ALA – Tech Trends Panel

I thought it would be fun to go to the Tech Trends Panel sponsored by LITA at ALA based on the recommendation of my former professor, Meredith Farkas, who was on the panel. Some of the themes–er, trends–that came up included open access, the need for more technological space, accessibility for all, going greener, and better access for mobile devices.  I think these trends all spoke to the idea of better access to information.

I was surprised and amused that Meredith brought up a trend that I had been thinking about– finding ways to archive digital information. Earlier this month, I emailed Meredith a question about how libraries might be using technological tools to archive email and blogs, which are the technological versions of letters and diaries that archivists use to research and analyze the past. 

I was grateful that she was willing to post my question on her blog and there were several helpful responses from libraries and librarians that are addressing this issue, especially the National Library in Australia.

I have been revisiting this issue in my brain and it seems that these kinds of initiatives move so slowly in academic institutions. I work at a small academic institution, and we do not have the time or the money to invest heavily in a project like this. It seems like a project that requires a strategic plan for implementation, but I almost think that the creation of a plan would take so much time that the information we are trying to preserve will get lost or go missing.

There are so many issues and questions that need to be resolved–especially privacy, copyright, and who will have access to this information. Also, how do small institutions like mine utilize the resources that ARE available to attempt to preserve information short term until a long-term solution is found?

Another issue that I wanted to bring up is the kind of information that I know Iʻm missing in our archive. So many students these days are distance education students. Our faculty are also moving out and away from traditional teaching. I would love to find a way to document these experiences of our faculty and students in the qualitative way that would be accessible and helpful to historians. 

I care about this issue because Iʻm the only one working with our University Archives right now. We desperately need a full-time archivist, but until that happens, Iʻm it. I feel relatively inexperienced, and I want to find ways to build this archive effectively with the time that I have. I have to figure out how to do this efficiently. It seems to me that there has got to be a better or more efficient means of preserving this kind of digital information. Just like with other physical archival items, not everything needs to be collected.

Figuring out how to preserve blogs and emails, the diaries and correspondence of our time, is definitely an area ripe for collaboration. Preserving emails and blogs will be especially difficult for small libraries like mine because we do not have as many resources as big or national institutions.

So thanks, Meredith, for bringing up this topic at tech trends. Iʻm curious to see where this conversation will go. Oh, and thanks to everyone who commented on her post…I found all your comments helpful!

Archives and Blog Collection

I just finished reading Varsity Letters : Documenting Colleges and Univerisities and I realized that at my institution, we have done a poor job of collecting documents show evidence of the teaching, learning, and campus culture that takes place here. No one is really using paper to write anymore, so the level of correspondence and journal collecting has decreased. I do know that many of our faculty and students are keeping blogs, the newer Web 2.0 version of a journal. I believe that these blogs will become an important artifact for future researchers and the history of the institution.

I’m just starting to think about ways to collect and preserve this information, and there are many issues to consider. Permission from the authors is needed and then there’s the issues of long-term electronic storage and preservation, which will also impact access to this information.

I emailed a professor of mine to see what she thought and she decided to post my question on her blog! There’s already some really good responses.

I’m not ready to link there yet because I’m not sure I’m ready to jump into the discussion. I’m still testing the waters here.