Chair: Lara Friedman Shedlow, YMCA Archives, University of Minnesota
Kevin Leonard, Northwestern University
Midwest Archives Conference YouTube Presentation. Very funny. Check the last post to view.
Your audience wants things digital. It is important to maintain communication between archives and patrons and Web 2.0 facilitates this.
Google is gatekeeper between collections and users. To keep archives going, keep Google fed. Users are users regardless of where they are.
Potentials of 2.0 extends web presence beyond static page, allowing communication, public relations, build audience, retain interest. We must keep up with technology, instant access to collections. Makes collections more accessible.
Power of search engines will draw users from our collections if we don't keep up with digitization.
Blogs are simple and offer low cost, easy way to communicate with users. Advertise items posted, so users will find them.
Wiki, materials collected through different users. Could be used in academic setting to study and collect materials on our web site.
Folksonomies: Flickr, Steve Project, these sites allow users to add tags increasing useability.
News aggregator/Feed Reader allows users to immediately have access to new information posted on your pages.
2.0 is about sharing, collaboration and third party recommendations.
Library and Archives content is typically hidden and hard to use. Web 2.0 gives us opportunity to make access to collections better.
Elizabeth Yakel, University of Michigan
Polar Bear Expedition and collections. Digitization began as a preservation measure, due to excessive use.
Big problem of converting to digital was how to redefine archival finding aids to make them more useful.
The project allows social navigation by using user profiles and allowing commenting. Have compiled statistics and user information including where the users come from geographically, how long they stay, what they look at and where they were referred from.
For textual records, seeing things online does not generally entice users into your building.
Their users tend to browse rather than search and users do not use the bookmark feature built into the site. Have adapted features from commercial sites. Comments have been most successful and include information sharing about soldier, family and corrections to information. They update finding aids when they get documented corrections. They have even gotten donations through the site.
Considerations:
Critical Mass created in large part by recency
Need for a Personal connection, commenting is most successful feature
Changed from reconceptualizing finding aids to reconceptualizing large collections.
Her delicious site tracks other archives Web 2.0 initiatives.
Kevin Schlesier, North Carolina State University
Talks about using physical exhibitions to draw non-traditional users, by using community curation.
Archives use physical exhibits to show archival materials. Archives increasingly curating collections and interpreting them or presenting themes.
Benefits include showcasing value, research potential and build support and collections. Attracts new patrons and support. In exhibition the curator speaks for the object or document, but not usually first person.
Institution must define community, present goals, expectations, listen to community for input, let community be advisers and assign tasks, facilitate their research. Use wiki or blog for them to dump content, research findings and ideas. That background info can become part of exhibit, preferably after the exhibit is in place. Use actual quotes for labels. Let community label. Add photos and artifacts for visuality.
How can visitors add comments to physical exhibits? Bulletin board, sticky notes, white board, etc.
Make sure exhibition reflects role of institution, stays on target, but mediate multiple viewpoints. Don't be too narrow and don't forget other views.
Showing posts with label MAC 2008. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MAC 2008. Show all posts
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
MAC 2008 Cleaning Cobwebs: Studies in Archiving Web-Based Records
Presenters:
Rosemary Pleva Flynn, Energy and Environmental Research Center, University of North Dakota
Philip C. Bantin, Indiana University Bloomington
Mark J. Myers, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives
Internet Archiving Tools include:
Archive-It
Web-at-Risk: Collaboration between LOC, California Digital Library, New York University and University of North Carolina
Echo Depository Project (WAW): Collaboration between UIUC and LOC
Web Curator Toolset (WCT): Collaboration between Library of New Zealand and the British Library
Some tools let you select specific content, others select domains or directories. You can set quotas and block hosts or domains. The best strategy is to identify series that have long term value and harvest those. Bulk harvest is too large and costly, item by item too slow.
The way your institution uses your website will determine how often and what to capture. Static pages can be captured less frequently. Most crawlers can be set to capture on a specific schedule.
Generally good to capture one link off the domain name, but this can get costly in terms of size and sites can be blocked if too large.
Items that aren't captured include:
The tool must be able to restrict access to copyrighted information. Again Archive-It doesn't do this well, WCT and WAS have better authorization tools.
The search engine must be able to search metadata and full text to be effective.
For preservation purposes the final format must be non-proprietary. The Web Archive file format (WARC) has been proposed as a standard to combine multiple digital resources into an aggregate archival file with metadata. Wayback Machine uses this type of file format.
Whatever service used must be able to migrate information preserved.
Institutions have the option to build a service using existing tool sets or to join a service. Build your own is harder and takes more resources in terms of expertise and server space, but is more flexible to fit your needs.
Mark Myers of KDLA uses pdf as primary file format. Other formats are reformatted to pdf. Pages are captured based on the state retention schedule.
Harvesters available are:
Other problems arising include boundaries of the harvested site, functionality loss because of loss of structure and content management systems.
