This just about beats the record for tardy posting, but below you'll find the slides from my Society of American Archivists presentation, which was part of Session 101, "Skeletons in the Closet: Addressing Privacy and Confidentiality Issues for Born-Digital Materials." In it, I outline the current climate in which government archives operate, discuss how my repository responded to two sweeping freedom of information requests, and detail some of the lessons we learned as a result of these experiences.
Personal Privacy and Freedom of Information in the Digital Age: Challenges and Strategies for Government A...
I'll have a post concerning session 705,"Theft Transparency in the Digital Age: Stakeholder Perspectives," up later this weekend.
Showing posts with label SAA 2011. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SAA 2011. Show all posts
Friday, September 16, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Practical Approaches to Born-Digital Records: Archivematica
Archivists mingle around a full-sized skeleton cast of Sue, the largest, most complete, and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever discovered, during a Society of American Archivists reception at the Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois, 26 August 2011. Sue is 42 feet (12.8 m) long and 12 feet (3.66 m) high at the hip.
I’ve always feared getting sick at the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists, and yesterday it happened. I stayed in bed and missed all of yesterday’s sessions and a section meeting. I somehow dragged myself to the last few minutes of evening reception at the Field Museum, but I felt quite like Sue, the magnificent T. rex who presided over the festivities: an empty-headed and mildly scary-looking dead thing.
I was still a bit shaky today, and I managed to miss all of this morning’s first session and part of Session 610, Practical Approaches to Born-Digital Records: What’s Coming Next, which focused on Archivematica. Archivematica is a digital preservation platform that brings together a wide array of open source anti-virus, metadata extraction, file conversion, and other tools and supports automated processing of archival electronic records. We’ve just started experimenting with Archivematica, and I really wanted to hear about other archivists’ experiences with it.
I didn’t get to hear Peter Van Garderen of Artefactual Systems discuss Archivematica’s development or plans for future enhancements and came in as Glenn Dingwall (City of Vancouver Archives) was wrapping up his presentation.
In lieu of recapping the presentations of Paul Jordan (International Monetary Fund) and Angela Jordan (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) or summarizing the question-and-answer component of this session, I’m simply going to highlight the most interesting points that arose during its second half. I think that Archivematica holds great promise, and many of the presenters and audience members were of the same opinion, so don’t let this post deter you from investigating it yourself. However, you should keep in mind that Archivematica:
- Is not a complete digital preservation system. It creates Archival Information Packages (AIPs) that can be preserved over the long term, but it doesn’t provide for storage of these AIPs.
- Is designed with scalability in mind. It can be run on a desktop in a small repository or on a very large server array. From a technical point of view, the chief bottlenecks limiting large-scale implementations are processing speed and capacity and limits on the time of staff needed to obtain intellectual control over the materials.
- Will be of particular interest to small repositories; however, not all of them will be able to meet the platform’s hardware requirements or acquire the requisite technical knowledge.
- Requires some degree of technical know-how and quite a bit of willingness to get one’s hands dirty. Archivematica requires a real or virtual Linux environment. Most archivists aren’t familiar with Linux and must be willing to learn. Moreover, the installation process isn’t as straightforward as it could be. Fortunately, Michael Bennett has written really useful installation instructions and Angela Jordan has posted about her experience; FWIW, I’ve also posted about our own installation experience.
- May require customization. For example, the International Monetary Fund will have to do figure out how to keep classified documents that should be included in AIPs out of the Dissemination Information Packages that Archivematica creates.
- Requires some additional development. (Given that it has yet to reach the beta stage of development, this need isn't surprising.) Session participants articulated several desired improvements that would give archivists the ability to specify which preservation/normalization formats will be employed, enable them to reinsert or otherwise deal with files or folders that Archivematica rejects, and shed light upon why the ingest process sometimes stalls. Participants also wanted to see Archivematica support creation of Submission Information Packages, improve processing of e-mail, and integrate records management.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Leather Archives and Museum
It's been a long day. I presented this morning, and ran the Government Records Section meeting this afternoon. I'm still trying to process everything that happened, so this post focuses on a repository tour that I took yesterday.
The Leather Museum and Archives, which is located in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood, is a library, museum, and archives that collects materials documenting leather, fetishism, sadomasochism, and alternative sexual practices. Its collections document people of all genders and sexual orientations, and its scope is global. (Despite the impression left by the image above--yesterday was fiercely sunny--its building has four walls.)
