Raising the Floor

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Quantum Archivist

Yesterday I was again fortunate to participate in an event here at UConn called “Digital Media/Innovative Collaborations” a symposium organized by Tim Hunter of UConn’s Digital Media and Design program. The symposium  brought together folks from across campus who have an interest or experience in working with digital media and was organized according to Tim’s idea of the digital media “table” being supported by four “legs” of Business, Creative Arts, STEM, and Digital Humanities/Social Science.

Two excellent keynotes by Gael McGill of Harvard Medical School, and Tom Scheinfeldt of the CHNM kicked off the day and after a networking lunch, we went to breakout sessions in each topic area with an admonition for people to try to visit an area with which they were not familiar.

I was invited to speak as part of the Digital Humanities breakout session, and I chose to speak broadly about the role of digital repositories in the context of not only the Humanities, but all digital media and design. Taking Tim Hunter’s analogy a step farther, I see digital repositories as the “floor” upon which the legs of the digital media table sits.

It is repositories that supply the digital content for visualizing and are the places for created content to live and be repurposed in the future. And so without repositories the table, while it would still have legs to stand on, would not have a floor for those legs to rest on, and the structure would collapse.

The audience was filled with mostly Digital Humanities practitioners, a core group of potential users and contributors that we wanted to reach. There were some people who were hearing  one of my talks for the first time and who understood my message and a few were interested in pursuing a collaboration of some type or another. So, all in all it was a worthwhile  day and was great exposure for the repository program.

 

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Seven Pillars of Digital Curation

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Quantum Archivist

I’ve been splitting time between blogging for the Connecticut Digital Archive and my own thoughts on the digital record. In this post on the CTDA blog, I attempt to explain digital preservation in 500 words or less. I managed it in 526!  I think it deserves mention in both places.

http://blogs.lib.uconn.edu/ctda/?p=93

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CTDA

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Quantum Archivist

CTDA-Main-Color-220

For the past several months I’ve been working with some very dedicated people both at UConn and elsewhere in Connecticut on a project that we are calling the Connecticut Digital Archive or CTDA.  The CTDA is an extension of one of the original digital aggregation projects: Connecticut History Online (CHO).

For years UConn has been managing the technical infrastructure of CHO. As UConn began to look at the next logical step in its development of digital content management, it seemed only natural that we would continue to collaborate with others in Connecticut to build, not only a shared aggregator of digital content, but to offer digital preservation services as well to libraries, museums, historical societies in Connecticut.

CHO made it possible for lots of people to make their content available to a larger audience, now the CTDA will make it possible to preserve the digital cultural heritage of Connecticut for future generations.

Follow our progress at:

http://blog.ctdigitalarchive.org

 

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Some Good Reading about Searching and Discovery

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Quantum Archivist

I’m always an advocate for getting out of our own bubble to see how other people doing the same thing as we do–but in different contexts–think about things.

This is not quite out of the bubble, but nevertheless worth the read.  Peter Wilkerson is an archivist by training and a technologist by profession. He is the Lead Architect for Search at Devalen, LLC in Asheville NC (here is his linked-in profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/peterwilkerson). I’ve known Peter for more than 15 years. We worked together on an early mapping interface to directory data when I was at Tufts. More recently we have been talking about search interfaces for our Fedora repository project here at UConn.

In his recent blog post about search interfaces Peter touches on a number of issues facing archivists trying to connect users with digital or digitized content that is not necessarily well described in the traditional sense.   I think the entire blog is an interesting perspective on how to think about connecting users to information and, since it is written by an archivist, forms a sort of bridge between two worlds that are not really different in essence.

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Forum Forum

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Quantum Archivist

Yesterday, I had the pleasure and privilege to attend the Connecticut Forum on Digital Initiatives. The second installment of what I hope will be an annual event brought together more than 100 people interested in digital preservation and presentation from across the state and even beyond. We were treated to an engaging and challenging opening keynote from Trevor Owens from the Library of Congress. My big takeaway from that talk was the idea that we should not “confuse tools with content.”

In an era where we want to use, reuse, and manipulate our digital content the display or presentation means change quickly. It is the content (or what I might call the “data”) that we want to preserve. We can also preserve the story that is told with the data through the presentation platform, but that is a completely different activity, and separate from the tools.

Trevor was followed by a number of breakout presentations on a host of topics. You can look at the Google doc to see the schedule and links to presentations and examples.

I  had two chances to speak at the Forum. One was to introduce our latest project, the Connecticut Digital Archive (more on that later) a state-wide collaborative preservation repository for cultural heritage organizations based in Connecticut. You can see the slides below:

My second chance to talk came at the end of the day when an interested and perhaps somewhat information overloaded group convened for the closing plenary.

My point in the closing was to encourage people to join the digital archive effort, and to think about the current challenges facing archivists in the digital age.

Anyone who has read this blog in the past will know what comes next. I wanted to convey my idea that the current challenges we face are part of a long evolution of record keeping that goes back as far as clay tablets and will extend far beyond our lifetimes. To meet today’s challenges, I said that we should respect the traditions of our profession and embrace the potential of our technology.

You can read the text of my remarks and see the slides:

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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Quantum Archivist

No, not the Roman Forum, but the Connecticut Forum on Digital Initiatives  (http://ctdigital.drupalgardens.com/),

The Connecticut Forum on Digital Initiatives, October 22, 2012 in Hartford

the second installment of a program sponsored by the Connecticut State Library and begun in 2011. Paraphrasing from their website:  The Forum brings together people from libraries, archives, museums, and cultural heritage institutions from around Connecticut and beyond to talk about the digital initiatives  and how collaboration can enhance a project and create communities from across the cultural heritage spectrum. The Forum is a chance for the diverse voices within the cultural heritage sector to talk about ideas, projects and tools with which they are engaged.

