The Colloquium will provide an overview of:

-the nature and state of digital scholarship
-the support and infrastructure necessary to ensure faculty and student success
-the changes in the academic culture that are essential for digital scholarship to thrive
-new forms of scholarly communication underway or essential to exploit the advantages of digital scholarship.

Register here

Monday, November 7
1:00 pm

Scholars and the Mind. This session will provide a definition of digital scholarship, examine the similarities and differences compared to traditional forms of scholarship, explore the impact of digital scholarship in different disciplines, and discuss current and future trends and directions.
Speaker: Dr. Laura Mandell, Professor of English and Associate Director of NINES, co-director of 18thConnect (an online community for 18th century literary scholars), and the director of the Initiative for Digital Humanities, Media, and Culture, Texas A & M University
2:00 pm

Advancing Digital Scholarship. Supporting digital scholarship requires infrastructures of policies, tools, systems, and services for producing and managing data. This session will cite examples of tools and services that have been developed to support specific scholarly communities, and raise strategic questions being considered at universities: Which infrastructure components should be local, and which should be shared? What’s the role of open source? And open access? And who should govern data repositories, the university, a scholarly community, or a consortium of campuses and/or users?
Speaker: Stephen Chapman, Project Manager, Harvard Law School Library, Digital Lab
3:00 pm

Break: Demonstrations and Discussion
4:00 pm

Cultural Change in Higher Education and Advanced Research: What we are Learning A key perceived barrier to institutional change, including integration of digital scholarship, is identifying appropriate directions and goals. This session will describe a suite of visioning and planning activities at the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences that conceptualize the directorate’s activities at the decadal scale and the kinds of changes that may be required.
Speaker: Dr. Amy Friedlander, Senior Advisor in the Office of the Assistant Director of the Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences at the US National Science Foundation
5:00 pm Reception

Tuesday, November 8
9:30 am

New Forms of Scholarly Communication. An exploration of current and potential means of distributing the knowledge that results from digital scholarship, considering both formal (e.g., university and scholarly presses) and informal channels. The session will explore how can or should new media and social networking enhance the peer review process and expand the availability of dynamic, interactive and up-to-date information that goes beyond "supplementary material."
Speaker: Dr. Neni Panourgia, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University, and affiliated faculty at the Institute for Comparative Literature and Culture, and the Harriman Institute
10:30 am

Break: Demonstrations and Discussion
11:00 am

Moving Forward. [Panel Session] What must faculty, university administrators, librarians, and technologists do collectively to realize the potential of digital scholarship? How can we participate in and exploit national efforts to create a continuous chain that begins with research design and advances to publishing, archiving and education? What roles must each of the key players play to change the culture? What external changes are underway (e.g., mandates for open access and dataset retention and management, global collaborations, shared technical tools and infrastructure) and how will they affect institutional planning? How can we make optimal institutional sharing of data across institutions a reality?
Panelists: presentation speakers; Dean Cyrus Taylor (CWRU Arts and Sciences); Lev Gonick (CWRU Vice President for Information Technology Services).
Moderator: Arnold Hirshon (CWRU Associate Provost and University Librarian)
12:00pm

-Colloquium Wrap Up

A very engaging presentation from Maureen Sullivan on the Collaborative Library Organization, driven by audience participation and open discussion throughout the presentation. Audience members were frequently invited to partake in the discussion, which was an interesting component of the morning, given the varied backgrounds of the librarians and directors in attendence.

Characteristics of the Collaborative Library Organization
-Open, fluid organizational design- 'a web of inclusion' (Helgesen)
-Collarborative work not only within the library and individual departments, but also into outside channels as well
-Work units are teams, clusters, or collaboratives - Staff are organized in a manner to perform work art clearly defined key work activities and processes
-Staff members focus on ways to contribute and to support the performance of the group, not on an individual's expertise
-Drawing line of responsibility and accountability within the system

Focus of attention
Managing for the mission of the organization:
-clarity of purpose
-focus on the customer
-constant attention to the work that will add value for the customer, and costumer experience.

