And back once more

After a few weeks of assignments and finals for my other classes, I finally have reached a point of breathing room where I can once again consider the work that needs to be finished for this course.  This post is mainly going to be for my own benefit to consider what else I need to do to complete the items I need to finally submit.

The first one that is taking priority is working on the exhibit page for the person I have selected.  In light of our discussions that we’ve had regarding copyright and privacy, I’ve decided to return to the original collection of files that we got from VOICES and pull out some additional items to replace the newspaper articles and personal letter I have in the exhibit currently.  Then I need to format the exhibit to match what we decided would be the final presentation in our last class.  I’ve decided that this will also include detailing the exhibition creation on the wiki as well.  Nancy has provided me with the code we need to add the image for the NYT Portraits of Grief, in order to properly attribute the source.

The next thing I want to do is review the “In Memoriam” pages I have already done, particularly the earliest ones to make sure that I am maintaining the standards we’ve decided as well as adjust the few fields that we have made changes to.  Then I will continue entering the Bs. I believe I probably have around 30 more to do to hit the goal of 100, but I’ll see where I am in the list.  Since I have the additional time now, it shouldn’t be difficult to continue and hopefully finish off this letter at least.

As for the third part of the submission, I believe we’re using the collection of memorials we’ve added. I’m intending to review the information I’ve entered there to make sure it’s correct.

Overall it doesn’t seem much. Now if only I can get myself to stop playing Big Kahuna Reef and get it done. I’m intending when I’m finished to do a final write up of my impressions of the course and the project.  In addition, it looks like the digitization project at the Guilford Free Library is moving forward, so I’m thinking of keeping this blog active and using it as a record of my impressions for that project.  Until I write again, adieu!

A recent article that may be of interest

I was browsing through my RSS Reader at work this afternoon and came across an article that I thought would be of interest to those in this class: More than 95 percent of 9/11 Workers Accept Settlement.  Essentially a settlement was reached in the suit between the rescue workers from 9/11 and afterwards and the city and contractors of New York.  At least 95% of the plaintiffs had to accept the settlement, and it narrowly passed with 95.1% or 10,043 of the 10,565 people involved.  This clears the way for a total payout of around $625 million.  An earlier settlement was thrown out by the judge because he felt that not enough money was being sought and that the lawyers’ fees were too high.  I wonder if there is any interest in directing any of that money towards VOICES…

After Class 3: More on Copyright, Scope of the Project

During our last class, Kristie found a newly published volume that looked to be of interest to our discussion on copyright.  It was Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, & Museums by Peter B. Hirtle, Emily Hudson, and Andrew T. Kenyon.  From my perusal of this book, it seems to be a must have for anyone in the archival or library worlds.  It discusses the full range of copyright regulations, as well as offers checklists and flowcharts to help determine the proper course of action when dealing with possible copyright obstacles.  I have read most of an excellent chapter on the exemptions granted to libraries and archives from the copyright law. Unfortunately, none of them really seemed to apply to some of the issues we’re dealing with, since a lot of the media we’re using is too recent, and we run into the fact that we’re delivering the full content over the internet, instead of limiting our actions purely for preservation purposes.  There is a lot more involved, but I’m too weary at this moment to recount it all. It is definitely a book that I feel should be mandatory reading for any librarian or librarian student – who else feels that copyright should play a larger role in our core curriculum?

The other thing I was thinking to talk about this evening was something that Nancy mentioned on the class blog about us getting getting caught up in the scope of the project at hand and trying to figure out where we’re going next.  When thinking about this project, I do feel overwhelmed at times.  I put a lot of effort into working on profile pages last week, and only got up to the end of the “Ba”s – scrolling down the rest of list of names made me want to turn away from my computer.  I’ve been thinking that if I’m feeling this overwhelmed while working with five other people, I can’t imagine what it would be like to be the sole archivist working on a project – especially a large one.  Part of my overwhelmed feeling might come from it just being the end of the semester and my other classes are applying pressures to my time as well.  I remember the last month of my semester in Spring 2010 was like this, where I was virtually eating, drinking, and sleeping schoolwork.  Well I think I’m rambling now, and I don’t really know if I’ve offered anything constructive at this point.  Perhaps tomorrow I’ll return with more insight.

