1 - How does Evans' notion of "digitization on demand" and providing access to digitized copies of documents in lieu of an item-level description (392) fit into our discussion of information overload? Is providing users with layer upon layer of digitized documents going to provide them with resources more efficiently, or inundate them with page after page of material?
2 - Evan's assertions of using volunteer power to digitize collections is useful, but I find it unrealistic. Primarily, we already have a huge shortage of jobs given the number of archivists that enter the market each year, and there is a large professional upheaval surrounding the ethics of using unpaid interns and volunteers to process collections. While it may be financially prudent to use volunteers, aren't we essentially de-valuing our job and simultaneously pricing ourselves out of the market, when positions in archives are already highly competitive and poorly paid? I do think using more community-based methods for tasks such as description make sense, but there needs to be a clear delineation between "using volunteers to add descriptive icing to the archival cake" and having volunteers process or digitize an entire collection.
Your first question makes a great point. Overwhelming numbers of digitized documents with only the lightest level of description could definitely add to a sense of information overload. However, it's important to consider the audience for these documents and why they might be wading through them in the first place. Depending on the archive, these researchers could be in a corporate environment where they just want to get to the appropriate information as soon and as easily as possibly- but they could also be historians with a passion and intimate knowledge of the resources related to the archives they're looking through and experience with large amounts of primary sources. I think Evan's "digitization on demand" policy would be a great fit for some archives but certainly not the answer for all of them.
1. Is the pricing model for handling photo orders fair? If the first user is charged for making the negative, which is more than what the subsequent users pay, would it lead to everybody hesitate to become the first user and thus slow down the digitization process?
2. The author argues that archives could borrow the collaboration model from the open source software community. But most of the open source participants are already people with solid programming skills. And also there are sophisticated version control system in the open source community to ensure the quality of the software. Since the users of the archive may not have the knowledge of processing archive collection, or expertise of processing it scientifically, how can the open participation model in archive ensure the quality of the collection?
1. Evans argues that a market-based solution is the most fair and democratic. The proposed solution involves researchers paying for requested materials to be digitized or otherwise delivered. Evans refers to these as “Archives of the People” where “The People” are customers only. (Evans 395) There is no suggested pricing model, but to what degree does this initial requirement of payment for archive services exclude research that is not popular enough to fund or is performed by a non-academic researcher?
2. A further step in the process is the recruitment and use of volunteers to create item-level indexes for archives. This is done independently of the initial digitization/order process. (Evans, 392) How reliable is this labor? Can all archives rely on the public’s loyalty to history to speed the creation of indexing? The citations suggest that many archives have benefited from public voluntary labor, but does not rate how accurate this labor was.
3. Later, Evans discusses the resistance of volunteers and communities to attempts to commercialize the results of archiving efforts, often with the aid of licensing schemes such as the GPU. (Evans, 400) How does one balance the commercial order model presented initially with the use of volunteer labor advocated later? How can archives maintain their expenses alongside community expectations for access?
1. Evans’ article strongly supports the digitization of archives and attests to how beneficial it would be to have all archival items available online in a sort of “digital exhibit”. He claims, “In many ways . . . [digital archives] surpasses the reading room experience. An online researcher avoids travel and can work outside of reading room hours, conducting research in pajamas at two A.M., if desired” (391). However, while the convenience of a “digital reading room” is obvious, does it really surpass the quality of an actual reading room? Isn’t there something lost when the document itself can’t be handled and read/examined in person? What’s to be gained when all archived items are locked away and only pictures are available for researchers?
2. Evans also advocates a “commons-based system” for the management of digital archives. He compares the system to existing freeware and other such collaborative projects, even stating that “some argue [Wikipedia] is more reliable and is certainly more current than the Encyclopedia Britannica” (396). However, given the fact that anyone can change information on Wikipedia, I’d like to see some more concrete evidence supporting that assertion. Furthermore, what would a peer-based collaborative system mean for archives? Would as be as simple and efficient as Evans seems to think? Wikipedia uses moderators to fact-check and take down incorrect information. Who would moderate the archives? Wouldn’t that also cost money? If misinformation was added to the metadata, wouldn’t that be detrimental to researchers who were trying to find an item?