Managing for innovation:
-ensure innovation and improvement in services, programs and operational processes
-practice "planned abandonment" as outlined by Peter Drucker

Managing for diversity:
-Not only among staff, but also among costumers and constituent groups
-Capatalizing on differences to optimize performance (Idea of many great minds joining to create new ideas that the single mind would not have the scope to create. Conversant, joined minds create solutions in a drastically different manner than the singlular mind would)
-Generational synergy

Sullivan states that we are in an evolving profession, and collarboration is the channel for change, adaptation and evolution. Suggests we are moving from the 'doorman' to the 'concierge'. This does not imply a change of mission for libraries, but rather a change in the service model. Suggested that we are moving from the Gatekeeper role to that of Educator. (side discussion from a number of public librarians in the audience of librarian as social worker in many of those settings) Do we define our profession by that of our competiting markets? {Google} or do we elaborate on the existing library mission through different channels?

Essential Elements
Knowledge Management System
-decisions are based on accurate, relevant info
-strong system for capturing and publishing new info (moving from the storekeeper of information to the creation of new information)
-communication is open and structure is transparent

Commited senior management team with an operational strategic plan in place and human resource policies that are aligned to support collaboration and open organizational structure (side discussion on the role of the Union in some scenarios. Sullican stressed that the Union should not be a hinderance to collaboration and change, though some memebers of the audience contested this)

Commitment to continuous learning through facilitative leadership and commitment to individual development

Focus/emphasis on the capability of the individual, team and organzation's particular strengths

A clear, flexible plan that can adapt to the needs of the future; with an organizational culture that supports flexibilty

Frequently ask 'Who are we serving?' and 'Are we fulfilling their needs?'

High tolerance for ambiguity and a "willingness to be disturbed" (Wheatly)

Director and senior managment team should not impede on progress, but encourage dialogue and debate

The Dynamics of Collaboration and skills required

Michael Schrage (Shared Minds) has described collaboration as "the process of shared creation: two or more individuals with complementary skills interacting to create a shared understanding that none had previously possessed or could come to on their own.

Skills required:
- Active listening - Clarity of expression - Negotiating - Building consensus - Balancing attention to process and attention to results - Contributing ideas and suggestions - Providing a rationale foe one's point of view - Asking others to explain the reasons behind their opinions - Summerizing and synthesizing the ideas that have been expressed - Finding areas of agreement in conflicting viewpoints - Being attuned to emotions (yours and others)

Adaptive Leadership
'Leadership in a (Permanent) Crisis', Harvard Business Review (July 2009) suggests that crisis leadership has two phases. The first is the emergency phase- "When your task if to stabilize the situation and buy time", where the second phase is the adaptive phase "When you tackle the underlying causes of crisis and build the capacity to thrive in the new reality"

Foster adaptation by:
-Confronting loyalty to legacy practices
-Distinguishing the essential from the expendable
-Running experiments, frequently

Embrace disequilibrium by:
-Monitoring the "thermostat" of the institution and staff
-Depersonalizing conflict
-Creating a culture of "couragous conversations"

Generate leadership by:
-Empowering staff to engage in adaptive work by disbuting leadership responsibility across the organization
-Mobilizing everyone to generate solutions
-Leveraging diversity

Practices for Leadership Development in your library
-Focus on leadership development as a key initiative
-Take a broad view of who will have the ability to lead. (And be careful to not prejudge potential too early)
-Create opportunities for the potential leaders to interact with effective, more experienced leaders (90% of skills are learned on the job, with 80% from immediate co-workers and colleagues)
-Ensure that the current formal leaders in the library are held accountable for effective leadership.
-Make the process as transparent as possible
-Establish a mentoring program (NEO-RLS who planned the event later mentioned their plan on establishing one locally)
-Create a learning culture within the library
-Start with asking for active participation

Resources
Warren Bennis and Joan Goldsmith- Learning to Lead: A workbook on Becoming a Leader

Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee- Resonant Leadership

Daniel Goleman- Primal Leadership

James Kouzes and Barry Posner- The Truth about Leadership

Annie McKee- Becoming a Resonant Leader

Date: September 22, 2011
Time: 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Location: Clark Hall Room 206, 11130 Bellflower Road
Registration: Free and open to the public.

