How to Preserve Change: Activist Archives & Video Preservation.
Collective memory
In this podcast, Jefferson Bailey of the New York Library Council and Joshua Ranger of Audiovisual Preservation Solutions discuss ways in which archivists can preserve documentation of activism. They interview Grace Lile and Yvonne Ng, both of whom are archivists at the international non-profit organization WITNESS, which focuses on using video as a medium for human rights documentation and advocacy. Lile and Ng describe the archive at WITNESS, emphasizing that in human rights work, the safety and security of people have to be prioritized over access, as creators’ and interviewees’ lives may be in danger. Thus, human rights archiving requires close collaboration with creators and producers, and the appraisal process must entail a variety of considerations regarding safety. Lile and Ng therefore see the archive not so much as a place to store information on the past, but, in the context of activism specifically, as part of the process of creation.
Metropolitan New York Library Council and AudioVisual Preservation Solutions
1-1-2013
Moeller ,Laura
Podcast
A Free Digital Library
Archives
In a lecture at e.g. 2007 librarian Brewster Kahle introduced his radical idea to create a free, open access digital library with the aim of “bring[ing] all of the works of knowledge to as many people as want to read it.” He uses the Amazon.com website as a model for how he would like to organize, and provide access to the multimedia library he proposes. Kahle notes that digitization is the greatest challenge, arguing that a 10 cent per scanned page cost is miniscule compared to the demand and need for information to be digitized. Brewster continues by explaining how they have begun to seek out, and store audio and video by reaching out to artists, and individuals who are interested in storing and sharing their work for free. He discusses two of his projects “The Internet Archive,” and the “Wayback Machine” which respectively archive the web, and store previous images of websites at various points in time.
Kahle, Brewster
2007
Foley, Christopher
Video
Everyone Around You Has a Story the World Needs To Hear
Archives
This TEDtalk outlines Dave Isay, the founder of StoryCorps, argument for the construction of a digital archive that aims to capture the voices, and stories of all of humanity. He argues that by the interview itself becoming the central focus of the work of StoryCorps, instead of focusing on a figure in history, the StoryCorps project aimed to create transformational experiences for participants while collecting and archiving the stories and conversations of others in the Library of Congress. StoryCorps has grown to include well over 100,000 participants, constituting the largest collection of human voices every created. In response to receiving the TED prize he was asked to come up with a brief wish for humanity: “that you will help us take everything we’ve learned through StoryCorps and bring it to the world, so that anyone, anywhere can easily record a meaningful interview with another human being which will then be archived for history.
Isay, Dave
2015-03-20
Foley, Christopher
Video
Challenges to born-digital institutional archiving: the case of a New York art museum.
Web archiving
This article focuses on the challenges institutions such as the New York Archive Museum (NYAM) face when dealing with born-digital institutional archives. The findings are presented through a case study of NYAM using three data sources: analysis of network file storage, focus groups with staff (81 individuals total), and an analysis of their digital records in archival storage. Through the case study they found that the greatest challenges for born-digital institutional archiving are social and cultural. Essentially the main challenge is inspiring individuals to transfer physical material into a digital archive so that it can be accessed long-term. The article then discusses how this transfer is hindered by many different variables, which can be addressed through infrastructure development and education. Finally it is claimed that in order to overcome the impending challenges the archivist must follow a "multi-pronged approach."
Cocciolo, Anthony
Records Management Journal
2014
Polk, Victoria
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Journal Article
Personal Digital Libraries: a Self-Archiving Approach
Archives
This article examines how Personal Digital Libraries (PDL) serve as a self-archiving approach that is based majorly on individuals' activities. The main questions that the text focuses on are, "What are the critical features of PDL?" and "Are there technologies that enable the implementation/incorporation of such capabilities in a lost cost software product?". The text conveys the design, methodology, and approach they used to answer the stated questions. It also discusses the capabilities that PDL should support and also provides a description of the experimentation including a prototype implemented to clarify their perception for the creation of PDL that supports PDL capabilities.
Karanikolas, Nikitas N.
Skourlas, Christos
Library Review
2014
Polk, Victoria
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Journal Article
How to Organize Old Digital Images
Pedagogy
This specific tutorial is just a single movie from chapter three of the Organizing and Archiving Digital Photos course presented by lynda.com author Derrick Story. The complete Organizing and Archiving Digital Photos course has a total duration of 2 hours and 28 minutes, and explores the concepts and techniques behind efficient photo management and backup
Story, Derek
Lynda.com
2011
Tripson, Charlotte
National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage.
