Transliteracies » Blog Archive » SNAC. Research Report by Lindsay Thomas Related Categories: Search & Data Mining Innovations | Online Knowledge Bases | Social Networking Systems Summary: The goal of the Social Networks and Archival Contexts Project (SNAC) is to rethink the ways in which primary humanities resources are described and accessed.
A collaborative project from the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia, the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley, and the California Digital Library, SNAC uses the new standard Encoded Archival Context – Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (EAC-CPF) to “unlock” the descriptions of the creators of archives from the records they have created. Description: Traditionally, archivists describe the creators of records with the description of the records themselves. Another goal is the development of a prototype access system that links descriptions of people to one another and to other resources. Research Context: Notes: The Archives Leadership Institute: The Archives Leadership Institute. The visible archive. The Political Archivist - home. AquaBrowser Library ® - Edinburgh University Library. Digitization Program Site Visit: Archives of American Art - Spellbound Blog.
The image of Alexander Calder above shows him in his studio, circa 1950.
It is from a folder titled Photographs: Calder at Work, 1927-1956, undated, part of Alexander Calder’s Papers held by the Smithsonian Archives of American Art and available online through the efforts of their digitization project. I love that this image capture him in his creative space – you get to see the happy chaos from which Calder drew his often sleek and sparse sculptures. Back in October, I had the opportunity to visit with staff of the digitization program for the Smithsonian Archives of American Art along with a group of my colleagues from the World Bank. This is a report on that site visit. It is my hope that these details can help others planning digitization projects – much as it is informing our own internal planning. Date of Visit: October 18, 2011 Destination: Smithsonian Archives of American Art Smithsonian Archives of American Art Hosts: They do not delineate separate items within folders. References: Born digital archives. BAM/PFA - Archiving the Avant-Garde.
Works of digital and Internet art, performance, installation, conceptual, and other variable media art represent some of the most compelling and significant artistic creations of our time.
These works constitute a history of alternative artistic practice, but because of their ephemeral, technical, or otherwise variable natures, they also present significant obstacles to accurate documentation, access, and preservation. Without strategies for preservation many of these vital works - and possibly whole new genres such as early Internet art - will be lost to future generations. Description of and access to art collections promote new scholarship and artistic production.
By developing ways to catalog and preserve these collections, we will both provide current and future generations the opportunity to learn from and be inspired by these works. It is to achieve these goals that we initiated the consortium project Archiving the Avant Garde: Documenting and Preserving Variable Media Art. Welcome to the Association of Moving Image Archivists. Texas Commission on the Arts: Video Conservation Guide. Exemplars focused on preserving an institution's repositories - KeepIT.
This project has now concluded and the final report is available here1 Background Our exemplar preservation repository is not one repository but many that, viewed as a whole, represent all the content types that an institutional repository might present (research papers, science data, arts, teaching materials and theses).
The problem: There are various preservation tools and services but little awareness or uptake by repositories perhaps because they are too complex and potentially costly. These activities have typically been presented to repositories as additional tasks rather than as integral to their current activities. The documentation for these tools is not typically designed for these repositories. The solution: Managers and representatives of four exemplar repositories will liaise one-on-one and in groups with a preservation specialist and developer who each have experience of both repositories and preservation and will be the bridge between the two.
KeepIT Deliverables Project Staff. Introduction to Digital Formats for Library of Congress Collections. Ohio Memory. The Urban Archives.