The things we take for granted.

Well, I was sitting down to really get into working on the Persona pages I needed to work on when I abruptly lost my internet connection. So that has foiled my plans. I’m posting this from my smart phone with the very nifty WordPress app.

Not to let a good obstacle go to waste; this little incident has given me a bit of an insight into the things we take for granted and the needs for what we’re doing.  The Internet is an incredibly complex beast and is not efficiently designed. Rather it has grown, almost organically, from at first a small military network and then an educational network.  We take this complexity for granted since connection to it and its use is so much easier than how it used to be. Our machines are more powerful, our software is more user-friendly, and connections have become far flung and wireless vs centralized and wired.  Furthermore, our connections have become ubiquitous – for many we’re always connected or on the verge of connecting. This puts us at a loss when we can’t have that connection. Even our jobs have come to rely on it. A dear friend of mine is working with an electronic database company – one day last week the office lost its internet connection. My friend was left twiddling her thumbs (although most likely she was knitting) until it came back up, because she could not access what she needed to work on.

This brings me to my other insight – the needs of digital archive and the belief of psuedo-permanence it creates.  The work we’re doing relies on the Internet. Our software is hosted remotely, our information sources are located remotely, and even our communication and work documents are located remotely and in the cloud.  It is incredible when everything is working properly, we can be at distant corners of the state and still collaborate – but one issue and it all comes tumbling down.  Take my internet problems tonight, or the serverside Omeka problems last week for example.  Our incredible system is delicately connected and balanced on the back of the fickle beast of the Internet.

In addition to this, our whole endeavor relies on digital mediums and the formats we’re working with today.  One of the greatest fears of Futurists is that we’ve become so reliant on digital formats for our cultural, political, and legal memories that we risk a “Digital Dark Age”.  This can come about through some technological or natural cataclysm or even just too rapid technological advancement.  Remember floppy disks? Do you have any lying around with data on them? Do you have the means to access it?  What about cassette or VHS tapes? Even our replacement technologies are becoming relics – optical disks (CDs, DVDs) and flash drives (I only use mine to share files with others now).  They’re all being replaced by cloud services and internet technologies (I watch more stuff through Netflix Instant than on the discs they send me now).  All of which relies on our Internet connections.  We can’t rely on the fact that our digital archives are going to be accessible, or even exisiting, in 50 years. Makes you really wonder at the longetivity of the cuneiform tablets of the Mesopotamians or the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Their information can still be granted to us after thousands of years – once you decipher the language of course.

Well it looks like my connection is still down, so off to bed and a good old fashioned book.  See you all on Saturday.

In between classes: Catching up which leads to more questions

So after a fun Halloween weekend in which my schoolwork only cropped up in my thoughts as slight feelings of guilt about lost time, I spent today sitting down and beginning to work on the variety of projects that are looming in my future.  In regards to our Omeka site, I finally got the opportunity to go in and clean up some of the items I added during our first class to better match with the standards we’re developing as we progress.  In addition, I was able to properly insert the items that were scanned during our time at the VOICES office.  I also took the opportunity to enter the text of some of the textual documents my team has been dealing with into the text field for the Document item type.  There is one lengthy article I haven’t done yet, but I feel this is important since it improves the searchability of those resources, but there is a slight stumbling block which I discuss a little later.

Being able to work for a sustained period of time, without the slight level of confusion that I had during the first class, has given me a chance to start getting a sense of the larger picture as well as more familiarity with Omeka and the features we’re working with.  This has inevitably led me to a series of questions that I feel we need to answer and determine what to do before we dig much deeper in.  As it is, I think that once we answer these questions, there will be a good deal of backtracking to correct previously entered items to better fit with the standards.  These are just presented in the order that I thought of them as I was working and jotted them down.