Drs. Eltis and Richardson, recipients of the 2011 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Nonfiction for Atlas of the Transaltantic Slave Trade, will discuss new findings and new directions for future research from www.slavevoyages.org and www.African-Origins.org. Eltis is Robert W. Woodruff Professor of History at Emory University, and Richardson is director of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation and professor of economic history at Hull University in England. Reception to follow in Clark Hall Room 206.

The Europeana digital library (which claims more than 15 million records in its database) has been recently developing some exhibits to reflect some organization to its massive collection. The currently only have a few collections (virtual exhibitions listed here), but are publicizing more to come. What struck me with their Traveling Through History exhibit, was the thematic arrangement of people, cities, seas, mountains, as well as a maps and guides section (or, by physical format). It's interesting to see this development, since some of the more contemporary art exhibitions have taken this route in the past decade. Instead of a single period or artist, there is a broader conceptual route taken. (For example, I loved the Tate Modern's approach to theme throughout the museum. Collection has some remnants of chronological display, but much of the display is organized by themes like Energy and Process)

Part of this notion of exhibition is offering the visitor a way to explore the collection. In large collections like the Met or the Tate, unless you have specific search notions, there is that feeling of a needle in the haystack. The role of the curator is to bring the collection to the public, to select and display the pieces that have meaning or can illustrate a point in the exhibition. I think this application from the Europeana has some great qualities to the idea, but still has a way to go. Under the Mountains section, there are some ways to refine the browsing (date, language, subject), but it is a large group to browse through with the general topic of mountains in Europe.

On a more local example from the Cleveland area, Cleveland Historical is one way of providing access to digital content in a more direct, meaningful way for some users with smart phones. The app connects the location of the user to images, audio and text from digital collections to the surrounding area. This brings the content to the user, instead of the other way around.

Cleveland Historical App is driven on designated location points throughout Cuyahoga County. At the moment, this seems to be developed around main roads and points of interest currently. Location are pinpointed and act as the method of organizing of the content. A name of a place will tie together images, text, video and audio content. Sometimes this is not a physical location exactly, but a concept that can be broadly tied to a location: Example of the McCart street gang

Initially developed from the Euclid Corridor website to capture info into another more useful mobile format, and expanded to include CSU digital collection from Cleveland Memory and similar website projects (cultural gardens along MLK website), audio clips from IdeaStream (oral histories included where applicable). App includes text, images, audio and video sections. Cleveland Historical uses a customized Omeka instance, with customized plug-ins and utilizes OAI-PMH.

Contributors of the content are a wide variety of people- some staff from CSU, local historians, grad students, local K-12 teachers, etc. The next version is looking to expand and open up contributions and ideas for future content to the public. They are currently adding an average of 5-10 sites per week. Some other issues to address in future versions: More detailed citation of information (and links out to digital collections/websites/etc), real time overlay of photos to current location (similar feature in the phillyhistory.org app- very cool!), organized content for specific walking tours around the county.

I'm looking forward to the future development of this app- Really great source for native and visitors alike.

-Outsourced part of the project to DXY solutions (design work, primarily)- iPhone and Droid versions

Google's ambition to produce a massive online 'library' of digitized books has provoked passionate reactions. In the past such debates have had a significant impact on the constitution of the information economy itself. Johns will draw attention to a particular conflict, which raged in the years around 1800. As publishing took on its modern form, and with the advent of new printing technologies, Britain's parliament proposed that copyright law be used to create a universal deposit library. Tying commercial print to the collection of learning would, in its eyes, lead to the climax of Enlightenment. But an alliance of poets, antiquarians, naturalists, and publishers fought bitterly against the scheme, arguing on Romantic grounds that it betrayed the very nature of creativity. By collecting the output of an industrial, proprietorial publishing sector, it would immortalize mediocrity and demoralize future generations. The outcome of the contest changed copyright itself, shaping the Google debate in our own moment of radical change in media and information.
Professor Johns is the author of Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates (2009); Death of a Pirate: British Radio and the Making of the Information Age (2010); and The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (1998), as well as numerous articles on the histories of the book, science, and intellectual property. Educated at Cambridge University, Johns taught at the University of California, San Diego, and Caltech before joining the University of Chicago faculty.
Co-sponsored by the Department of English, the Law School, the Department of History, and the Kelvin Smith Library.

