The Great Disappearing Act: TRAIL & Open Access Preservation

The Technical Report and Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) is, in the most simplistic terms, an organization that digitizes Federal technical reports. But, in doing so it helps to preserve and make open content that is disappearing due to age and format and materials that could disappear with little warning. This presentation will present two approaches TRAIL utilizes to preserve equitable access.

The first story will walk through the mission and organizational structure of TRAIL and the vital role it is playing in efforts to ensure consistent and equitable access to federal scientific research in the face of political uncertainty. The second will examine a specific TRAIL project, the digitization of Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) microcards. The microcard was a short-lived format, but heavily utilized by the AEC for publication distribution. TRAIL is actively identifying, digitizing, and cataloging these microcards, making their content widely available. As libraries dispose of both microcard collections and readers these digitization efforts will ensure preservation and access to this disappearing content.