Technological Shortcomings and Difficulties with Digital Archives

 By Talia Hofacker

A project is often limited by what it can accomplish technologically. Different projects encounter different shortcomings and are sometimes forced to compromise between the original plan and what is technologically feasible. Challenges with technology can be brought about through different types of media, budget, location as well as the target audience of a project. Two projects, the Aluka Project and the CSS Alabama Project, faced technological problems and either overcame them or were forced to compromise their original plan.

The Aluka Project’s goal was to protect records and histories, both oral and textual, related to the African Liberation Struggles. Rather than a specific archive focusing on their own collection, the Aluka Project is a group of concerned individuals and scholars that seek to preserve Africa’s history during this time frame and work with the cooperation of many different archives and museums in Africa towards this goal. The largest technological problems with this project were that many of the archives did not have their own digitization technology and the assurance that the end result of the project would be able to be distributed in Africa. The project determined that for many of the institutions involved in the project, the best option would be to provide the digitization equipment to them as well as the training required to make sure that the digitized data is compatible. 

For the CSS Alabama Project, they struggled with optical character recognition (OCR) technology that they were planning to use to digitize their monographs. Unfortunately, both low-end and high-end OCR software failed to sufficiently recognize the characters to create digital full text files. Because of this software failure, text from these monographs would have to be typed up which drastically decreased the amount of monographs able to be digitized. It is hoped that eventually a different type of recognition can be used in the future to digitize these works.

The Aluka Project and the CSS Alabama Project both ran into technical issues through the course of their digitization. The Aluka Project chose to solve their problem by offering the technology and training to the onsite archivists and staff while the CSS Alabama project was forced to compromise some of their digitization goals because of technology failure. When dealing with technology it is often the case that things do not always work out the way it was planned.

Sources: 

Isaacman, A., Lalu, P., & Nygren, T. (2005). Digitization, history, and the making of a postcolonial archive of southern african liberation struggles: the aluka project. Africa Today, 52(2), 55-77.

Watson, A., & Graham, P. Toby. (1998). Css alabama digital collection: a special collections digitization project. The American Archivist, 61(1), 124-134.

The Creation of the Digital Archive

 By Talia Hofacker

The process of creating digitized records is often fraught with challenges and problems that are unique to each collection. The best way to combat this is to start out with a clear set of goals and a plan to accomplish these goals. The CSS Alabama Project done by the Hoole Special Collections Library did exactly this and was able to produce an effective learning tool that included a variety of data represented in an interactive and pleasing way in a digital environment. 

The CSS Alabama project was created with the ultimate goal to give access to a selection of the Hoole Library’s materials related to the CSS Alabama, a famous Confederate raider, and also with a secondary goal to explore the current technology and be a “learning experience for staff in the digital imaging of special collections materials.” (Watson, & Graham, 1998, p. 125) In order to meet these goals this project had to identify what would be processed, how it would be processed and just who the target audience would be. Without these parameters the project would no doubt be too broad and would not be able to be completed successfully.

This particular collection was chosen because of the great demand that scholars and students had for it. It was clear from examining the reference records and requests that it was a popular collection and would reach a broad range of people. It also contained varied types of material that would challenge the technological aspects of the project, including unique and rare documents, monographs and photographs, all of which were of interest to various scholars, hobbyists and students ranging from grade school to college. As the secondary goal of the project as a technical learning experience for the staff of the library, it was important to include a diverse range of material that were unique to this collection.

By declaring a specific set of goals for the creation of their digital archive, the planners of the CSS Alabama Project were able to successfully recreate one of their more sought after collections on the internet. Doing this enabled people from around the world to view parts of the collection.

Source:

Watson, A., & Graham, P. Toby. (1998). Css alabama digital collection: a special collections digitization project. The American Archivist, 61(1), 124-134.

Archiving for Everyone

Archiving for Everyone in Four Easy Steps

By Angelique Slater

Anyone can archive their family information in a way that will last a very long time.  Personal archiving has become a popular way to preserve family history. Often, it is not easy to decide what should be saved and what should not.  The Library of Congress has come up with four steps for a person to follow to archive their documents.  The following are the steps offered by the Library of Congress:

1.       Identify what you want to save

2.       Decide what is most important to you

3.       Organize the content

4.       Save copies in different places[i]

There are some people that think that self archiving is not needed because most of our lives are online, so it will be preserved somewhere. That is not actually true. Yes, some data might be saved somewhere but all of your information might not be saved, so it is be better to archive your information yourself instead of relying on another way.  Creating a storage place for your data can be difficult but thinking that offsite storage is the best place is not necessarily the way to go. A home desk top computer with a separate hard drive for archival storage is one of the better options for a home archivist[ii]. That way all of the digital media you have made and collected are in one spot, not multiple locations and you can find what you are looking for.     