3. Concerning the use of a “commons-based system”, Evans stipulates that the maintenance of this system would rely heavily on volunteers. He discusses the motivation for these volunteers, and states that, “. . . Most potential volunteers who have discretionary time can choose whether to watch television or be engaged in intellectually stimulating activities or socially important undertakings. Not so hard to imagine . . .” (398). I believe it is hard to imagine, though. While some may not choose television over “intellectually stimulating activities”, are they going to choose to help to maintain a digital archival collection? Evans cites the success of websites like Flickr to prove that intrinsic motivation works (398), but Flickr is a more personal-based website. People like to post pictures of themselves. Can that same concept be carried over to the maintenance of a digital archive collection? Or does Evans put too much faith in his volunteers?
1 - Your discussion here about "significant properties" (the aspects of a document/artifact we consider vital to retain/translate in the process of digitization/archiving) is an ongoing struggle in the development of online collections and digital repositories. Archives face a huge challenge with digital materials: people assume everything is--or should be--online, without really thinking about the cost of digitization, the loss of valuable information (a watermark or faint pencil sketch isn't going to always get read by a scanner, nor can we use OCR to make handwriting "legible"), but at the same time, archivists don't always have the resources, knowledge, or worker/volunteer base to make digitization happen. And most grants that provide funding to digitize collections stipulate that 1) the materials must already be in public domain (no copyright issues) 2) the material cannot be charged for, which puts the work in direct conflict with Evans' pay schema. Although I would argue that materials are not "locked away" once digitized--access is always a struggle, but left with the choice between a researcher never being able to visit the repository and therefore never interact with the materials vs. giving them a digital copy, I'd opt for the digital copy.
3 - This point about volunteers is incredibly important. I have worked with, and been, a volunteer in both a public library and several archives, and volunteer work is notably hit or miss, both in terms of quality and consistency. Some people commit, then never show up, or work less than planned, or half-ass it, and realistically I don't think archives can rely on a steady stream of volunteers to produce anything in a timely fashion - people's lives get in the way too frequently and it's rare for a volunteer to see a project through from beginning to end.
1) Evans’s idea of on-demand digitization calls for the initial costs being shouldered by the first person to request that a document be digitized. This raises possible concerns about an undue financial burden being placed on researchers who are studying more obscure subjects—who, in addition to being the first to request a higher percentage of their necessary documents, are also less likely to get substantial institutional funding than researchers who are studying more mainstream or fashionable topics. Is this a major enough concern to consider a different cost-management structure?
2) Similarly, what might happen to archival materials pertaining to topics that are not currently being studied? Evans proposes cursory metadata for all materials and more detailed metadata for the materials that are used more often. Does this run the risk of letting potentially important archival materials fall into meta-obscurity because they do not currently pertain to a popular topic?
3) Like several past readings, Evans describes information as a “nonrival” commodity (396), whose value remains neutral or (in the case of archival materials) even increases when they are used by multiple people. I thought this was interesting in light of his proposal that scholars who use archival materials also be asked to provide metadata about these documents. Would it be interesting and useful for digitized archival documents to include links to other research on a particular document? How would archives go about facilitating this kind of cross-referencing?
1. What Evans proposes is a more streamlined way to deal with incoming archival material and backlog. The concepts and proposed solutions on how to do this are very interesting, but somewhat idealistic. It's a proposal, in someways, that seems to completely buck traditional archival practices. In a way, it seems like he's saying out with the old, in with the new. For archivists who don't have access to training in open source software, or funds to receive such training, will they simply be phased out? Is it a matter of having a wider knowledge base of new archival techniques or the manpower to accomplish the task of digitizing entire archival holdings?