I decided to go on this tour because I was deeply impressed by the presentation that Leather Archives and Museum executive director, Rick Storer, gave at the 2007 meeting of the Society of American Archivists' Lesbian and Gay Archives Roundtable. The Leather Archives and Museum was established because mainstream archival institutions weren't interested in documenting the history of the leather community, and its ongoing ties to the community are essential to its survival. At the same time, it has a small but dedicated and inventive professional staff who have successfully secured several grants and attracted volunteers and interns. It's a really good example of how to launch and sustain a small archival program and how to fill gaps in the documentary record.
The Leather Archives and Museum library, which also serves as its archival reading room, contains books, scholarly publications, and other published materials. Its pulp fiction collection, which can be seen in the above photograph, is particularly comprehensive. It also has a sizable magazine collection, but most of the titles have ceased publication: the types of information that they once contained is now disseminated via the Internet, and, like many other smaller organizations, the Leather Archives and Museum is not in a position to capture Web content or manage large quantities of digital files.
Neither the Library of Congress nor the Dewey Decimal classification systems work particularly well with the library's holdings, and as a result staff devised an in-house cataloging schema for the materials. For example, all of the "BDSM--How to and Informational" materials are grouped together . . . right under a "Read" poster featuring a member of the Chicago leather community.
It's not possible to check out library materials, but the Leather Archives and Museum will lend materials via Inter-Library Loan; to date, almost all ILL requests have come from academic institutions.
Archival collections, which are housed in a secure, climate-controlled 1, 425 cu. ft. room, include personal papers of people involved in the leather or other communities, records of leather and other organizations (the records of the Chicago Hellfire Club are visible above), and other materials; as is often the case with records of small groups, the organizational records are sometimes maintained by multiple individuals and may be transferred to the archives somewhat haphazardly. The archives also includes a sizeable vertical file documenting leather and other alternative sexuality bars and other venues throughout the United States and the rest of the world.
The museum collection contains a wide array of original erotic art and artifacts, some of which are on display in a small auditorium or in one of several exhibit halls. They document many different communities of alternative sexuality. The list of rules above was originally posed in the Mineshaft, the legendary Greenwich Village sex club that New York City health officials shut down in 1985.
This exhibit panel chronicles the emergence of the deaf leather community.
The newly created A Room of Her Own exhibit focuses on the women's leather community. Rick Storer noted that individual women and women's leather organizations have been far less forthcoming about donating materials than their male counterparts, and as a result the Leather Museum and Archives is proactively reaching out to them.
If you look closely at the above photograph, you'll note that I obliterated, none too skillfully, a few of the details in a couple of pieces of artwork depicted in it. I realize that some of my tens of readers visit this blog during the workday, and I try very hard to keep l'Archivista safe for just about everyone's workplace. My self-imposed obligation to do this highlights precisely why repositories such as the Leather Archives and Museum are so important. As one of the other tour participants noted, mainstream repositories -- particularly those that receive public funds -- are often reluctant to accept archival collections that contain any sort of erotic or sexual content. Sexuality is nonetheless an important aspect of the human experience, and if we are serious about ensuring that the documentary record is comprehensive, we need to preserve and provide access to materials that document individual sexual identity and behavior and the emergence and evolution of sexual communities. Community-based archives such as the Leather Archives and Museum are showing the rest of us how to do so.
The Leather Museum and Archives, which is located in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood, is a library, museum, and archives that collects materials documenting leather, fetishism, sadomasochism, and alternative sexual practices. Its collections document people of all genders and sexual orientations, and its scope is global. (Despite the impression left by the image above--yesterday was fiercely sunny--its building has four walls.)
I decided to go on this tour because I was deeply impressed by the presentation that Leather Archives and Museum executive director, Rick Storer, gave at the 2007 meeting of the Society of American Archivists' Lesbian and Gay Archives Roundtable. The Leather Archives and Museum was established because mainstream archival institutions weren't interested in documenting the history of the leather community, and its ongoing ties to the community are essential to its survival. At the same time, it has a small but dedicated and inventive professional staff who have successfully secured several grants and attracted volunteers and interns. It's a really good example of how to launch and sustain a small archival program and how to fill gaps in the documentary record.
The Leather Archives and Museum library, which also serves as its archival reading room, contains books, scholarly publications, and other published materials. Its pulp fiction collection, which can be seen in the above photograph, is particularly comprehensive. It also has a sizable magazine collection, but most of the titles have ceased publication: the types of information that they once contained is now disseminated via the Internet, and, like many other smaller organizations, the Leather Archives and Museum is not in a position to capture Web content or manage large quantities of digital files.