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[i] Library of Congress Why Digital Preservation is Important to You (June 2010) http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/videos/personal_archiving/personal-archiving_transcript.pdf

[ii] Marshall, Catherine. Rethinking Personal Digital Archiving Part 2(March/April 2008) D-Lib Magazine Vol.14 No. 3-4 http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march08/marshall/03marshall-pt2.html

Digitization for the visually impaired

Digitization for the visually impaired: accessibility in archives for the new generation

By Camille Chidsey

As future librarians, we hold accountability towards our clients and their needs. Not every patron who walks into the library will be able to view and browse collections without visual impairments, and accommodations have to be met for them.

With the introduction of the Internet Archive, librarian Brewster Kahle, doubled the number of print books for blind and dyslexic patrons with the aid of DAISY, otherwise known as Digital Accessible Information System, a means of creating “talking books” that can be downloaded to handheld devices (Steinberg, 2010, p.1). “Unlike books on tape, the digital format makes it easier for print-disabled people to navigate books because they can speed up, slow down and skip around from chapter to chapter” (Steinberg, 2010 p.1).

However, while influential organizations like the National Federation for the Blind and the Helen Keller Archives have made leaps and bounds regarding what can be done for the digitization of archives, processes of recording and retrieving data still have a long way to go to be fully effective for all patrons. Even with text readers, and talking books and newspapers becoming more common, using the internet is a whole other ballgame entirely for patrons with visual impairments. As one blind user put it while trying to use a text reader to interpret the internet,

"When blind people use the Internet and come across unfriendly sites, we aren't surfing, we are crawling ... Imagine hearing pages that say, 'Welcome to ... [image]' This is the home of ... [image].' 'Link, link, link.' It is like trying to use Netscape with your monitor off and your mouse unplugged. See how far you'll get" (Waddell, 1998, p. 1).

It stands to reason that digitization processes have a long way to go. Universal design in archives can only be as good as all archival documents, and as print documentation is not the only form, web databases need to be accessible for everyone as well. We need this to keep an informed population and protect basic rights of access to information for all.

References Cited

Steinberg, Stephanie. (2010, July 13). Millions of Books Get Digitized for the Disabled.

            USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-07-

            14-InternetArchive14_st_N.htm.

Waddell, Cynthia D (1998). Applying the ADA to the Internet: A Web Accessibility

            Standard. Retrieved from

            http://membrane.com/security/java_and_cookies/notes/ADA.html.

Obsolescence of Digital Formats

                In 1995, Jeff Rothenberg published an article explaining the difficulties surrounding the use of digital media in the future, and the potential loss of data.  Rothenberg cites the near loss of several groups of data, including the 1960 U.S. Census data and the P.O.W. and M.I.A. records for the Vietnam War era as examples of the danger of format obsolescence in record keeping (p. 42).

                According to Rothenberg, the threat to digital documents is threefold.  Digital media, particularly magnetic media, is fragile.  Data on discs can be altered by magnetic fields (p. 42).  Hardware, such as disk drives, becomes obsolete quickly.  Attempting to maintain old technologies is futile (p. 47).  Interpretation of data on a medium requires the appropriate programs and software (p. 43).

                There is the option of translating data to new formats.  However, Rothenberg asserts that changes in formats have the potential to change or lost data (p. 45).

                In his 2010 article, David Rosenthal suggests that format obsolescence is not quite the problem Rothenberg made it out to be fifteen years ago.  Rather than a natural evolution, incompatibility is a “result of deliberate decisions by software developers”.  Maturing markets and the web have stopped format obsolescence (section Format obsolescence, para. 2).  Rather than worrying about reformatting digital documents multiple times, Rosenthal recommends three principles to deal digital documentation.

