand, the museum community in the form of the MDA seems to be taking the lead on a LAM project – from the press release (as posted on MCN-L, links added):
MDA, the UK’s lead organisation in the management of information about collections has been awarded a contract by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) to develop a Collections Description Manual for MICHAEL, a project which will create the first multilingual inventory of collections in museums, libraries and archives across Europe.
It’s nice to see museums front and center for once – all too often, they seem to play the role of a coveted partner, but not the leader, in the LAM arena.