Neither the Library of Congress nor the Dewey Decimal classification systems work particularly well with the library's holdings, and as a result staff devised an in-house cataloging schema for the materials. For example, all of the "BDSM--How to and Informational" materials are grouped together . . . right under a "Read" poster featuring a member of the Chicago leather community.
It's not possible to check out library materials, but the Leather Archives and Museum will lend materials via Inter-Library Loan; to date, almost all ILL requests have come from academic institutions.
Archival collections, which are housed in a secure, climate-controlled 1, 425 cu. ft. room, include personal papers of people involved in the leather or other communities, records of leather and other organizations (the records of the Chicago Hellfire Club are visible above), and other materials; as is often the case with records of small groups, the organizational records are sometimes maintained by multiple individuals and may be transferred to the archives somewhat haphazardly. The archives also includes a sizeable vertical file documenting leather and other alternative sexuality bars and other venues throughout the United States and the rest of the world.
The museum collection contains a wide array of original erotic art and artifacts, some of which are on display in a small auditorium or in one of several exhibit halls. They document many different communities of alternative sexuality. The list of rules above was originally posed in the Mineshaft, the legendary Greenwich Village sex club that New York City health officials shut down in 1985.
This exhibit panel chronicles the emergence of the deaf leather community.
The newly created A Room of Her Own exhibit focuses on the women's leather community. Rick Storer noted that individual women and women's leather organizations have been far less forthcoming about donating materials than their male counterparts, and as a result the Leather Museum and Archives is proactively reaching out to them.
If you look closely at the above photograph, you'll note that I obliterated, none too skillfully, a few of the details in a couple of pieces of artwork depicted in it. I realize that some of my tens of readers visit this blog during the workday, and I try very hard to keep l'Archivista safe for just about everyone's workplace. My self-imposed obligation to do this highlights precisely why repositories such as the Leather Archives and Museum are so important. As one of the other tour participants noted, mainstream repositories -- particularly those that receive public funds -- are often reluctant to accept archival collections that contain any sort of erotic or sexual content. Sexuality is nonetheless an important aspect of the human experience, and if we are serious about ensuring that the documentary record is comprehensive, we need to preserve and provide access to materials that document individual sexual identity and behavior and the emergence and evolution of sexual communities. Community-based archives such as the Leather Archives and Museum are showing the rest of us how to do so.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Help support diversity in the archival profession
Remember the Spontaneous Scholarships that Kate Theimer over at ArchivesNext started? Well, 94 generous people stepped up to the plate, and 26 happy archivists will have their Society of American Archivists (SAA) Annual Meeting registration fees covered as a result.My esteemed colleague Terry Baxter over at Beaver Archivist has come up with an equally innovative way to direct donations to SAA's Mosaic Scholarship, which provides financial and mentoring support to minority students enrolled in graduate archival education programs: if SAA receives $1000 in Mosaic Scholarship contributions by 26 August, Terry will, with the help of select donors, shave off his luxuriant beard.
As Terry explains on Beaver Archivist, the more you give, the more you get:
I know times are pretty tough these days, but if you're in a position to do so, please help support this beautiful coming together of archives, diversity, and tonsorial practice. Make a donation to the Mosaic Scholarship via the SAA Web site or mail a check (be sure to note that you're donating to the Beaver Archivist's Mosaic campaign!) to SAA at 17 North State Street, Suite 1425, Chicago, IL 60602-4061.
- $any amount – listing on [Beaver Archivist] as a supporter of a more diverse archival profession
- $25 – all of the above, and your choice from Terry’s Bag o’ Ephemera; come see me and I’ll hook you up. If you’re not at SAA Chicago, send me an email at terryx66 [at] tmail.com and an address and I’ll mail you my choice. Shipping and handling included!
- $50 – all of the above and a picture of you, with the Beaver Archivist, on a special Facebook album dedicated just to diversity superstars. You can even hold the SAA chico bag if you want. If you’re not in Chicago, email me a head shot. I’ll photoshop something up.
- $100 – all of the above and snip the beard! You get a pair off scissors and the opportunity for mayhem. Who can resist that? Must be present or willing to authorize proxy snipper.
- $500 – all of the above and party with the Beav! An all expense paid weekend (transportation not included!) at the Beaver Den. Explore Portland’s food carts and microbrews. Take in a show. Sit on the fire escape while enjoying a tasty adult beverage and watching the lights of Portland. All on the Beaver Archivist’s dime. Tail-slapping optional.
Union label, Associated Master Barbers of America, 1938. Image courtesy of the New York State Archives. New York (State). Dept. of State. Union Label Registration Application Files, ca. 1901-1943. Series 12979-79, Box 3, Folder 9, No. 148.
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