1.       Store only essential data.

2.       Perform only essential tasks.

3.       Delay performing tasks as long as possible. (section Alternate model, para. 2)

The final principle should be heavily considered by any archivist planning on digitizing a collection.  First, delaying tasks reduces costs as the cost of technology historically drops overtime.  Second, the quality of technology increases overtime (section Delay tasks as long as possible, para. 2).  Waiting to perform tasks also allows the maturing market to stabilize, making it easier to estimate the permanency of a format.

Works Cited

Rosenthal, David S.H. (2010). Format obsolescence: assessing the threat and the defenses. Library Hi Tech, 28(2), 195-210. Retrieved from Emerald database.

Rothenberg, Jeff (1995). Ensuring the longevity of digital documents. Scientific American, 272(1), 42-47.

Lauren Zemaitis

The Intrinsic Value of Archival Materials

                For archives losing precious space to ever increasing collections, digitization may seem like a great solution.  However, some may be concerned about what digitization means for preservationists and conservationists.  Many professionals in the field argue that intrinsic value make preservation and conservation of documents and artifacts necessary.  Hunter (2003) describes records as having “intrinsic value” whey they “have physical qualities that make the original form of the records the only acceptable one in archival terms” (p.67).

                Menne-Haritz and Brübach (2000) argue that in some instances, the research value of an object or document can be lost with digitization.  Often the physical context of a text offers important information relating to a message.  “The loss of the physical contexts, and therefore the aid they give in interpreting and understanding a text, as can happen when texts are digitalized, makes their importance particularly clear” (p. 80).

                With digitalizing texts, there is also the threat of changes to a text, unintentional or otherwise.  “Authenticity is not attainable in electronic, digital representations” (Menne-Harwitz & Brübach, 2003, p. 81).  The original is necessary to verify what is within a digital representation.

                Therefore, we must recognize the importance of original documents and their preservation despite digitalization.  Original documents serve to put texts within its historical context and authenticate that text.  These two things cannot be done with electronic medium.  While digital forms may serve as a supplemental reference when the original document is not readily available, they cannot replace the value within the original forms.

Works Cited

Hunter, G. (2003). Developing and maintaining practical archives. New York: Neal-Schuman.

Menne-Haritz, A., & Brübach, N. (2000). The intrinsic value of archive and library material.

                  Microform & Imaging Review, 29(3), 79-95.

Lauren Zemaitis

The Other Side of Digitization

The Other Side of Digitization

by Angelique Slater

In the field of archives, the idea of digitization, putting collections online, is believed to be the best way to keep archives relevant today and in the future. Though there are still people out there who believe that if archives digitize their collections, they will lose access to those collections over time as the media it is saved in/to deteriorates[i]. These people believe that since technology is always changing that putting collections into digitized formats will only cause problems because technology costs money and to re-digitize a collection is just a waste of money.

The cost is a huge factor for archives, especially now with the massive budget cuts and the loss of staff. This loss of staff is challenging for archives because it often takes more than one person to digitize a collection, depending on the size of the collection. The issue of deterioration is another big issue for archives not only for cost reasons, but for format reasons. If the wrong format is chosen or becomes obsolete, the money that the archives put into that technology is wasted and the data that was saved could also be lost because of obsolescence.

A perfect example of data being lost to deterioration is in the field of audiovisual media. Film as we know can last for hundreds of years as long as it is in dry storage, but information that is on magnetic media can only last for a few decades even in the most ideal conditions[ii]. Many archives have to preserve these collections with digitization methods, but can only afford to make an access copy of the media by cd/dvd or on a hard drive. This in turn leads to another problem; the copy that is made can then become obsolete or no longer be able to be accessed.

It is a constant circle that many in the archival field go though, to digitalize the collections so it can be used by many, or play it safe and keep with the old format with only a few items being digitized? It is a hard call to make and with the economy the way it is and cuts always looming what way would you go?

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[i] Wood, Lamont, August 2010, page 1 http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9181658/Fending_off_the_digital_dark_ages_The_archival_storage_issue?taxonomyId=19&pageNumber=1

[ii] Van Bogar, John W.C. Dr., 1995, http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub54/

Digitalization for the future? 

By Camille Chidsey 

In an era of smartphones and PDA’s, humans document their lives with the press of a button, and often in simple, transitory ways. In recent years, the digitalization of archives has increased on a large scale, the preservation of records of past societies consequently deemed more important. However, with changes in technology and human user interaction, there is an increasing trend for archival records to no longer be reliant on print documentation. Amidst a wave of instant documentation, are cell phone records and instant messaging conversations just as vital to preserve? What exactly are we “saving”? Are archivists digitalizing “too much” and at what cost?” 

