Outsourcing History

On June 17, 2013, SLIS assistant professor Michael McNally and Carolee Pollock from MacEwan University appeared on Alberta Primetime to discuss Library and Archives Canada (LAC)'s recent decision to outsource its digitization project to Canadiana.ca, a private company. According to Canadiana, the project is a:

10-year initiative to digitize and make accessible online some of Canada’s most popular archival collections encompassing roughly 60 million pages of primary-source documents.

 In the wake of the decision to outsource the project, questions about access to the archival materials abound. Given that Canadiana is a for-profit business, what are the implications for Canadians who want access to the digital archives? How much validity is there in the claims that taxpayers will be paying again for something they've already paid for? Does outsourcing this project raise the possibility that the digital artifacts will only be available to those who can pay for access?

McNally and Pollock share their thoughts here.

Ancient Texts Saved from Timbuktu Library

The BBC, Time Magazine, and Wall Street Journal are reporting that though militants in Timbuktu did burn a number of texts at the Ahmed Baba Institute early last week, the majority of ancient manuscripts were saved. The destruction of the texts occurred as French and Malian forces closed in with the aim of retaking the city.

No information is thought to be lost, as all of the material burned is believed to be digitized as a result of a partnership with the University of Cape Town. Other ancient manuscripts were reportedly removed before the militants took control of the city last year. The Wall Street Journal has described how a number of texts were more recently removed from the library: history professor/acting library director, Prof. Abdoulaye Cissé , and security guard, Abba Alhadi, moved approximately 28,000 texts to safety in early January by hiding them in burlap sacks and taking them out of the city by donkey cart and boat.

More details on this story will likely become available over the course of the next week.

Archivists and the Occupy Wall Street movement

Check out this very interesting article from the Chronicle of Higher Education blog from April 3, 2012 about clashes between members of Occupy and archivists who want to document the movement.

The article opens with this line:

Howard Besser, a New York University archivist, recently got into a shouting match at an Occupy protest, making a case for why the activists should preserve records of their activities.

The article discusses how archivists have been working to document the Occupy Movement for future scholars within a community that is suspicious of formal organizations including universities and libraries. Archivists have had to come up with new ways of collecting information and documents including "distributing postcards promoting archiving at protests, developing automated systems to download photos posted online, and asking participants to vote on which images are most important for the historic record."

This is a really fascinating example of non-traditional document management and working with a community that doesn't necessarily trust traditional organizations' way of working, like the NYU library's request for a signed donor agreement that was denied by the group who did not want to tie themselves in the traditional hierarchical power system they are protesting. In response, many of the protestors are releasing images and videos under Creative Commons licenses as a way to self-document and disemminate information about the movement.

The author also mentions the dangers of self documenting and putting non-censored images up online, where both scholars and police can access them freely, and attempts to get document creators to add standardized metadata to their work.

Occupy now has an Archives Working Group of their own which you can check out through their website.

Exciting times in the world and for libraries and archives. I think this kind of archiving challenge will become more and more relevant in our current political and global information-driven world.

Securing access for the Canadian intellect... past, present, future?

There seems to be some truth in the idea that, at the present time and in the North American context, digital technology has greatly increased access to information for many.

Now I pose an immediate challenge to that goofy, sweeping declaration: will access remain secure--today, tomorrow, ten, one hundred or one thousand years from now?

One moment. We aren't talking about those fleeting moments of post-apocalyptic speculation that I have every once in a while--particularly when guilty of surrending too much autonomy/affection to an electronic gadget!

We are talking about the threat to human knowledge posed by ever-present changes in tech infrastructure, the vulnerable, transitory nature of digital information, and the challenges to preservation initiated by those who place "digital locks" on documents in the form of digital rights management software (DRM).

Surprisingly, the federal government has taken the first step to ensure that some online publications will be preserved--new regulations have been introduced by Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda. Effective January 1, 2007, these regulations create the legal and procedural process by which digital material will be deposited with Library and Archives Canada.

Michael Geist has an excellent article on this development--he discusses the details of the new regulations, how eligible online publications are defined, and the weaknesses of this new regulatory scheme.

A small, but progressive step in the larger struggle to preserve digital information so that future Canadians may think and learn and grow.

Source: Buttercup, MLIS student