Jackie Spafford & Sonja Sekely-Rowland, "Inter-agency Collaboration: Bringing together VRA and SAH preservation goals through an NEH grant-funded project"
Timing is everything: the presenters were notified of their successful application for a 2020-2022 NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Planning Grant just as the world went into lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The good news/bad news clash has presented them with a number of unforeseen challenges. This paper will provide insight into both the initial project vision as well as necessary and ongoing adjustments, and will cover:
- An overview of the project including background of the Society of Architectural Historians and its Color Film Emergency Project; the relationship to the VRA, especially the “Slide and Transitional Media Task Force”; internships and fellowships at UCR and UCSB that provided a model and proof of concept for this project.
- Grant writing lessons learned in navigating institutional research requirements and economic development policies.
- How the project goals and scope are being re-considered in response to pandemic travel restrictions and other COVID-related challenges.
- Opportunities for collaborative partnerships with other VRA members.
John Burns, "Curation of an International Documentary Film Festival" Join the presenter in this session to learn how curation of a special collection can be accomplished regardless of format. The presenter works at an institution that hosts an international documentary film festival every fall on campus. The festival has run and grow over the last 10+ years. By taking the initiative to join a campus committee in charge of the festival, the presenter (a solo art and electronic resources librarian) ensured the acquisition of the films from each festival. Curating this collection from scratch meant volunteering to learn how to create DVD and Blu-Ray discs from filmmaker digital files, gathering all metadata for cataloging, preserving the digital film files, and created access to a new collection. It also meant leading the coordination of several key players across campus. Curation of any collection from scratch is no small task. Answers to the following questions and more will be discussed in the session. What format will yield the most use? HD vs. standard definition? How to preserve the digital film files? How to work with copyright releases? How to best facilitate discovery? What are the best practices for essential metadata for cataloging?
Krystyna Matusiak, "Building a Community Digital Archive in the Post-Custodial World" Community archives are vital for preserving and documenting the regional heritage of groups and individuals. Local archives are often organized by volunteers and represent grassroots activities. In contrast to institutional archives, community archives are characterized by mixed acquisition and curation practices, often described as post-custodial, that separate physical custody from the digital representation. In this approach, original materials are returned to community members after digital surrogates are created. This presentation will discuss the formation of a rural community archive in Park County, Colorado, and the collaborative project aimed at sustaining it. The Park County Local History Archive was established by a group of volunteers who collected and digitized over 4,000 photographs and created 60 oral histories. This effort resulted in an archive composed of a mix of original photographs, digital surrogates, and born-digital content. The archive provides unique primary sources for researchers interested in the history of mining and railroads, or the challenges of rural life in the mountainous region. The presenters will describe the community-based project and efforts made to continue the work of volunteers. This collaborative initiative involves re-digitizing the original photographs, converting oral histories, assessing copyright, assigning standardized rights statements from RightsStatements.org, and building a digital archive and exhibits in Omeka. The Digital Archive is available at https://pclha.cvlcollections.org/ . This presentation will discuss the challenges of post-custodial practices and building a digital community archive, including re-scanning, evaluating the copyright status of historical materials, and working with digital donations. It will describe the strategies of working with a remote archive during the pandemic.
