The Crowd and the Library: The Agony and the Ecstasy of "Crowdsourcing" our Cultural Heritage
Author and archivist, Trevor Owens, discusses a wide range of issues relating to digital archives and preservation. In this blog, he describes crowdsourcing and offers a rationale for soliciting "citizen archivists" to contribute content to large digital cultural heritage collections. He develops four concepts for assessing the types of crowdsourcing needed: human computation, wisdom of crowds, software tools for scaffolding amateur contributions, and tapping into the public's motivation for contributing to the archive. He expounds on each concept and provides key questions digital archivists may pose before potential crowdsourcers. Several examples of successful crowdsourced digitial collections and links for further reading are included in the blog. Owens is also suspicious of corporate sponsored crowdsourcing projects, such as Google's "Image Labeler," or Amazon's "Mechanical Turk." The amount of labor invested in completing the digital tasks for these sites may be exploitative, yet Owens also acknowledges that these types of interaction provide models for implementing crowdsourcing for more humane projects. His list of four concepts accompanied by key questions establishes a criteria for successful crowdsourcing and prevents the project from devolving into a "digital sweatshop."
The Curator's Handbook: Museums, Commercial Galleries, Independent Spaces
This is the essential handbook for curators and students interested in curation. This book covers all areas of curation from mapping out all the stages of the exhibition-making process to the installation. The history of curation is discussed as well, dating back to the 17th century. The roles of a curator are discussed in the subjects of custodian, interpreter, educator, facilitator and organizer. Other points of interest focus on loan requests, budgets, schedules, exhibition catalogs and interpretation materials. If the advice and instruction from one decorated curator is not enough, there are numerous tips and words of advice from multiple international known museum curators. Adrian George provides us with some of the best insight from around the globe on the study and work of curators. George being the director and senior curator at the UK Government Art Collection in London gives him the standpoint of an experienced curator ready to provide his knowledge to others seeking it. Through the twelve chapters in this book, all forms of curation and its processes are covered in great detail. There are no other books on this subject that reach for such a detailed description of the position.
ISBN: 0500239282, 9780500239285 Kindle ebook: https://www.amazon.com/Curators-Handbook-Commercial-Galleries-Independent-ebook/dp/B00QVGUIJ0
The D.A.M. Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers, 2nd Ed.
Since its first-edition printing in 2003, The DAM Book has become one of the standard references for photographers trying to build and protect their digital archives. In this revised edition, Krogh takes a holistic approach, outlining what he refers to as the “Digital photography ecosystem.” After explaining the theoretical aspects of developing a sound digital asset management plan, Krogh tackles the practical issues of non-destructive image editing, understanding and using metadata, the benefits of controlled vocabularies, consistent file naming, choosing the right hardware and software platforms, analyzing cataloging strategies, and finally devising a comprehensive back-up system. This “ecosystem” also addresses best practices in regard to the challenge of data migration and staying technologically current. The challenge, Krogh argues, is that with rapid changes in technology and the short lifecycle of media, the photographer must develop a system that will allow for longevity and expansion. The techniques in this book provide a system that is flexible, scalable over time, and adaptable to new technology when properly adhered to.
The Digital Archive as a Tool for Close Reading in the Undergraduate Literature Course.
Close readings of literary texts afford the student opportunities for isolating and analyzing elements of text, thereby revealing cultural and stylistic influences of author, printer, and society. Digitization of print facilitates close reading by providing the student access to extensive collections throughout different eras and cultures. Upon careful reading, comparison, and reflection, students perceive the significance of changes in the structure, overall form, and style of the text. Joanne Diaz, author and professor of English, discusses the benefits of using the Early English Books Online archive with undergraduate students. By sharing her students’ close readings and subsequent discoveries into textuality and effects of, say punctuation, on the meaning and purpose of a text, Diaz also provides a pedagogical function of the digital archive.
Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to to Teaching Literature Language Composition and Culture
The Digital Archives: A Vision for the Future
The New York Philharmonic has performed 15,000 concerts since it started in 1842, more than any other group in the world. Because of this they have a vast collection of historical items, including music, rosters, newspaper clippings, and every single program. The New York Philharmonic has reflected the cultural and political events throughout their history. Their music can also be traced through the advent of historically new mediums. Music lovers from around the world have frequented their physical archives. Therefore, they feel that it is necessary to digitize their archives. They will spend the next three (now about two) years digitizing thousands of archives so that they can be accessed by anyone at any time. In this way, student conductors can study videos of the best conductors, as well as see their notes on the music itself at the same time. The archive allows one to see priceless information in one place and to listen while viewing the music, program, or roster. In the next ten years, they plan to make 8 million documents and 7,000 audio recordings available online. In this way, they hope to share a “collective memory.”
The Digital Dilemma: Strategic Issues In Archiving And Accessing Digital Motion Picture Materials
“The Digital Dilemma: Strategic Issues in Archiving and Accessing Digital Motion Picture Materials” by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is a work of text consisting of 84 pages. It was published in the year 2007 as an open source English text. This item is different from the previous ones we have added to the digital archive because it analyzes the issues and discrepancies that come with preserving digital motion picture archiving. The text goes into great detail on what portions changed step by step and how they are changed when going through the process of archiving this form of media. This is a valuable item to add into the archive because it focuses on the archiving film which is an entirely different process than archiving other forms of media. When it comes to archiving this type of media, there are a lot of extra portions that need extra assurance that they are done correctly because if done incorrectly different aspects of the media can be corrupted and damaged. For example, the media can be transferred correctly through video, but the audio can be damaged.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Clara Pulido, Jacquelyn Curtin, Truc Duong
The digital folklore of cyberculture and digital humanities
The book centers around how people developed folklore in the digital stage. Here, the authors explore how communication and media developed folklore and how it transitioned to digital media. Humans developed a cyberculture, a new type of folklore, which the authors define as cyberculture. The book describes what cyberculture and digital folklore are and focuses on this particular phenomenon's growth through time. The book also offers different opportunities to study folklore research, online folk groups, and opportunities for digital internet material. It also covers e-learning, online communities, costumes, and fashion archives.
Kapaniaris, Alexandros. Papadakis, Stamatios.
The Digital Humanities and Humanities Computing: An Introduction
The editors of A Companion to Digital Humanities provide a historical and disciplinary context to computing in the humanities. This article gives an overview of the theory and techniques that digital humanities apply to the study of texts and other objects of creative expression. The authors also identify two key issues in the digital humanities: preservation of cultural heritage, and developing tools that will enhance data analysis and improve our understanding of texts, past and present.
ISBN-13: 978-1405168069
On his radio show, Kojo Knamdi interviews three people involved in the Digital Public Library of America, a project that focuses on digitizing information from libraries, museums, and archives from around the nation and making them available online. They discuss the mission of the Library as well as the technical aspects of getting institutions to work together, working with copyright law, and the actual digitizing of the millions of artifacts involved. Issues discussed include deciding what to include in digitization efforts, whether to digitize full artifacts or just metadata for reference, how to enrich digitized artifacts with additional data, and how to balance the needs of copyright holders with the mission to make the Library freely available to the public. They also discuss the inspiration of the Google Books project and issues such as access by people with disabilities, public expectations for availability of digital content, quality control, and forward migration of digital information for safekeeping.
The Ethics of Internet Research: A Rhetorical, Case-Based Process (Digital Formations)
Utilizing interviews conducted with internet researchers across the world on their various topics of study and disciplines in a variety of online venues, this book brings up and questions ethical issues that internet researches could encounter throughout their research process. Though the book acknowledges that these internet research ethics are nothing if not complex, the purpose given to this book is to provide a rhetorical, case-based process to assist researches in ethical decision-making. By giving this assistance, the book lends itself to internet researchers' search of useful resources and heuristics for participating in ethical practices, interactions and problem solving within their particular research scope.