Challenging Models of Digitization and Access

Challenging Models of Digitization and Access
March 20th, 2017, 10am-12pm (PDT)
IDRE Visualization Portal, 5628 Math Sciences Building

This seminar challenges traditional notions and models of how we digitize and make materials accessible. The argument is that there is a strong focus on digitizing cultural heritage in standardized, generic ways and on making this material available through ‘access’. Typically, digitization processes are very costly and much less attention and resources are invested into tools and agile processes.

Questions raised in the seminar include: How do we create models that treat data as inherently inflected and biased, accommodate and encourage different perspectives and modes of interpretation and inquiry that are not best (or only) expressed in terms of ‘access’, manages materials that are not normally part of traditional archives (such as ephemeral materials), and support community-based archives and memory making?

Invited Participants:

Michelle Caswell [web], Assistant Professor of Archival Studies, UCLA

Megan Prelinger [web], Cultural Historian and Archivist, Prelinger Library

Pelle Snickars [web], Professor of Media and Communication Studies with a specialization in Digital Humanities, Umeå University

Will be updated.

Materials:

Caswell, Michelle. 2016. “‘The Archive’ is Not An Archives: Acknowledging the Intellectual Contributions of Archival Studies”, Reconstruction Vol. 16, No. 1.

Prelinger, Megan Shaw 2005. “To Build a Library” Bad Subjects 73 (April 2005).

Prelinger, Megan Shaw. “On the Organization of the Prelinger Library”.

Robertson, Tara. 2016. “digitization: just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. http://tararobertson.ca/.

Robertson, Tara. 2016. “update on On Our Backs and Reveal Digital”. http://tararobertson.ca/.

Snickars, Pelle.2015. ”Remarks on a failed film archival project”, Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2015.

Will be updated.

The seminar series is supported by the Division of Humanities and the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, UCLA.

Contact person: Patrik Svensson, Visiting Professor of Digital Humanities, UCLA and Professor of Humanities and Information Technology, Umeå University.