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US Library of Congress' Digital Collection Among World's Largest

 

Digitizing documents for placement on the Internet

美國國會圖書館:世界最大數位典藏資料庫之一


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US Library of Congress' Digital Collection Among World's Largest

美國國會圖書館:世界最大數位典藏資料庫之一

  By Zulima Palacio

  Washington

  09 October 2009

The U.S. Library of Congress is well known __(1)__ the world's largest library. That is, in the traditional, paper format. Now, the library is on the way to __(2)__ the largest digital collection in the world with more than 700 terabytes of data.

This is the new look of the U.S. Library of Congress: blinking lights, lots of cables and an ocean of digital information with more than 50 million individual files. This fancy tower is one of several Web servers that __(3)__ most of the information to the Internet.

Jane Mandelbaum manages information technology services at the library. "All the data on our website is here," she explains.

So far, the library has a total of 700 terabytes of data. But because of copyright __(4)__, only 200 of those are __(5)__on the Web.

"A terabyte is about 1,600 CDs or about 330 hours of TV or about 2,000 books and we have about 500 terabytes that we keep in our long term preservation systems," she adds.

At the Library of Congress, the numbers can be (6) mind-boggling. Experts estimate they have more than 120 million books, 36,000 feature films, hundreds of thousands of music sheets and recordings, and the large collections of manuscripts, Web sites, posters and photography. Yet only one percent of it has been digitized.

Thomas Youkel is the senior systems engineer. "We have a scan lab here that scans anywhere from four to six million items a year," he says, "I don't guarantee that all those are put on the web, but a lot of it is."

Most of the library's digital collection is for preservation reasons. But it is the one percent of the collection that has been digitized for the web that serves most of its customers: 85 million a year.

Digitizing the Library of Congress is a long and expensive process. This is one of 205 volumes from Abraham Lincoln's documents from the 1800s. The careful scanning of manuscripts makes this very slow work.

The collection of around 65 million manuscripts hold some of the most treasured documents at the library, from presidential papers to original poems. The chief of the manuscript division, James Hutson, says in the computer age, the creative process of manuscripts is getting lost.

"You won't have Shakespeare first draft or Beethoven's original sketch of the ninth symphony in the future probably, is all lost in the digital age," Hutson said.

More than five million maps are being digitized. Some in large sizes like this map of Africa painted on cloth at the turn of the last century. Atlas books like this one, hand painted in the early 1600s, require a different technology. Its anthropomorphic map of Belgium is beautiful but geographically incorrect.  

Colleen Cahill leads the digitizing team. She says people can freely use those materials on the Web. "You are looking at four acres of cartographic materials, they represent over five million maps, tens of thousands of atlases, hundreds of globes," she said.

Also, nearly one and a half million photos have been posted on the web.

One of the biggest challenges at the Library of Congress today is the rapid change of technology.

"If you think in terms of changing technologies you go from this to this. This holds approximately 100 times as much information as this one," Youkel said.

__(9)__ workers continue scanning and digitizing millions of items, they keep an eye on a migration plan, to move from (10) obsolete technology to new technology - a never ending process.

Choose the best answer

 

1. A) to be  B) for being  C) as being  D) as                                            ↑ back

2. A) hos  tB) hosting  C) to be hosted  D) becoming hosted

3. A) served  B) serve  C) serves  D) serving

4. A) policies  B) registration  C) limitation  D) issues

5. A) offered  B) connected  C) advertised  D) available

6. What does "mind-boggling" mean here?

    A)difficult to imagine     B)amazingly complicated

    C)hard to believe          D)requires efforts to calculate

7.What is NOT true about data digitalizing at US Library of Congress?

    A)This library digitalizing data for better conservation.

    B)Only a small amount of digitalized data meets the need of users.

    C)The process of digitalizing is very time-consuming.

    D)The priority of data being digitalized is based on its time.

8.What is the major problem we face in a digitalizing age?                    ↑ back

    A)Technology is changing too fast.

    B)The types of technology are too many.

    C)The original paper copy of data might be gone.

    D)There might be some legal problems.

9. A) While  B) When  C) Although  D) Given that

10. Which of the following can replace "obsolete"?

    A) traditional  B) out of time  C) unwanted  D) unpopular

 

 

Answer:
1. B 2. B 3. C 4. D 5. D 6. A 7. D 8. C 9. A 10. A

 

 

 
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