2. At one point in the article, Evans uses the term 'archival engineering' (p. 391). The use of such a term makes me think that maybe the solution isn't in peer-production (or at least not THE solution), but in a more interdisciplinary and collaborative approach to archives in general. The transfer of ideas from software engineers to chief archivists and whoever else could potentially be involved, might allow everyone to focus on their specialization, but also be in an environment where not everyone is thinking just like you.
3. The peer-production concept is a very intriguing one. While in some ways, it seems only beneficial, I wonder at the trust archivists can place in volunteers and peer-production. Volunteers and interns are a great way to take care of the simple, grunt work, but when it comes to establishing metadata or really giving a collection the attention it needs, is their input reliable? Someone who has 30 years of experience doing genealogy could be a great asset as a volunteer, but there could be great pitfalls to depending too much on volunteerism.
1. The notion that archivists make all their collections known and invite researchers into the decision making process is an interesting one but the obvious flaw in it is that market forces want what they want and don't take into consideration other factors that might take higher precedence. If the process was made more open and more democratic what would happen with collections that are not as popular in the market but could potentially be lost while waiting behind popular collections? 2. The idea to use volunteers to tag and help archive collections is noble one but one that I would approach with trepidation. I do not argue that other similar projects utilize this model successfully but I think they are more the exception than the normal. The requirements for projects to be put online and to utilize volunteers are not hard to meet but I think there has to be a special connection between the content and the volunteers to make distributed projects successful. 3. Using incentives to promote participation in a distributed project like is mentioned in this article is a good way to stoke activity but I don't think that the incentives that Evans mentions are enough to keep a sustained effort in the processing of these archives. As I mentioned above, I think there must be a connection between the volunteer and the archival content for this distributed type of system to work.
1. On page 389 and 390, the author talked about initial processing and detailed processing. The author mentioned that MARC and EAD would effectively expose hidden collections if accepted and followed. Why and how does it work? Besides, the author also talked about that the archivists could give each document a priority. Is that subjective? And would this effect the result of information retrieval?
2. On page 395, the author mentioned commons-based peer-production, which means that archives operate as hierarchical institutions organizing their work around demand decided by archives users. Will this bring a problem that some important information would miss because users had not realize the importance of those information, just like sometimes we do not know that we know any meaningful knowledge?
3. On page 396, the author mentioned Benkler's theory about peer-production. This is a good way that gives opportunity for intelligent people to satisfy their curiosity and contribute to society. But do we still need a lot of work force to maintain the system to edit or cancel the production "with mistakes"? How to decide this boundary?
1. Max mentions “Indeed, this model argues for a largely demand-driven process that shifts the organization of archival work away from a central, command-and-control model to a more market-oriented approach.” As we know, for retail or manufactory industry, the companies always have survey feedback to determine the market need. But how do the archivists find the market need? 2. Max emphasis many advantage of accessing the archives online instead of reading room. An online researcher avoids travel and can work outside of reading room hours, and originals will not be mishandled, misfiled, or stolen. However reading room is still the mainstream of our choices, will it be replaced in the future. 3. This is probably not a question, but a link to another reading. On page 396, max assumes an archival record bears out this conclusion: it is a nonrival commodity that becomes more valuable the more people use it. With the article “Information as resource”, we have the same conclusion, information will not depreciate.
1. Evans claims that his new system would surpass the "reading room experience" in terms of its convenience for researchers and potential for protecting and preserving the items. What would be some of the disadvantages of his system? Also digitization, no matter how advanced, cannot do justice to three-dimensional items and artwork. How does he propose to deal with those types of items?
2. The author proposes a system that utilizes thousands of volunteers to do much of the 'legwork.' This sounds frightening to a person looking for a paying job in the field. Would his system diminish the need for archivists? Would it change their job description to volunteer coordinator?
3. Evans praises Benkler's concepts of commons-based peer production at great length including Wikipedia, which has often been derided for inaccuracies. With so many volunteer contributors, wouldn't his proposed system be susceptible to quality control issues and errors as well?