Studied mental models and used test group

Test group were asked to do a number of activities: card sorting, concept mapping, comparison of pairs

Concept mapping proved to be the most problematic- users had such drastically different ways at basic organization. Each one was different to line up the same set of concepts in a relational method. Some general tendencies, which did echo some of the FRBR structure

Kent State (w/ IMLS grant) studied practical applications. More project info here FRBR currently reflects the designers/researchers more so than the users

Used World Cat and the OCLC Fiction Finder for project (though noted that neither are strict uses of FRBR) Research included screen captures, eye tracking, think-aloud, survey interviews and focus groups. Found users did enjoyed the related items aspect of FRBR (likened it to Amazon)

WEM (Work-Expression-Manifestation) display

Still looking at the data analysis, so study is still on-going. Some confusion noted by users in the title field (Marc field 240), since this uniform title field can contain elements that users did not understand.

Imma Subirats from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations

They looked into FRBR application for a number of reasons- the nature of their digital collection: 6 languages, content type (liked relational aspect for their research collection from conferences, etc). Fedora based. A reduced application of FRBR, in part due to legacy data and nature of their records (they do not use controlled names) Previous data also did not use LIS standards or guidelines (AGRO voc thesaurus

Merged records and converted into XML. Created relationships from the XML records. No live link- just about completed with project. Noted that Fedora made implementation rather easy.

RDA Vocab Development based on FRBR vocab development- Diane Hillman
Property and value vocab registered: Metadata registry
Article from DLib describing project

Social Issues- Papers
Scholars who cite Twitter- Snowball sample, using 3 'core' academic researchers. Had to define the notion of citation for the project (direct link to peer-reviewed journal or a link to a blog that reviews journal) Looked at Qualitative and Quantitative data

Some scholars noted that they would follow certain colleagues/other professionals in the field on Twitter to act as a 'filter' to what they should be looking at (Alt-metrics)

Future research questions- What is the impact of these citations? Do all disciplines use this method? (Do some utilize social media better than others?)

Privacy Ramifications on Facebook
Katz v. U.S. case, 1967- An expectation of privacy
Is this expectation still reasonable in modern day?

We should have an awareness of privacy, and also what lines of privacy are drawn? Also questions 'digital memory'- Is your facebook profile ever really deleted?

Social Q+A- Impact of Text and Photo Cues
Tested people using dogster Looking at the difference in trust/reliability in the responses with text or text + photo. Ultimately, the photo did not add any reliability to this notion of truth, and rather the level of empathy in the text, and use of pronouns.

How does technology enable the relief efforts after disaster? Research into twitter, wikis and blogs.

Dave Yates (University of Maryland, College Park) teaches, but is also an Air Force reserve. He was called on after the Haiti earthquake. Talked about the hierarchical response in the government, and how the State Department wiki proved useful in the mission (which has been non-classified since January). Maps could be updated and tagged with relevant info in a shared space easier than previous methods. A question was asked about the reliability of the information on this format, and Yates responded that a .gov email address was required for any changes to the wiki. So while the info on the wiki may not be 100% verified, it did prove to communicate important info between department more quickly. It also produced a rather lengthy wiki that is not the easiest to navigate. Yates pointed out that future efforts to coordinate info could be done in a better method (no one person was responsible for maintaining wiki content in this situation, for example)

Also mentioned individual and corporate efforts in social media after the Haiti disaster (text donations, Twitter, websites/blogs such as Le Projet Nouvelle Haiti which all asked for individual action)

In the Chinese earthquakes and floods in the past few years, the Chinese version of Twitter, Sina Weibo, has been studied recently by researchers looking at the types of tweets (Info-related, Opinion-related, Action-related or Emotion-related) and also polling the geography of the aftereffects of the earthquake. These tweets were tracked over time, and also compared to local and national news coverage trends, to see if there is any correlation between the two. Question from the audience to whether these tweets had a benefit to rescue efforts or other action; Some stories about family making connections through tweets; another of a civilian helping out a rescue effort by giving coordinates of a temporary landing spot for the relief helicopters.

