Fall 2020
Learning about the importance of archival appraisal - December 13, 2020
I have briefly discussed the importance of archival appraisal in a previous blog post, but I wanted to reiterate my thoughts on this. On a basic level, an archivist's job is to preserve materials of historical significance. The thing to focus on in that description is "historical significance." What makes something historically significant enough to save? How do we as archivists make that determination? It important to think about these questions because the decisions that we ultimately make will likely have an irreparable impact on the historical record. This is an important point to hone in on. When we are looking at materials for inclusion into our archives, we must be aware of our own biases and blind spots. Sometimes we forget to look at materials from certain cultures and social groups, because we are not familiar with them or a part of them.
This TED Talk by Dominique Luster highlights the power that archives have
in shaping the historical record.
Additionally, some archivists make the conscious decision not to include materials because they are biased or prejudiced against the particular culture or society that the materials come from. This has especially been a problem with the archival field in the past, and it is something that we need to continue to work on as a profession. We must work to preserve the voices of those who have been historically underrepresented, so that their stories can survive into the future. To do this, we must question our own biases and prejudices and fight to keep them out of our work. We should also not be afraid to seek help from the members of underrepresented communities when trying to find the materials that best represent them and their histories. I hope as an archivist that I will be able to see my own biases and keep them from impacting my work, and I will work hard to highlight stories of those groups that have been the most forgotten.
Thoughts about video game preservation and how I might get involved - December 15, 2020
I feel like we, as archivists, sometimes forget about the importance of preserving cultural artifacts that exist solely for entertainment. An important example of this is something like movies. Back in the mid-twentieth century, the mainstream archival profession cared little for the preservation of movies and film. As a result, many early films were damaged or lost altogether. Obviously, it is not just the archivists that are to blame for this mistake. The movie industry itself did not consider preservation an important task in its early years, and as such they did not take the proper precautions to preserve their work. The video game industry has been, and still is, suffering from the same lack of foresight that the movie industry did all those years ago. Many gaming studios and publishers have come and gone over the past five decades. Over that time, very few of those companies took the time to properly preserve not just the final source code of their games, but also the production materials that went into making them. As a result, many games have been lost altogether, or are in danger of being lost. Personally, I find this a great tragedy.
In the eighties and nineties, many people still saw video games as a fad, so the lack of preservation efforts at the time could sort of be explained away by that, but it really is no excuse. Video games represented an important part of many people's childhoods back then and were indicative of the technological shift that was happening in America and the rest of the world at the time. Computers were coming into people's homes in a significant way, and video games were a big reason that many kids became interested in computing. It is unacceptable that both archivists and video companies missed the opportunity to preserve the history of video games at the time, and I think it is high-time that the wider archivist community recognize the importance of video game preservation. Luckily, there are initiatives currently that are trying to remedy the years of neglect, like the Video Game History Foundation and the National VideoGame Museum in Frisco, TX. I hope in the near future to help out with these projects, and help save the history of something that has been an important part of my life since I was a young child.
Learning about how libraries and archives deal with unexpected disasters - December 16, 2020
For INFO 5290, Professor Hoyenski had us read about various disasters that occurred at archives and special collections around the world. After we did the reading, he asked us questions about the events and we discussed what could have been done to prevent the disasters (if anything could be done), and what we would have done in the aftermath. It was especially interesting to discuss situations where nothing could really have been done to prevent the disaster. In these situations, we discussed how we could have limited or mitigated the damage. For example, we discussed the looting the Kuwait National Museum and what could have been done to make it easier to identify and retrieve the looted materials in the aftermath of the Iraq War. We also discussed the disaster at the Virginia Historical Society, which was the result of a burst pipe, and talked about how to deal with water damage and what could be done to mitigate damage in the event of future incidents. I feel like this class gave me a whole new appreciation for the work that archivists and special collections librarians do. They are in charge of such important materials and try to prepare for every eventuality, but they cannot know when some freak disaster will happen that will destroy their collections. As a result, I learned that we need to be prepared for every situation, no matter how unlikely, because you never know what might happen.
This video from the Corning Museum of Glass showcases how a museum can
respond to a natural disaster.
Interviewing a curator at the Museum of Computing in Swindon, England - December 23, 2020
Another thing we did for INFO 5290 was create a profile of an archive or special collection of our choice. For my profile, I chose to research the Museum of Computing in Swindon, England. I was introduced to the museum through a YouTube channel that I watch sometimes which discusses and repairs old computers and video game consoles. I thought it would be interesting to study the museum because I knew it was a pretty small outfit and was mostly volunteer run. Professor Hoyenski suggested we interview individuals who work at our chosen institutions, if we could, because it would provide us with more detailed information than we would otherwise be able to find on the internet. I decided to take his advice since the Museum of Computing's website does not provide very much information about the inner workings of the museum. I emailed the museum and was put into contact with one of the curators there by the name of Simon Webb.
After a short back and forth, Mr. Webb agreed to answer some questions for me via email. I asked him about the museum and its collections, and also inquired about his favorite pieces in the museum's collections. All in all, it was a very pleasant and informative dialogue. I especially enjoyed the interaction because it gave me a lot of insights into how small, volunteer-run museums operate and grow. It was eye-opening to realize the kind of slim budgets that institutions like the Museum of Computing run on, and how reliant they are on donations to maintain and grow their collections. At the end of our correspondence, Mr. Webb invited me to come to the museum when I get a chance and offered to show me around the collections when I am there. I hope to take him up on that offer soon.
Image sources:
1. Museum of Computing. (n.d.). We always welcome volunteering groups from local organizations to help improve the museum. https://www.museumofcomputing.org.uk/.
Thoughts about cataloging - December 23, 2020
INFO 5210 was all about cataloging. This was one of those classes that I was a little worried about because previous professors had talked about how cataloging was something that not everybody liked. For this class, we looked at cataloging principles like FRBR and how it plays into cataloging standards like RDA and its predecessor AACR2. We then implemented our knowledge of RDA through some short cataloging assignments. These assignments required us to identify and reference the RDA rules that applied to each problem. I think this really helped me to understand how RDA works and gave me a real appreciation for the work that catalogers have to do. Honestly, I really enjoyed these assignments because they were sort of like scavenger hunts and reminded me of the information hunts I had to do in INFO 5600. Even though I had fun doing the cataloging assignment, I do not think it is my real calling. I definitely feel strongly about going down the archivist route. Archival description is similar to cataloging in a lot of ways, too. So, I think I will get to enjoy some of the fun of cataloging in my chosen career path as well.