Collective memory
"The National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH) is a diverse coalition of organizations created to assure leadership from the cultural community in the evolution of the digital environment." "NINCH pursues its mission by: educating policymakers, the cultural community and the public about the critical importance of translating the vision of a connected, distributed and accessible collection of cultural knowledge into a working reality;
creating a platform for the community to collaborate in sharing our ideas, resources, experience and research, learning from each other in order to advance the goal of an integrated, distributed body of cultural material accessible to all; and
providing a framework to develop and advance projects, programs and partnerships to benefit the cultural community.
NINCH
NINCH
2003
Webb, Kimberly
Copyright © 2003, NINCH
Website
Digital Archives: Management, Access and Use
Archives
This landmark edited collection offers a wide-ranging overview of how rapid technological changes and the push for providing wide access to digitized cultural heritage holdings are changing the landscape of archives. This book provides a set of inspirational and informative chapters from international experts, which will help the readers understand the drivers for change in archives and their implications. Reassessment of the role of archives in the digital environment will serve to develop critical approaches to current trends in the broader heritage sector, including cultural industries experimenting with sustainable business models for cultural production, digitization of analogue cultural heritage, and the related IPR issues surrounding the re-use of digital objects and data for research, education, advocacy and art. Contributors also present state-of-the-art solutions in building digital archives on networked infrastructure, trusted digital repositories to ensure long-term access, and tools to serve emerging needs in digital humanities. Readership: Digital archivists and practitioners involved in the design and support of digital archives; professionals and researchers involved in projects working with digital archival materials; students in library, information and archive studies.
Dobreva, Milena
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Archives-Management-Access-Use/dp/1856049345/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1396458404&sr=8-3&keywords=digital+archiving+in+2014+books">Amazon</a>
Facet Publishing
2015
Tripson, Charlotte
Facet Publishing
Book
ISBN: 9781856049344
A few too many? Some considerations on the digitisation of historical photographic archives
Archives
Baylis counters the idea that there are too many digitized historic photographs for public use by stating that there is too little information contextualizing these photographs. Using the Larcom Albums of 19th century Irish prison photographs housed in the New York Public Library’s photographic archive, Baylis reconstructs the original context of the photographs from each album, pointing out the differences in content, photographic style, technique, and description. She also recounts the history of the collection and the shift in meaning and context from when original owner, Larcom first organized and classified the prisoner photographs into an album to when albums transferred to a writer and eventually to the New York Public Library. Each album, while featuring prisoners from the same Irish prison within a similar time period, was unique in its categorization of criminal as opposed to political prisoners. However, because this information was recorded in a manuscript located elsewhere, the superficial visual similarities obscured the significant differences between the two albums. Since digitization of these photographs, they continue to be recreated in meaningful contexts far different from their origins. Genealogists interested in Irish ancestry are the predominant users of this collection, assembling individual photographs and records as an “assemblage” devoid of any “temporal anchoring.” Baylis notes that one of the results of digitization is the tendency to rely on photographs for surface meaning and visual reference, rather than recognize them as trace elements of a past, containing their own rich history and layers of meaning.
Baylis, Gail
MIT
2009-04-17
Polk, Victoria
Conference Proceeding
Between Archive and Participation: Public Memory in a Digital Age
Collective memory
Haskins examines the effects of the Internet on the memory work of archives and the informal, vernacular style of the broad public. Examples of the vernacular style of memory work include the spontaneous display of mementos at memorials or sites of mourning, and uploading personal stories and photographs to the Internet via social media. Traditionally, archival memory stores and orders material traces of the past without the presence or engagement by the public. However, the Internet continually archives the transmission of media and exponentially, the private opinions, ephemera, and idiosyncratic methods of organization of its contributors. The diversity of public opinion and the sharing of content afford both potentially beneficial and destructive consequences. Participation in memory work by a greater cross-section of society that is unaffected by more conservative, institutional restraints supports the values and beliefs of a democratic society. Conversely, that same diversity fosters insularity, given the widely fragmented content and the commercial profit gained by nurturing individualistic self-expression. Haskins proposes, through her examination of the 9-11 digital archive a balanced approach to centering memory work by cultural heritage institutions with guidelines for public participation and fostering a comprehensive view of history.
Haskins, Katerina
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
2007
Polk, Victoria
The Rhetoric Society of America
Journal Article