The Quantum Archivist

In a recent post, I mentioned my project to document the history of cultural heritage digitization. At the time I was still trying to figure out how to define a “Digital Pioneer.” I’ve come up with a working definition that should limit the project to something achievable while limiting scope creep, yet at the same time yield the breadth of experience that can truly illuminate the time period.

While I believe I knew many of the people I’d list in this category, I wouldn’t put myself in that group. I see myself as a digital pioneer 1.5: not there at the beginning, but went along for the ride with people who were. So are YOU a digital pioneer?

Selection Criteria for Digital Pioneers:

• Active in Cultural Heritage digitization practice, theory or tools development, or funding priority setting between 1994 and 2005.
• Published more than one article in a peer reviewed publication.
• Presented at multiple conferences (three or more) dedicated to cultural heritage digitization  (e.g. Web Wise, JCDL, Open Repositories, CNI, DLF Forum, DRH)

AND

• Received more than one grant from a national funder (public or private) during the period
• Served on more than one review board of funding agencies such as NEH, IMLS, NSF, etc.
• Had a national impact and generated results—new tools, research, models, services, practices, or alliances in cultural heritage digitization–that had strategic impact, showed innovation, or fostered collaboration in at least one of the following areas:
  • Digital Collection Building: the creation, use, presentation, and preservation of significant digital resources
  • Research: the investigation of ways to improve the creation, use, and presentation of digital resources, both in pure and applied research.
  • Demonstration: test new models and practices.

OR

• Was a principal or senior program officer for a funding agency (e.g. IMLS, NSF, Mellon) or support organization (e.g. DLF, CNI, CLIR)  that supported digitization development.

A colleague of mine in the Art Gallery and I have been working on a project to bring to light about 15,000 images taken by the Soviet news photographer Semyon Fridlyand, who was active in middle part of the 20th century. The task of cataloging these images in the traditional way, that is by professionals, was of course very expensive. Since the collection has tremendous breadth, spanning multiple decades and subjects as diverse as war documentary photography, architecture, farming and agricultural technology, and ethnic dress and customs, it seemed impossible that we could assemble the cataloging expertise to do the collection justice. Faced with the choice of digitizing the photos or cataloging the photos, we chose to digitize them with only minimal metadata–not even a title in most cases, just an identification number.

The images are now available in a discovery system

Collection Discovery Tool

that was developed by a couple of first-rate programmers in the DU Library Systems office. The next step is to develop what we are calling a distributed metadata creation system that will make it possible to open cataloging up to nonprofessional volunteer experts. Inspired by the  success of the Steve project, we thought that it was possible to create valuable and valid metadata for our photographs from volunteers. However, we want to take the idea one step beyond simple tagging and develop a system that will create structured metadata–that is metadata that is relevant to particular concepts and “fields” such as “personal name,”  or “geographic location.” This way we can use the metadata to populate faceted search and discovery tools.

We are hoping to make contact with people in the former Soviet Union who were the subjects of these photos and engage them in the process of identifying them. In some cases, these photos are the only surviving visual record of this era for these people and places. Suggested metadata will be reviewed by a “panel of experts” who will work within the application to vet and approve metadata and add it to the “official” metadata for the object.

More postings on this exciting project to come.