1. Max argues that the people should have greater say in what collections receive the most description and digitization attention by archivists. Should this concept carry into the realm of archival appraisal? Should potential acquisitions be listed online and voted on by the people for which ones the archives should collect?
2.Evans argues that minimal description should initially be added to a catalog record of the collection in order to quickly make it accessible to the users. He also advocates that users should be able to select from this description, the items they would like digitized. With limited description, researchers will be uncertain whether much of the materials will be relevant to their research, so they will probably select for large amounts of be digitized. Is it possible for an archives to keep up with so much digitization? If the first researcher to request the material must pay for the digitization, this will no doubt be expensive. What would happen if a researcher pays for a large digitization in the hopes there will be relevant content for the research, and it turns out there wasn’t anything?
3.Many archival collections are currently still under copyright which prohibits institutions from undertaking large scale digitization projects of the material. If minimal description of these collections are offered online with no option to digitize, will these collections fall into obscurity as researchers can not know if there is relevant material in them without a detailed finding aid by an archivist?
1. I liked the idea of “market based” solutions to backlogs for archives and digitization on demand. I think it serves the public and the institution well. The one fear I would have would be the loss of control and the level of attention an archive may devote to collections that they know internally to be important. While an institution will always have a final say over how they devote their resources, I could imagine a situation where institutions are pressured to provide the public with what it wants and not necessarily what the institution believes would be the best use of their resources. I guess it just reminds me of the purchase on demand model that libraries have adapted to please their patrons. While these programs are popular I believe there are larger opportunity costs than most institutions would care to disclose. I also think about what might happen to controversial or unpopular materials that may be crucial to research but not nearly as requested? 2. This article also brought us the idea of a “commons-based peer-production” where volunteers would help to do the work of description that was traditionally provided by archivist. While I see the benefit of letting archivist do what they do best and having teams of volunteers to help out with the work, I question whether these volunteers have the knowledge and expertise needed to properly do the work needed by archives? What will be lost by their lack of experience with the work they do? While the perfect volunteer would have the required experience or expertise, what is lost when they do not? Can we truly depend on them for accurate descriptions and pertinent metadata? What training would be involved, and if none, what is lost by possible inconsistencies in description? 3. One of the biggest concerns I took from the article was the minimal level description promoted as a solution to help archives bring out their collections. While I see why minimal information is better than no information, I think there could be a better solution to the problem. For instance, when fulfilling a digitization on demand request, why not provide the record with more detailed metadata? If the argument is that it will take too long, then when will they ever find time to actually provide the needed descriptive metadata? If the piece is being retrieved as a request and someone is handling the material, I would promote a core level record that has more than a basic description but maybe not the full item level description that would be considered laborious. Why put off description for later when you are handling the materials today? What valuable information can be lost by not providing metadata at the point of digitization?
1. Reading this article, I was struck by how Evans' framework moved from positively appropriating the concepts and terminology of free market capitalism to advocating a communist/direct democracy model for archives. I have many, many thoughts on this, but, in light of our other readings for this week, I'm wondering how we might use this conceptual model to explore the value of collaboration (versus competition), especially regarding his final warning about "preventing third-party commercial appropriation" of volunteers' aggregate work.
2. Another broad thought/concern I had while reading this was that Evans was erasing the specialist knowledge (and, therefore, value) of the subject specialist versus the lay contributor. In an archive or special collection, isn't a cataloger also a subject specialist, or working closely with one, usually someone with at least a secondary master's degree in the field in question? When he talks about "Archives of the People" on page 395 (again using the free market buzzwords "customers" - who are "deciding (voting by their orders) what to digitize," isn't he erasing subject specialists? What is lost between digitization and description done by a specialist vs. by a volunteer with little to know subject knowledge? Can we do both types of "deciding" simultaneously? Can we use "democratized" indexing or digitization systems to share both archivists' and volunteers' work with a wider group of potential users?