Subjects

I remember from our first class that Nancy said that we will be using the Library of Congress Subject Headings for the subjects elements of our items.  From my rather quick check through, there are very few items that have had a subject entered for them, including my own because I’ve been waiting for an answer on this topic.  Now, we have the LCSH plugin which automatically pulls the subject headings – this is very nice but (there is also a but) I also remember hearing that we’re going to create a specific subject heading for each person – and I’m wondering what format we will use for that.

In the subject headings there is this one: September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001.  One thing I’ve considered, and I sort of think this is what Nancy is intending us to do (please weigh in) is something like this: September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001 -– Anaya, Calixto, Jr., 1966-2001.  Looking through the LCSH there are a couple of other 9/11 subject headings which may also be of use, or may be adopted for this purpose.  The first is September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001 –– Commemoration and the second is September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001 –– Personal narratives.  For the latter, there is also Personal narratives, American.

As I mentioned above, this is something that we need to decide on and start using before we get much further.  As of right now there are 74 “Person” items created without subject elements and 50 “Image” items, most of which do not have them (or the ones that have them do not use a controlled vocabulary).  As I’ve said, I’m guilty of this lack as well, since I’ve been unsure of how to proceed.

Articles

This came up when I was trying to research some information about a newspaper article I had.  I happened to look through the paper’s FAQ and noticed the section on permissions.  Do we have the permission to display the image and full text of these articles?  These articles were given to VOICES as memorial items for the people, but that still doesn’t account for the copyright of the items and how we should display them.  For the time being, I have entered all the information, but have not marked them as being public or featured to ensure that they won’t show up on the public Omeka site.  So I feel we need to get an answer for this, especially since I know we’ve seen a lot of news articles in the resources.

Letters

The same issue with the articles above, also applies to personal letters.  While the copyright issue isn’t as apparent, there is the matter of privacy. This was something I brought up in the first class, since my team had a personal letter written by a young girl to the family.  The letter is a wonderful way of memorializing the victim, but we have to respect her privacy and rights as well.  I did notice at least one other letter besides the one I was working with in the item list, so it is another thing we need to think about and come to a conclusion for.  Like the articles, I have entered all the information (including the text of the letter), but have not made it public.

Contribution Form

How are we using this? Should this be a section that we should be concerned with for now? Or is it more important when the site is ready to go live (at least more live than it is now)?  If it is something we should be dealing with now, we should determine that very soon, since it would mean going back to all the previously entered items in addition to all our future entries.

Compound objects

This was something that I had a couple of examples of this evening.  One is the Anaya funeral prayer card, which was a 2 sided item, and the other was a newspaper article that could not be scanned into a single file.  Omeka has no problem adding multiple files to an item, so keeping the separate parts connected is easy.  My concern actually lies with the identifiers and file names.  For the most part we’re only dealing with single files for each item, so there is a 1:1 ratio of file name to identifier.  In these cases though, I have 2 files (with their file names) being associated with a single item (which has a single identifier).  How should this be managed?  Should I go back and rename the files so that they would be something like LM2009.I.001a.jpg and LM2009.I.001b.jpg therefore the item would have the identifier LM2009.I.001?  Right now, I’ve been using the standard file names we’ve derived, and have just been using the first number for the identifer (ie I have ID: LM2009.I.001 and files LM2009.I.001.jpg and LM2009.I.002.jpg).  This is causing me to skip identifiers (like in this case I don’t have a LM2009.I.002).  So, what should be done in these cases?

I know it seems like a lot, but I feel that these issues need to be dealt with before end up with too many items that fixing any problems becomes an arduous task.  Let me know what you all think.