Image Seeking, Retrieval and Use

A Comparison of a Conventional Taxonomy with a 3D Visualization for Use by Children
Moving 2D project into 3-D- Research project at McGill looking at children's search process within taxonomies. With input from children, the initial taxonomy was created, and later translated into a cone tree structure for 3-D browsing and searching. The terms were often 3-4 levels into the taxonomy, with varying levels of difficultly. A group of sixth graders were used to see how children would complete four searches. They compared these results with the 2D, and while the recall times were close, the kids enjoyed the interaction of the 3-D more.

ImageSieve: exploratory Search of Museum Archives with Named Entity-Based Faceted Browsing
Faceted browsing feature for image-based collections. Ran a study on people to see how they would use these different facets to assist in searching. The facets were divided through different tabs of the "who/what/where/when" categories. Also looked at the Flamenco project at UC Berkley. Flamenco (FLexible information Access using MEtadata in Novel COmbinations) uses keyword searches while also adhering to the structure of the collection structure. They could also tweak the system to reflect user searches (example of the proper citation of John F Kennedy, but also included JFK, Mr. President, Jack Kennedy)

Photo captions and descriptions were included in the search mechanism. They also used an element called "Shoebox" to let users click and drag certain objects over to build their own collection while they search and browse. Their collection for the project included 80,000 items, and also allowed users to annotate the images.

Investigating Variation in Querying Behavior for Image Search on the Web

How are users changing their query between a web-based search, and an image search? Main components of the project focused on task goals, working stage, search expertise and topic familiarity. The project rated the participant perception of the query results; in the satisfaction, confidence and usefulness of the result set. The length of the image searches were often much longer than that of text, though if an image was the focus of the search (vs. a web-page/text)

Linked data: Enabling Standards and other Approaches

Push to provide URIs/URLs/DOIs to every unique concept, digital object, etc to provide basis for linked data. Purpose to build relationships between all the various digital media with permanent, unique IDs. Extending work on OWL2 (Web Ontology Language): building URLs for people/place/things
Also refer to Networked planet on managing and publishing semantic data and Ontopia PSIs for unique subject IDs

Looking into issues of cross-referencing topics and drawing associations between concepts. Difficult with different terminologies. Ways to ID content include: ISBN, ISSN, ISTC (Text Code), ISRC (Recording Code), ISWC (Musical Work Code), ISAN (Audiovisual Number), ISN (Name Identifier), ISO 27729 (ISNI)

OCLC is acting as Assignment Agency for many of these conventions.

CISAC is acting as verification agency for music/arts)

SKOS RDF vocabs- a thesaurus used in a distributed, decentralized information system. Describing concepts and creating relationships between the concepts and terms (even the conceptual terms). Multi-lingual and extensible. "A single knowledge domain". A hierarchical and associative system.

RDFa (Resource Description Framework in Attributes) link to presentation slides

A way to assign rights and licensing info easily to digital material (Creative Commons example for embedded info) National Digital Newspaper project has RDFa embedded in every page to assure that rights info transfers with each page.

URL Linter easy tool to show what metadata is extracted
DRUPAL RDFa supported
RDFa primer

NISO I2 working group to assign institutional identifiers
-to establish provenance of digital information
-helping out the issue of digital authenticity and authoritative info

Still in final stages of development

Virtual International Authority File Hosted by OCLC. more info. Attempting to merge together efforts for standardization.