Finally, he does acknowledge at the very end, on page 399, that "unless these projects are carefully managed, the advantages of a peer-based system can become disincentives." Fair enough, and I'd like to read a whole, supplemental article exploring *that*. Meanwhile, I'm left wondering, who will formulate the management systems for these projects? Who will be the authority? I'm thinking both in terms of professional management systems and best practices *and* the more logistical considerations, such as how can archives achieve a workable volunteer management system while already facing significant budgetary and time pressures?
1. Max states that the Information Age brings the advantage of easily,quickly available information and making people more aware of archives and historical records. Apart from the difficulty of scanning,uploading and entering the metadata online, is it possible to obtain an exact copy of the physical material? Won't a physical historical record be more interesting and informative than a digital one?
2. Archival digitization or mass digitization is explained as digitizing the entire archival material instead of digitizing selected documents from a variety of collections to produce digital exhibits. If the entire material is digitized , there can always be a chance where there are some documents that are not of much importance or relevance. If that's the case, given that there is a tsunami of records yet to be digitized, how feasible or prudent is the concept of mass digitization?
3.Under 'Archives by the people', Max brings out an article by Benkler which talks about thousands of people who collaborated in five minute increments to map Mars craters, that would normally be performed by PhD astronomers. How can we test the accuracy of such archives and the reliability of the sources?
1. Evans article brought up many interesting questions about using the work of volunteers to help organize and facilitate item-level describing and indexing projects. Do you believe that future archives might look more like digital file sharing repositories? Do you believe increased access to digital archives could help to facilitate peer-reviewed metadata?
2. I am currently working for the technology integration services at the PCL here at UT. One of the major issues we are facing relates to the fact that the UT library webpage was designed for librarians and not for its users. This in turn makes it difficult for those who need access to information but lack a librarian’s skill. Evans raised a good point about the changing role of archives as hierarchal resources to public resource. As a result of this, I am wondering if the archival model will need to change in order to be easily understandable for those who Evans wishes to serve as contributors? How might a less formal system look?
3. Evans article raises another interesting question about the possibility for archives to inform one another with metadata or additional information about items that might not have been possible without open access. With increased access to archives, are their any foreseeable downsides? I am wondering if this idea would be possible for a corporation or government archive?
1. Evans highly valued digitalization of archives in his paper and he believed it would be easy for reading and also for checking at any time. I'll not argue about these merits of digitalization due the success of Wikipedia. Instead, I'll argue that the loss of information during the transferring from materials to digital copies. For example, an oil painting will lose its smell and sense of real after digitalized. Yes, I believe reducing redundant information is a way to deal with information overload but is it possible that the information lost in the process of digitalization is the essence that people truly want in some cases?
2. Apart from the question #1, I'm also thinking about the possibility of digitalization of archives. In the paper, Evans proposed an ideal way of hiring volunteers to transfer archival materials to digital ones. In my mind, it works in some specific areas, such as translation of ancient words. However, due to the cost and the basic level of requirement for the volunteers, is it possible to store all the archival things in the hardware merely by volunteers?
3. Evans proposed many ideas and one is using metadata and digital structure that sounds like Wikipedia to present the information and to describe the knowledge. But, does such a way fit all the forms of information? For example, as one type of information, music also meet the problem of information overload which calls for a better way for people to choose the music they like. Will the structured metadata ease the music overload in our age?
1. I think the digitization the author proposes is not a one-time-shot. I take the term "Archives of the People, by the People, For the People" similar to the term of "User Centered Design". It should be an iterative process. If there is new need for the material touch of the painting from the users, then the archivist can add that metadata or other ways to convey that information.