After Class 2: Differing Motives, Workflows, and the Challenges of Technology

Well, we have had our second class meeting, and this one stood apart from the first one, and will from the remaining ones.  Instead of us being in our little computer cave on the fourth floor of Buley Library with the droning fan in the background, we were able to take a lovely drive down to the New Canaan offices of Voices of September 11th.  It was great to be able to meet Mary and listen to her talk about everything that Voices has done and intends to do.  It makes working on this project that much more powerful.  It was also great to meet Will and get at least a small idea of how Voices deals with its digitization process.

differing motives

One of the main topics of discussion we had this past weekend revolved around the different intentions behind approaching the materials with an archivist mindset versus the mindset of someone working with victims and survivors of a tragic event.  In an archival sense of mind, we want to be able to collect, record, and preserve as much as information as possible.  As librarians, we also want to make sure that access to that information is open and unrestricted.  But as we discussed a piece of information like “Date of Death” which is a perfectly natural thing to record about a person, might not be tasteful when viewed by families and friends of the victims.  I did a quick search and really could not find any more diplomatic way of phrasing this piece of information – although I hardly did a comprehensive search, so there might be something out there.  This is the area where having social workers like Mary and her staff at Voices is able to bring a more human element to the data and information collected.  The people we are entering information about still have wives, children, and parents who surely think of them every day, and they are much more than just the file folders or digital files that we are looking at. 

So, there we have it.  In this project we’re faced with with not only the concerns of recording and collecting as much information as possible, but also with how to display it in a manner that memorializes the people affected by the terrorist attacks instead of just treating them as historical subjects.  Each aspect has a differing motive in how the information should be treated and managed.

workflows

It’s funny, I know I’ve probably used this word before, but I don’t think I have ever really considered it and what it means.  I definitely have given it a lot of thought lately, with both my cataloging and technology classes and for this course.  There have always been some things which I just throw myself headfirst into and hope that everything comes out alright, but for the most part, I like to be able to plan at least basic procedures before I start working on a project.  For digital archives, especially when you expand beyond just a small scale, it appears to be extremely crucial to determine and develop your procedures and workflow even before you start doing any of the work.

This was made clear to me again today.  As I’ve mentioned before I volunteer weekly at the Guilford Free Library (since any experience is worth it).  I started off just shelving books and pulling ILL materials, but lately I have been drawn into helping out with Guilford’s digitization project.  At first I was asked to copy data from the backs of the photos – the Guilford archivists have done an incredibly good job recording a lot of info there – so that they could be attached to their digital copies.  Today, I was asked to do a bunch of scanning (so everything I learned on Saturday came in handy!).  This was where I wish they had a more defined workflow developed, since I felt I kept doing different things with each photo to try and match it with the section it belonged in.  In hindsight, I should have probably dumped all the scans with their information into a single folder dated for today, and let them organize them how they see fit.  It shows the importance though of having a clear procedure, especially in a collaborative project.  The Guilford Digitization is certainly interesting to work with though, and I was given a slight hint of their intentions today as well.  The librarian I was working with asked me how much experience I’ve had with digital libraries – so they may be intending to expand the project beyond what the state grant is providing and building a digital archive.  I should probably see if that is the case, and maybe I can recommend a few of you to help on the project if you’d like – let me know if there is interest.

Now back to workflows.  I’ve started building our wiki.  There is just a rough main page with some links added there now, so I encourage the rest of you jump in and start adding some more content.  This should be a good resource for us to develop to describe the workflow we’ve been using so far.  There are several different aspects I feel need to be described: the scanning process, the metadata entry (including references and examples of the elements we’re using), and the building of the exhibits.

The challenges of technology

Finally, the other thing that was illustrated by our experiences this past weekend was the challenges faced in digital archiving by the technology that is used.  First, there is the equipment that is needed.  In order to be able to effectively work, you need to not only make sure that you have the right equipment, but also enough of it to make sure that there are no bottlenecks or delays in your process.  For example, this past weekend, Kristie and I needed to rescan one of our documents, but were caught waiting for access to the scanner.  Fortunately there were other parts of the process that we could work on – like getting the items converted to jpeg format and uploaded to the Omeka site, but if we couldn’t do that we would have been stopped in our tracks.  So it is important that when you’re planning your project, you get an idea of how much equipment you will need to effectively work.