Incubator group LLD (Library Linked Data) XG
Slides
Working to merge datasets (Linking Open Data) Problems include: licensing issues, mixed vocabularies, linking/interlinking material, quality of data; applying semantic wen technologies to Library Data (esp legacy data)

Working to ID collaboration tracks for future research; also how to build off existing initiatives; Need to find case studies

How to build a process from real world scenarios- how to build the tech pieces and requirements to fit a variety of data

LLD XG working with DCMI Architecture Forum Joint meeting info

I love when people from all types of study and specialties can come together to talk about shared dilemmas and issues & seem to actually be speaking the same language. Lucy Suchman is a professor of anthropology of science and technology at Lancaster University and also has twenty years experience as a researcher at Xerox's Research Center. While her talk did focus around her research in technology design and use, she spoke to larger issues of information access, use and structure. She brought up many underlying issues, How do we convey meaning in design?; How do we assign meaning and how do our respective roles/job titles/areas of expertise factor into our analysis of meaning? (She used an example of a photo- In one context, it was a woman holding a very particular group of flowers, while in another (w/out the caption or implied meaning, assumably), it was just a woman holding a bouquet of flowers. We provide the meaning, order and assign importance.

But what deems meaning of content? We can make independent inference of a thing on its own, but it is the associate, validated text that really gives meaning. Another independent application of another piece of knowledge, particularly in images. We provide order and meaning, but how do we create consistent dialogue? There seems to always be a level of human interaction and inference at any level (example of color matching of a soil sample in the sciences [Munsell color chart]- like relatively subjective, since color is relative to the beholder)

Technologies as "materialized figurations"

What is an object w/out meaning? (example of NRA slogan: guns don't kill people, people kill people) A gun in a drawer or a pocket is just a gun, but a gun in a hand implies intent. Suchman is very interested in the relationships of technology + human use.

Her more recent research is looking at both warfare and healthcare

Lucy's reading list:

How we became posthuman (N. Katherine Hayles)
Pandora's hope: essays on the reality of social science
Modest witness: Haraway
Acting in Anesthesia: Dawn Goodwin
Performance artist Stelarc- 2003 computer interactive likeness of artist- interacting through text between user and computer. Programmed to respond- Suchman asked computer about philosophy, life, poetry
Silenced work and invisible dialogues in knowledge representation: Susan Leigh Star

3:30 session- Knowledge Organization: Evaluating Foundation and Function in the Information Ecosystem

HIVE (Helping Interdisciplinary Vocabulary Engineering) s an IMLS funded project involving the Metadata Research Center and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This is a way to integrate multiple controlled vocabularies. Since many disciplines require different ways of describing things (and will likely never merge into a singular "uber" list of terms, or at least anytime soon), there has to be a way to correlate terms and draw relations. Currently many of the widely known systems (LCSH, TGN, MeSH, etc) are in the project (10 total vocabs)

A concept browser has been experimented with to show related terms. Kea indexer being used in this project. Still needs research for front end usability and back-end performance issues.

Denise Bedford (World Bank/Kent State)- Has spent many years on the World Bank thesaurus- less on the mechanic end, but as a thesaurus creator. She sought out other organizations with similar projects to work collaboratively on these unique business geared models. (Noted that many of these projects at other organizations were eventually dropped due to the time and labor intensive work/lack of funds to sustain/database hard to manage after people retired, moved jobs, etc)

Talked about attempting to merge some of these efforts, but since each thesaurus is so specific to the organization, difficult to merge the efforts. She also noted that in her experience and research, that she feels that crosswalks rarely work, and are not worth the time. She has recently been looking at how to use these thesauri more effectively and how to increase the value of the work. She stressed the importance of the early meetings to negotiate meaning early on in the process, and not as the last step (lesson learned). She also stressed the importance of working at the entity level, and not the concept level, as tempting as it may be.

Bedfore is looking also at how these different systems/software can work together in a meaningful way. Also mentioned the Open Ontology Repository

Gail Hodge (Information International Associates, Inc. Trouble with terms with multiple meanings, esp. across disciplines (basic example of the word 'flow' in different sciences)

How does this compound with multiple languages?