And it is true. I attended last year, just after I moved to UConn, and was happily surprised by the spirit of collaboration I found at the Forum. Lots of places and groups talk about collaboration, but in Connecticut it appears to be a reality.

This year, I am honored to be on the program, talking about the importance of digital preservation and how a collaborative approach to digital preservation can make it possible to preserve the cultural record of both large and small organizations.  I’m sharing the podium with folks from Connecticut (Yale, UConn, CT State Library) and beyond (Library of Congress, George Mason Univ., NYPL Labs) who are sharing their stories, plans and dreams about the digital present and future

If you can make it to Hartford on October 22, it will be worth the trip. Registration is free. So come and join the conversation!

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On the GOOD Side

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Quantum Archivist

Lots of archivists out there  are partnering with technologists-and becoming technologists themselves. Just look at a few of the poster sessions that were in the exhibit hall at yesterday’s reception at SAA. (And for those of you who are not in San Diego I hope SAA will provide a list of URLs for the presenters) and you will see that there are a lot of interesting and innovative things happening in the profession.

I wonder how we can better support and inspire those who, like so many archivists out there, don’t have access to the resources–or don’t think they do–that will enable them to engage in the interactive/social/participatory aspect of Archives. In an attempt to move the profession forward and keep it relevant, we cannot leave behind those who do not have the access to resources that more fortunate organizations have.

The digital divide will always be with us. It will always be the responsbilitiy of the better resourced organizations to help and support the profession as a whole. And this has been a hallmark of the archives profession  for as long as I have been a part of it.

 

BUT, and this is also a key point, it works both ways. No matter how small your organization–from lone arranger to part time volunteers–you CAN participate in the larger world by creating partnerships with those who are connected and take advantage of those partnerships to fully participate in the profession and make the most of what you have.

 

As Jon Voss said, “it is all about building a better time machine” and we are the only ones who can do it.

 

 

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Jon Voss Electrifies Crowd- Archivists Return to Knitting

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Quantum Archivist

I have a love/hate relationship with my profession. There are many times when I believe that archivists not only hold the key to preserving our cultural heritage but that they will actually use that key in imaginative and innovative ways.

Today is not one of those days. Jon Voss of Historypin gave a stirring and inspiring-I thought- keynote about LODLAM (linked open data in libraries and museums) that encouraged archivists to connect their data to the larger world through technology. Using still images, maps, audio, and moving image examples, he showed how cultural heritage material could be used re-used and recontextualized by the general public and enthusiasts.

The woman two seats down from me barely looked up from her knitting.

COME ON PEOPLE!  I know we can be better than this, but I don’t usually see it at the SAA annual meeting where I am for the next couple of days. I have to go to digital library conferences to see archivists really engaged in the digital age.  How can we inspire the larger profession to become engaged in things that are vital to our survival as a profession?

I’ll need to think about this…

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Out of the Bubble

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Quantum Archivist

Sometimes there is a positive value in being a “trophy spouse,” in the same industry, as your partner. Jessica was invited to be a presenter this week at the NDIIP/NDSA Digital Preservation conference in Washington, DC. I knew about NDIIP (the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program) but I was not familiar with NDSA, the National Digital Stewardship Alliance. The NDSA is a volunteer membership organization whose mission is “to establish, maintain, and advance the capacity to preserve our nation’s digital resources for the benefit of present and future generations.”  Since she was going, I thought I’d go along for the ride.
The volunteers participate in working groups serving the public good, and the annual meeting is a chance for everyone to get together and talk about digital stewardship. This group is different from but overlaps with the digital librarians, and seems to be a far cry from the traditional librarians, but, as I was pleased to find out,  not that far from the archivists. It has been a few days of big thoughts and ideas, as well as making connections with people trying to solve practical problems.  The biggest takeaway so far has been that it is essential to think about how our individual efforts connect with the larger world, and that cross-disciplinary collaboration is essential for success in preserving and making available our digital heritage.
So, let’s all remember to get out of our individual bubbles when we have the opportunity and connect with people doing similar things in different areas.

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Copyright and Risk

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Quantum Archivist

It is hard to believe that it has been almost a month since Digital Directions. (I guess being involved in two NEH grant applications and some strategic planning activities can just consume time otherwise spent thinking about archives and digital libraries). My two biggest takeaways from DD2012 were about copyright and delivery. I’ve heard Peter Hirtle give his copyright talk a number of times over the years and was struck this time by how the landscape around copyright and digital libraries has shifted over the years, much to the benefit of open access to information.

Peter summed up the shift in a couple of bullet points:

  • Don’t just ask “Is it legal”?
  • Ask “Who is going to be angry if I do this? Who will benefit?”
  • Look for ways to minimize potential harm while maximizing access and use.

Citing  the recently published ARL Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries, Principle 4 that supports the idea of fair use in archival collections that are comprehensively digitized, Peter emphasized the idea of risk assessment in addition to, and perhaps before, legal precedent in determining whether or not to provide digital access to primary source materials.

And finally, he said that it was important to be honest and open about your own decisions, to inform users about all you know about the rights that relate to your content so that they can be responsible as well.

This seems to me to bring us back to the common sense approach that was prevalent in the pre-digital but post-photocopier age, when we informed people of the potential of copyright issues relating to the material we were making available but trusted the users to be responsible researchers.

After some years of worrying that the specter of copyright would choke off most of the innovation in delivering digitized Special Collections, I see these developments as a positive step forward.

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