The other challenge is just in the use, and while we didn’t see any major problems with this during our class on Saturday, it is easy to predict where problems in this could arise.  We saw the couple of times we had to tweak or readjust how we were using the scanner and computer to make sure that everything worked properly. Can you imagine trying to do that with only basic familiarity with the equipment and process, and having to talk to the victims and survivors at the same time?  I feel lucky that the quality of materials we have are as good as they are.  So that would be the other lesson learned from Saturday’s class – make sure that if you’re not doing all the work, you have proper training methods in place and work out any kinks in the process if you’re going to be going out in the field.

Well, that’s all I have for this evening so far.  I plan to continue working more on the wiki, and I know I have a good deal to do to work with the files we gained on Saturday as well as adjust the previous files I worked with to better match our current standards.  I look forward to seeing what other thoughts have come from our experience in this second class.

After Class 1: Some thoughts on the project, metadata, and Omeka

So, this past Saturday was the first class in Digital Archiving with Open Source Software.  It was a good opportunity to meet the other students I will be working with (Hi everyone!) as well as start to see what we will be working with.  This is my first time taking a course this time-compressed and intensive.  Needless to say, by the end of the 8 hours, my brain was starting to feel a little mushy and it was getting harder to concentrate.  This coming Saturday we’ll venturing out of the computer lab (which is very much a fluorescent-lit cave) and head to the VOICES of September 11th office in New Canaan, CT.  Here we will most likely meet some of the people responsible for the VOICES of September 11th project as well as see their operation.  We may also be involved in scanning documents, so we’ll be able to see the work process from the original materials given to the organization all the way to adding them into our collection and exhibits.

The Project

The VOICES of September 11th is serving a very noble cause trying to memorialize all the people involved and affected by the tragedies that struck the World Trade Center (the project also includes materials from the 1993 bombing as well) as well the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of United 93.  We got to see the materials being collected by VOICES and it’s all very heart touching.  I’ve seen family images, wedding photos, baby photos, news articles, and ephemera from memorial services.  All of it shows how much these tragedies affected the people involved and the importance to remember that the people who died are not just a number or statistic to be used for political capital.

That being said, I feel it is clear that VOICES is a project that grew from a small operation to something larger, and the growing pains show.  For example, the files I and my partner worked with this past Saturday were only nominally ordered by date in their directory. There were multiple copies of files (some of which were most likely edited or Photoshopped), but their file names did not note those changes.  There have definitely been attempts made at organization of the files, but it seems based on an ad hoc system that developed out of necessity.  Enough criticizing though, the materials collected, as I mentioned before, are quite remarkable and can work well towards memorializing the person they represent.

Metadata

One of the issues we came across while working on Saturday was some confusion about the terminology of the Dublin Core metadata elements we were working with and the information that was expected to be put into each field.  It got me thinking about the concept of metadata itself (at least how it is used in a digital archiving sense) and I realized that it has an identity crisis. 

In traditional cataloging, there is usually only one item that is being represented in the cataloging notation.  The cataloger is often working with the physical item.  This same sort of idea applies when dealing with digitally created items that only exist in the virtual space.  A good example of such an item is this blog post. I’ve created it digitally by typing it into my blog editing software, and unless someone prints it out, there is not going to be a physical representation.  This can be represented through its metadata in much the same way that a physical item can be represented through its catalog record. One set of information for one item. 

The crisis arises when you’re dealing with digitized versions of physical objects, like scanned photographs.  Now the cataloger or digital archivist has to account not only for the representation of the physical object, but the digital one as well.  There are some areas that can cover both objects like subject coverage, title, etc.  There are some areas which are specific to the object though – which is where we faced confusion. The two elements that caused a lot of discussion was “Type” and “Format”.  Looking at the documentation provided, I came to the conclusion that “Type” is meant to apply to the digital object (as in file type), whereas “Format” dealt with the original object, but the terminology is still unclear.  One of the problems that arises with this is that commonly the file type is also known as the file format (such as PDF format or JPEG format).  The professor has decided to modify the “Format” element in Omeka to be “Original Format” to make it a clearer representation to what it is referring.