Can we link the specific terms to the broader concepts successfully? (18 broad categories have already given some problems. How can we both offer the specificity for breadth while also catering to multiple disciplines in a single search mechanism or schema? (comment on whether we are looking at system-based problems or human based issues. Does a high level facet approach of an integrated modeling of database solve our issues? probably not- still boils down to the user and the purpose of search.

Should be looking to NISO, ISO and W3C for guidance

The survey also found that many people performing preservation duties had no/little background or training. Small staffs would sometimes rely on volunteers or part-time staff to provide preservation services. Nicole Hayes from ICA provided links to many inexpensive or free resources for preservation information, reference and training. Here are a few of the resources highlighted:

Northeast Document Conservation Center preservation pamphlets

The Digital Print. Identification and Preservation Published by the Getty

Conserv-o-grams from the National Park Service

Ohio Preservation Council publications

Canadian Heritage 'How to Care for...'

American Institute for Conservation

Conservation Online

Northeast Document Conservation Center (Preservation leaflets)

Northeast Document Conservation Center Preservation 101

Conservation Center for Art and the Historic Artifacts "A Race Against Time"

Gerald R. Ford Conservation Center "Saving Your Treasures

Heritage Preservation

Alliance for Response

D-Plan

Classes
ICA [free]
OAHSM Regional Meetings
OPC Bi-annual Symposium
Morgan Art of Papermaking Conservatory

Kent State University, Ohio State University, Campbell Center (IL) and Rare Book School (VA)

It will be interesting to see how this content is stored, searched and presented, since many questions about collection and curation of content will likely arise. Even in the blog about the collection listed above from the Library of Congress, the category for the news is 'uncategorized', which is a good reflection of the nature of many of the Tweets to come to the LC.

SpecLab's Experiment: The Humanist, the Library, and the Digital Future of Cultural Materials and their Interpretation

What is the role of the humanist in the current migration of cultural materials into electronic form? To what extent should humanistic concepts help shape the way cultural materials are preserved, accessed, and used in this and the next generation? What might humanities’ based tools bring to the tasks and challenges faced by archivists, cataloguers, librarians, and curators? Is the interpretation of humanistic material separate from its preservation and access? This talk draws on experiences with SpecLab (and to a lesser degree, at UCLA) to examine some of the ways digital humanities projects have worked in collaboration with library personnel to model knowledge and interpretation in electronic environments and to pose some questions about the way such exchanges should and can be shaped to serve common interests.

Johanna Drucker is the inaugural Martin and Bernard Breslauer Professor of Bibliographical Studies in UCLA’s Department of Information Studies. She has held faculty positions at Columbia, Yale, University of Texas, SUNY, and was the first Robertson Professor of Media Studies at University of Virginia where she helped to found SpecLab (with Jerome McGann and Bethany Nowviskie). Her study of that project, SpecLab Digital Aesthetics and Speculative Computing, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2009.

Johanna Drucker (Martin and Bernard Breslauer Professor of Bibliographical Studies, Department of Information Studies
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

Van de Sompel mentioned some other efforts to archive previous versions of websites, such as the Internet Archive. While this site did capture websites beginning in 1996 (an early Case Western Reserve homepage from the Internet Archive), it was rather intermittent when the capture took place. Van de Sompel spoke about integrating navigation- to provide a means to combine multiple manifestations of a page (particularly news content) in a way that is easier to navigate, or in his terms 'transparent content negotiation'. There were also terms of 'time gate' and 'time map' that may sound more something out of a science fiction book, but what was really interesting about Van de Sompel's lecture was addressing not only the navigating issues of dealing with multiple versioned content, while also dealing with the display and content of the changing websites. His work on Memento addresses the attempt to correlate these diverse efforts, into a single feed and display that is capable of accounting for muliple time points. This creates a method to navigate these web pages over time, and is certainly less clunky that the Internet Archive. A demo is currently up on the Memento project site.

Related article: Memento: Time Travel for the Web