In the wake of international and national political and human rights crises, cell phone usage has become a medium for both protection and reassurance. One of the most obvious of these examples is the cell phone calls that generated from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. 

In Michelle Caswell’s article, “Instant Documentation: Cell Phone Generated Records in the Archives,” she describes various scenarios of people who phoned home alerting loved ones about the planes descent, sending last words of love or hope. While many knew their lives were ending, the real time occurrences of their words conveyed sincere, heartfelt emotions at a critical moment in United States history.

The necessity of protecting audio recordings became a focal point in what once began to assemble part of the 9/11 Digital Archive, a collection of:

            “130,000 written accounts, e-mails, audio recordings, video clips, photographs, Web sites and other materials [that] document the attacks on New York City, Washington, D.C., and western Pennsylvania and their aftermath. These materials offer a wide spectrum of opinions and perspectives, ranging from recordings of Manhattan residents' voice mails on the morning of September 11 to drawings by children from Los Angeles depicting the attacks. It is the largest digital collection of September 11-related materials in the United States, and it also serves as the Smithsonian Institution's designated repository for digital objects related o the attacks” (Grotke, 2003, p. 251).

While digitalization of the tragedy became critical for all aspects, it was the audios installation recordings that began to garner more attention, and with that the Sonic Memorial Project was born. Backed up by NPR’s program Lost & Found Sound, lost recordings from September 11^th are being recorded into a digital archive retelling the history of the World Trade Center. 

Similar to Presidential speeches that have been recorded, were not these events similar in their tone and influence? While ephemeral in nature, they no less doubt the authenticity of an important historical event. I can no less imagine that while similar circumstances might not have occurred, the value of some of the Smartphone and cellphone conversations that were elicited from Hurricane Katrina and United Airlines Flight 93 victims would no less have prompted similar weight, and an even bigger drive to safeguard the recordings. 

At the same time, while these new media devices are potentially useful sources of information, archivists have to be careful about whom the source is. There is always the question of authenticity and unlike books, newspapers, etc, the person speaking or the video coverage may not be documented or be not adequately described. It is definitely risky to not only preserve and pass on these sources of information but digitize them as well, ensuring that they will be uploaded into a database forever. 

References Cited 

Caswell, Michelle (2009). Instant Documentation: Cell Phone Generated Records in the Archives. The American Archivist, V. 72 (No. 1) p. 133-145. 

Grotke, Abigail (October 2003). September 11 as History: Symposium Marks the Acquisition of 9/11 Archives. Library of Congress Information Bulletin V. 62 (No. 10), p. 250-2.  

The Importance of Digitizing Sound

The Importance of Digitizing Sound

by Sarah Galloway, MLIS Candidate

            In the Archival world, there is debate about whether or not digitizing archival records is necessary, cost-effective, or time-worthy. Although there is no clear-cut answer to those concerns for most archival objects, there is one particular type of archival media that is in desperate need of digitization: old sound recordings.

            In the past, sound has been recorded on records, reel-to-reel, and audio cassette tapes. Although the records are doing okay, any sound that has been recorded on any type of tape is being lost. Reel-to-reels are disintegrating and cassette tapes are becoming brittle, cracked or dented. Old tapes of everything from operas to presidential speeches are being lost to future listeners.

            Dr. Arthur Beer from the University of Detroit Mercy states that "[i]t is becoming more important by the day to digitize reel-to-reels...mainly because the younger generation does not even know how to use the machine, and might further damage the records if used improperly." He feels that if we cannot get this particular media digitized within the next two to three years, they will be lost forever, either due to disintegration or lack of knowledge of the machines from the users.

            Another problem with reel-to-reel media is that if a reel-to-reel breaks, it is extremely expensive to fix, or to buy a new one. Tim Lentz from the Detroit Opera House Archives says that their reel-to-reel is on the fritz, and they cannot even find one to replace theirs in the United States, and the one they found in Canada is entirely out of their price range.  "This is concerning" is what he said. He knows the longer they wait, the more damage will be done to their recordings, so they are trying very hard to find a machine that can work for their purposes.

            The Archival world may be divided on many practicing issues, but the one thing they do agree on is that we need to maintain our sound recordings, or lose them forever.