Rosemary and Mark are co-chairs of the ARMA Task Force on Website Management which will be developing guidelines and best practices for identifying and archiving websites.
The question remains "Are websites records?" and "to what extent?" In my experience there are a lot of records on websites that are permanent, but most of these are also printed. This will continue to change as we see more and more documents born digital and never in print. And even if they are in print the electronic version is much more versatile due to searchability.
Rosemary Pleva Flynn, Energy and Environmental Research Center, University of North Dakota
Philip C. Bantin, Indiana University Bloomington
Mark J. Myers, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives
Internet Archiving Tools include:
Archive-It
Web-at-Risk: Collaboration between LOC, California Digital Library, New York University and University of North Carolina
Echo Depository Project (WAW): Collaboration between UIUC and LOC
Web Curator Toolset (WCT): Collaboration between Library of New Zealand and the British Library
Some tools let you select specific content, others select domains or directories. You can set quotas and block hosts or domains. The best strategy is to identify series that have long term value and harvest those. Bulk harvest is too large and costly, item by item too slow.
The way your institution uses your website will determine how often and what to capture. Static pages can be captured less frequently. Most crawlers can be set to capture on a specific schedule.
Generally good to capture one link off the domain name, but this can get costly in terms of size and sites can be blocked if too large.
Items that aren't captured include:
- Java Script
- Streaming Video
- Dynamic Database
- Protected sites
- Form driven sites
The tool must be able to restrict access to copyrighted information. Again Archive-It doesn't do this well, WCT and WAS have better authorization tools.
The search engine must be able to search metadata and full text to be effective.
For preservation purposes the final format must be non-proprietary. The Web Archive file format (WARC) has been proposed as a standard to combine multiple digital resources into an aggregate archival file with metadata. Wayback Machine uses this type of file format.
Whatever service used must be able to migrate information preserved.
Institutions have the option to build a service using existing tool sets or to join a service. Build your own is harder and takes more resources in terms of expertise and server space, but is more flexible to fit your needs.
Mark Myers of KDLA uses pdf as primary file format. Other formats are reformatted to pdf. Pages are captured based on the state retention schedule.
Harvesters available are:
- Wayback Machine
- Grab-a-Site
Other problems arising include boundaries of the harvested site, functionality loss because of loss of structure and content management systems.
Rosemary and Mark are co-chairs of the ARMA Task Force on Website Management which will be developing guidelines and best practices for identifying and archiving websites.
The question remains "Are websites records?" and "to what extent?" In my experience there are a lot of records on websites that are permanent, but most of these are also printed. This will continue to change as we see more and more documents born digital and never in print. And even if they are in print the electronic version is much more versatile due to searchability.
MAC 2008 More Than One way to Meet the Challenge
Systematic Approaches to the Capture and Preservation of Complex Digital Artifacts
Steve Burbeck, Rockefeller Archive Center, Collaborative Electronic Records Project (CERP)
Glen McAninch for Kelly Eubank, NC State Archives, Electronic Mail Capture and Preservation Tool (EMCAP)
Mike Smorul, University of Maryland, Archival Prototypes and Lessons Learned
All three panelists were involved in developing tools for archiving email and websites. Often dynamic and a challenge to capture and migrate because of attachments, forwards and replies. Web 2.0 will pose even more challenges.
OAIS Open Archival Information System Reference Model:
The system must also be able to handle a variety of formats partly because there are no email standards and many systems. Also attachments. Security of email in regard to viruses and the volume of email also a challenge.
It was interesting that all three projects came up with applications that worked differently at the archives end, but all started with an XML schema to prepare email for storage.
EMCAP's end result was an hmailserver. Users drag email identified as permanent records to an archive folder on their list. These emails can be accessed, but cannot be deleted or modified after archiving.
Steve Burbeck, Rockefeller Archive Center, Collaborative Electronic Records Project (CERP)
Glen McAninch for Kelly Eubank, NC State Archives, Electronic Mail Capture and Preservation Tool (EMCAP)
Mike Smorul, University of Maryland, Archival Prototypes and Lessons Learned
All three panelists were involved in developing tools for archiving email and websites. Often dynamic and a challenge to capture and migrate because of attachments, forwards and replies. Web 2.0 will pose even more challenges.
OAIS Open Archival Information System Reference Model:
- Submission to archives
- Packaged for archiving
- Packaged for dissemination
The system must also be able to handle a variety of formats partly because there are no email standards and many systems. Also attachments. Security of email in regard to viruses and the volume of email also a challenge.
It was interesting that all three projects came up with applications that worked differently at the archives end, but all started with an XML schema to prepare email for storage.
EMCAP's end result was an hmailserver. Users drag email identified as permanent records to an archive folder on their list. These emails can be accessed, but cannot be deleted or modified after archiving.