1. On page 390, Evans proposes the idea that, rather than digitizing an entire archival collection at once (because it can be time consuming), to instead use finding aids as a means for researchers to 'order up archival digitization-on-demand', saying that archives should just digitize pieces of a collection as they are requested. While I can see his point, on the other hand what's being given as an idea is that archives keep track of miscellaneous orders they fill for researchers with hope or intent that over time they will slowly process an entire collection. This means until then they must keep a record of what scant items of an entire collection they have already worked on. I must ask, how is this less time consuming? Wouldn't it be far easier in the long run to focus on completing 1 collection in its entirety? Or, if you must break up the work, why not just create a timetable with a quota, and accomplish it that way? The idea that a collection will be so in demand that patron orders will take care of the digitization of a collection feels a bit overly optimistic.
2. On Page 399, Evans mentions his belief that if the tradition of sharing information is strong within the genealogical community (as well as the idea of a large group of people pooling their expertise), the same should work for archives. He even stresses the point by saying that while an archives' major asset may be an archivist's skill at assigning value in description, the community model would foster a commitment to keeping access to materials and information about it from being commercialized. With that in mind, given people's busy lives (and the grueling nature of processing, digitizing, or entering metadata), what could an archives hope to offer its volunteers as rewards for their efforts that wasn't financial or that violated archival principles? And how can an archives keep their volunteer pool motivated and engaged?
3. While I do like a number of Evans' ideas, particularly as a possible means of community outreach for archives (thus opening the door for potential new donors and adding to the pool of knowledge held within an archives), isn't the other ultimate thing to keep in mind is that archives by their very nature are specialized libraries, libraries that the public should not be encouraged to see and treat as they would their public libraries? The suggestion of an increase in unannounced visits for instance; if what a patron wants to see isn't housed in that specific facility, and someone just turns up expecting it to be there, what then?
Again, while I think it is a good thing to foster a sense of responsibility and ownership over archival collections within a community, I also feel it's necessary an archives still be viewed in a different light, which gives them control over their holdings, how they're used... and sometimes most importantly the means to say no to a collection if they feel it doesn't fit the scope of their mission.
I very much agree with the points you make in question 3 and beyond. I feel like his example, like you point out, of someone just walking into an archive unannounced does not necessarily cater to or exemplify what an archive does or how it interacts with its users. That's not to say this sort of thing won't or doesn't happen, though. All in all, it's interesting for me to consider archives working more towards public outreach. A lot of the motivation in digitizing items is to draw the public in and attract a crowd you may not otherwise attract. Back to your question, though, I also agree that archives, by their nature, are not the same as public libraries and should not be handled in the same manner, but I think, in their attempts to stay relevant (which is silly because I think they will always be relevant) they do feel the need to reach out more actively. Ultimately, though, I'd be curious to see how many archives, being trained as you and the article suggest to maintain control over their holdings, would actually be interested in adopting this sort of approach.
1. In the “Detail Processing” part, I think it is a good idea to decide which collections need more processing by referring to customers’ demands. However, it seems to be even more complicated to track every collection as well as to read researchers’ comments and requests. If archivists could have enough time and energy do all these, why not doing more processing on every collection? I wonder if there is any better method for archivists making decisions. How about requiring specialist archivists to have enough knowledge in a specific field? If so, they can make a decision on the basis of their knowledge and experience.
2. I think it is not reasonable not providing an item description but only offering the picture of a document. It might be easy for people glancing over but making lots of trouble when people want to retrieval it. It can also do no good for the database to store those documents. For example, if I want to search a textbook, which is the third version of it, it is better have some description since different versions might have similar covers and content. Maybe it is too difficult to decide minimizing metadata to what extent.
3. “Archives by the people” is a good idea and following the trend of Web 2.0. However, relying on volunteers to index collections is not a perfect solution. First of all, we need to consider is there an efficient way for archivists evaluating volunteers’ work. It cannot work well if they do not evaluate, however, is it worthy for them to pay lots of energy and time to evaluate it? If they have to do an evaluation, to what extent is better? Maybe just like Wikipedia cannot replace digital library, this cooperation cannot be authoritative enough to replace traditional archive.
Evans puts forth the idea that “market forces”(390) would drive processing to go above and beyond a minimal amount. What then becomes of the archives or collections which fall out of favor or maintain a small level of interest?
