Post 1: The Digital Humanities: A Primer for Students and Scholars
Although much of Eileen Gardiner and Ronald G. Musto's The Digital Humanities: A Primer for Students and Scholars is relevant to my work as an archivist, I was particularly interested in Chapters 5 and 6 on Digital Tools and Digital Environments.
Gardiner and Musto begin by discussing the traditional "tools of the humanists": "books, speeches, and letters" (67). These manuscript materials, together with other forms of paper-based record keeping, make up the the majority of archival collections, which Gardiner and Musto call "the public aggregations that humanists use" (67). I could write a whole blog post on how much I appreciate and plan to adopt this pithy summation of the vital work of archives when describing what I do and why it is important. However, for the purposes of this class, I will focus instead on Gardiner and Musto's description of digital scholarly environments, and how these digital environments create challenges and opportunities in my field.
How important is it to preserve the digital environments in which records were created? This question has both pragmatic and philosophical angles. Gardiner and Musto ask whether the computers that modern scholars use are tools or environments, and if they should be considered a "portal into the entire digital realm, which acts upon the humanist as much or more than she acts upon it" (69). Logistically, it can be important for archivists seeking to preserve born-digital files to preserve outdated access systems and software that are necessary to access born-digital content. This is particularly challenging when records have been created using arcane, expensive, proprietary software that is highly field-specific.
Beyond the basic ability to access files at all, the preservation of digital environments can be critical in maintaining the archival concept of "original order," which is a key consideration for archivists when arranging records. Whether digital or paper-based, archivists always seek to retain as much of records' context and organizational order as possible.
In a famous example, Emory University has attempted to preserve the digital environment that Salman Rushdie worked in while writing several of his major works by setting up a computer workstation that emulates Rushdie's Macintosh Performa 5400 computer (http://rose.library.emory.edu/documents/digital-archives/rushdie-help-sheet.pdf). In this instance, Emory sought not only to preserve Rushdie's system of files and folders, but also the environment that he worked in. It remains to be seen whether future researchers will determine that there were specific aspects of Rushdie's Macintosh Performa 5400 that directly impacted his work, or whether it matters as little as preserving the original desk that Thomas Jefferson sat at while drafting the Declaration of Independence. Such a desk, if it exists, may serve as a symbolic totem, but likely does not bear much relevance when studying Jefferson's writing process.
The preservation of digital environments can be important not only for original records, but also for the preservation of scholarly Digital Humanities products that have been created in order to analyze original records. For example, I am excited to be working with Holly Baker this semester to preserve podcasts that she recorded with participants in an annual academic conference that honors the legacy of writer Zora Neale Hurston. In this situation, the audio files and associated text-based files, such as release forms and the conference program, should suffice for documentation.
However, in my previous position, we faced a significant challenge when attempting to preserve an online exhibit on school integration that had been created using our archival collections, when the college was updating to a new website system. The college web team was loath to retain a website that looked very outdated when compared to the new website format, and the exhibit itself used technology that was no longer available, so several components led to broken links or were non-functioning. Ultimately, the college made the decision to remove access to this resource, despite the fact that it still contained useful information, because there was no way to maintain the original digital environment that the exhibit had been created in.
Gardiner and Musto begin by discussing the traditional "tools of the humanists": "books, speeches, and letters" (67). These manuscript materials, together with other forms of paper-based record keeping, make up the the majority of archival collections, which Gardiner and Musto call "the public aggregations that humanists use" (67). I could write a whole blog post on how much I appreciate and plan to adopt this pithy summation of the vital work of archives when describing what I do and why it is important. However, for the purposes of this class, I will focus instead on Gardiner and Musto's description of digital scholarly environments, and how these digital environments create challenges and opportunities in my field.
How important is it to preserve the digital environments in which records were created? This question has both pragmatic and philosophical angles. Gardiner and Musto ask whether the computers that modern scholars use are tools or environments, and if they should be considered a "portal into the entire digital realm, which acts upon the humanist as much or more than she acts upon it" (69). Logistically, it can be important for archivists seeking to preserve born-digital files to preserve outdated access systems and software that are necessary to access born-digital content. This is particularly challenging when records have been created using arcane, expensive, proprietary software that is highly field-specific.
Beyond the basic ability to access files at all, the preservation of digital environments can be critical in maintaining the archival concept of "original order," which is a key consideration for archivists when arranging records. Whether digital or paper-based, archivists always seek to retain as much of records' context and organizational order as possible.
In a famous example, Emory University has attempted to preserve the digital environment that Salman Rushdie worked in while writing several of his major works by setting up a computer workstation that emulates Rushdie's Macintosh Performa 5400 computer (http://rose.library.emory.edu/documents/digital-archives/rushdie-help-sheet.pdf). In this instance, Emory sought not only to preserve Rushdie's system of files and folders, but also the environment that he worked in. It remains to be seen whether future researchers will determine that there were specific aspects of Rushdie's Macintosh Performa 5400 that directly impacted his work, or whether it matters as little as preserving the original desk that Thomas Jefferson sat at while drafting the Declaration of Independence. Such a desk, if it exists, may serve as a symbolic totem, but likely does not bear much relevance when studying Jefferson's writing process.
The preservation of digital environments can be important not only for original records, but also for the preservation of scholarly Digital Humanities products that have been created in order to analyze original records. For example, I am excited to be working with Holly Baker this semester to preserve podcasts that she recorded with participants in an annual academic conference that honors the legacy of writer Zora Neale Hurston. In this situation, the audio files and associated text-based files, such as release forms and the conference program, should suffice for documentation.
However, in my previous position, we faced a significant challenge when attempting to preserve an online exhibit on school integration that had been created using our archival collections, when the college was updating to a new website system. The college web team was loath to retain a website that looked very outdated when compared to the new website format, and the exhibit itself used technology that was no longer available, so several components led to broken links or were non-functioning. Ultimately, the college made the decision to remove access to this resource, despite the fact that it still contained useful information, because there was no way to maintain the original digital environment that the exhibit had been created in.
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