MAC 2008 The Useful Ten Words of the Ten Thousand: Describing Photographs in Words
Cynthia R. Miller, Curator of Photography and Prints, The Henry Ford
This session was very basic information. The most interesting thing was the contrast between the MPLP talk the day before and the very time consuming process of researching and identifying individual photographs today. Somewhere there has to be a balance between describing collections enough to provide good access and agonizing over descriptions for every image in out collections.
Main Topic should include details: Who, What, Where, When and Why?
Subject terms will depend on the needs of researchers and the mission and resources of your repository.
She recommended using a controlled vocabulary for consistent search terms. The Library of Congress has subject headings for prints and photographs. The Getty also has an online thesaurus which is better for objects.
The most important thing to keep in mind is what terms the researcher will be searching for. This is the reason that I'm not sure controlled vocabularies are the best method for cataloging. The search term one person might use could be completely different than the search term another researcher might use.
This session was very basic information. The most interesting thing was the contrast between the MPLP talk the day before and the very time consuming process of researching and identifying individual photographs today. Somewhere there has to be a balance between describing collections enough to provide good access and agonizing over descriptions for every image in out collections.
Main Topic should include details: Who, What, Where, When and Why?
Subject terms will depend on the needs of researchers and the mission and resources of your repository.
She recommended using a controlled vocabulary for consistent search terms. The Library of Congress has subject headings for prints and photographs. The Getty also has an online thesaurus which is better for objects.
The most important thing to keep in mind is what terms the researcher will be searching for. This is the reason that I'm not sure controlled vocabularies are the best method for cataloging. The search term one person might use could be completely different than the search term another researcher might use.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
MAC 2008 Electronic Document Discovery
These are my notes from the above session at the Midwest Archives Conference in Louisville, KY this week. Most of it is a repetition of the same things I've heard before, but still important.
Robert Webb - attorney perspective
Paul Engel - vendor perspective
Jim Cundy - records manager perspective
Webb
Electronic records are most important and hardest to manage, especially email because of the number of copies on different networks and servers.
The institution holding records does have the right to push back against requests that would cause undue burden or cost.
Every records manager should sit down with IT and legal departments to see if the mechanisms are in place to freeze routine destruction of electronic records in the event of litigation. The freezing of destruction can be narrowed down by scope and time period.
ESI is Electronically Stored Information
It is helpful to work with IT and prepare a data map tracking the flow of data in, out and through the system.
In the event of a request for records you should keep a record of the efforts made to locate requested records.
Cundy
ESI is addressed early in the legal process and included any record in any location. ESI includes: email and attachments, documents, audio (voice mail), video (teleconferences, webcam), photos from any source, databases, web pages, chat, IM, text messaging, and any other new format that may come up.
It isn't enough to have a retention schedule. Implement it and check up on offices to make sure they are following procedures.
File management is more important for electronic records than for paper, because it is so easy to make duplicates.
Communicate with IT and legal and educate management about value of records management. Work with people outside records management to gain an understanding of other aspects of electronic records.
Engel
Media does not determine importance of record.
The average ediscovery event costs $1.5M and usually targets email.
Be aware of compression issues, compressed files greatly increase cost of discovery.
petrification - changing the electronic document to an unalterable image
Key issues are:
spoliation - changing metadata by improper handling
significant resources
Must know outcome of litigation support software before use to protect metadata
Robert Webb - attorney perspective
Paul Engel - vendor perspective
Jim Cundy - records manager perspective
Webb
Electronic records are most important and hardest to manage, especially email because of the number of copies on different networks and servers.
The institution holding records does have the right to push back against requests that would cause undue burden or cost.
Every records manager should sit down with IT and legal departments to see if the mechanisms are in place to freeze routine destruction of electronic records in the event of litigation. The freezing of destruction can be narrowed down by scope and time period.
ESI is Electronically Stored Information
It is helpful to work with IT and prepare a data map tracking the flow of data in, out and through the system.
In the event of a request for records you should keep a record of the efforts made to locate requested records.
Cundy
ESI is addressed early in the legal process and included any record in any location. ESI includes: email and attachments, documents, audio (voice mail), video (teleconferences, webcam), photos from any source, databases, web pages, chat, IM, text messaging, and any other new format that may come up.
It isn't enough to have a retention schedule. Implement it and check up on offices to make sure they are following procedures.
File management is more important for electronic records than for paper, because it is so easy to make duplicates.
Communicate with IT and legal and educate management about value of records management. Work with people outside records management to gain an understanding of other aspects of electronic records.
Engel
Media does not determine importance of record.
The average ediscovery event costs $1.5M and usually targets email.
Be aware of compression issues, compressed files greatly increase cost of discovery.
petrification - changing the electronic document to an unalterable image
Key issues are:
spoliation - changing metadata by improper handling
significant resources
Must know outcome of litigation support software before use to protect metadata
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