This little incident does show one of the niggling issues with Dublin Core and metadata standards in general.  The standards are not firm with a clear set of rules, like how American cataloging has its specific formats and rules in the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules.  Different archivists and digital catalogers use different elements and standards based on their preference or what information they have available.  We saw this at the beginning of class when we examined several digital collections and compiled the elements from them into a spreadsheet to see the differences.  We are currently at a precipice in information trends right now as more information is being created and stored digitally, it is important that metadata standards organize and mature to be able handle the substantial rise in materials – or we will be facing an organizational crisis.

Omeka

Finally, I wanted to talk a bit about the software that we are using in this class.  Omeka is an open source initiative that allows the easy publishing of digital exhibits and collections.  From the little bit that I have used it so far, it is a nice piece of software, still a little rough around the edges as most open source software is.  It reminds me a lot of the information I gathered when I was researching Drupal for another class.  Both of them are open source content management systems, although Omeka is more single-minded in its purpose.  This is good because it allows a focusing of the plugins and tools developed for it to meet the unique needs of the archival community.  Drupal, though, is much more flexible in its overall capabilities.  In both cases, I wish I still had an old desktop computer lying around (I used to have 3 in my basement before recycling them) that would be easy to resuscitate into a personal server to play with installation and customization on my own time.  I do like the focused nature of Omeka though.

To give credence to the meteoric rise of open source software, I am surprised at some of the big institutions that are using Omeka.  For example there is this site created by the Smithsonian Institution: Journey Stories that chronicles the stories of US immigrants.  What I particularly like (and from what I understand will become part of the exhibit we’re working on creating) is the capability for visitors to add their own stories.  It blends the richness of a museum exhibit, but gives it a Web 2.0 twist and allow people to contribute and add parts of themselves to it.  In addition, the look of the site appears professional, but from what I’ve seen in Omeka is not that difficult to achieve. Something which would have taken a team of designers a good deal of time to do 10-12 years ago, can now be done by a couple of people and much more inexpensively.

Another example that shows the range of what Omeka can do is: Ars Synthetica.  Instead of being an archival site, this actually works to display and collect research in synthetic biology.  This site really shows the variety of different materials that can be organized and displayed through an Omeka collection.  It includes articles, animations, videos, and more.  I can see something like this developing into a next-generation scientific journal with the ability to include experiment videos with articles and a system for collaborators to connect and work together.

Overall, I’m still thrilled to be taking part in this class.  It is giving me valuable experience working with a new software system as well as the ability to be able to “play” around in digital archiving, which is something that ties together both my interest in technology and history.  In addition, we’re doing this all for the great cause of the VOICES of September 11th project, so we get good karma points to.  Well that’s the end, until next time folks.

A new class, a new blog, a new experience

Starting this coming Saturday (October 16, 2010), I will be taking a new course at Southern Connecticut State University on creating digital archives using open source software.  The course is going to be a blend of theoretical information on digital archives and exhibits and practical hands-on work.  From the class’s website:

ILS 599 Methods for Creating Digital Archives using Open Source Software is offered through a joint venture between VOICES of September 11th and Southern Connecticut State University. Funded through a U.S. Department of Education/FIPSE grant in support of the 9/11 Living Memorial digital archive to commemorate the lives and stories of September 11, 2001 and the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing, ILS599 is offered as a scholarship award course.

The course will be using the open source Omeka platform to assemble the archive and exhibit.  This looks like it’s not only going to be a great learning experience on my part as well as do work towards an excellent cause.

This blog was created for the class as a place to post weekly entries on my experiences and discussions in creating a digital archive.