Evans makes a lot of assumptions in regards to adopting a set process for dealing with archives and digitization. He makes sure to mention the various systems which touch on the collaborative effort needed to achieve his goal. But, he also mentions how these systems “must accommodate local and institutional variations in staffing, resources, and policies”(393). Assuming a universal system could be developed, how would the disparity between different archival institutions affect the overall system of implementation?
The article seems to be in essence calling for crowd-sourcing the archives but with archivists leading and volunteers being the crowd. Would it be at all possible for true crowd-sourcing to take place in order to help manage archives, akin to zooinverse or wikipedia? Or would the influx of non-archivists cause a disruption in maintaining a uniform system?
1. On page 394 Evans says that “the growing phenomena of folksonomy and social tagging demonstrate that interested individuals will devote their time and energy to make sense of the World Wide Web.” In what context though? If I bring up hashtags (which I think are the death of the English language), I and many others could argue that half of the things created and uploaded to the Web are useless. Social tagging is making some things more segmented and I think it’s doubtful that someone studying hashtags from a scholarly viewpoint hundreds of years later would be able to understand the majority of the context of any hashtagged message as there would be only #snippets #of #the #full #story.
2. On page 400, Evans says that “the nation’s archives must continue to be open and accessible to all without cost...” I think others will agree with me in saying that this idea is a pipe dream. Archival institutions have special needs for their incoming collections and maintaining what they already have. Most actually need more money than is allocated. The idea that archives should be open and free is an impossibility that would probably close doors. Money is most definitely needed to maintain/preserve/collect resources and pay staff.
3. On 393, Evans writes that levels of “intellectual access to the records in archives have largely been at the discretion of the archivist (or the managers of the institution), based largely on the extent resources can be devoted to the work. Considering how hard academic databases and like JSTOR or EBSCOhost are to access for someone not affiliated with a university, do you think there will ever be an end to the stranglehold companies have on academic research? Will academic research or archival
1. There is no doubt that we live in the information age, and we have to communicate with data and information everyday. This article was published in 2007 by Max. And at that time, the author said that the ‘American archivists today face fundamental challenges to their basic beliefs’ (p387). They found it is difficult to process records. However, today, the hottest topic in information science and technology is ‘big data’. And I think the problem can be solved easily with the big data process technology, which can handle super large amount of data with high efficiency, and relative low cost.
2. When talking about ‘detailed processing’, Max argues that ‘To understand customers demands, archivists must rigorously track the use of collections, but not just to produce aggregate statistics for the annual report.’(p390) I wonder whether it is meaningful to know the ‘use of collections’ and ‘researchers’ comments’. I mean different people use different data for different purposes. To collect the ‘use of collections’ and ‘researchers’ comments’ itself is really a hard work and also one ‘use of collections’ may not fit other ‘uses of collections’.
3. In the item-level description part, the author analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of this level description. As far as I can see, the disadvantages are much more than advantages. It has little value and costs a lot of money. So is it necessary to do this? And the author also mentions that ‘The strategic model…can deliver document images without extensive metadata’ (p394). Is that possible?
1. In this article, the author claims that "researchers' interests and demands create market forces that should influence the decisions about additional processing." But how to investigate researchers' interests and demands? It is rather hard to categorise, as there are thousands of studying fields and theories in the world.
2. Archivists cannot collect everything and they cannot treat all collections at the same level. But, as we learned before, every data or item has a potential to be useful to certain people. So, does the thought of setting priorities and building alliances to be effective in today's information economy seem to be subjective and unfair?
3. On P396, the author introduces Benkler's project of creating a more efficient human-edited directory. However, all open archives may have a period of being used by very few people at the beginning time. So, my question is how to protect and guarantee the archive correction when only few people edit and use it?
1. In thinking about the future and as the information overload trend continues, people will need best practices in organizing their own needed information (personal as well as professional). Individuals will need to develop meta-data, keywording and search-retrieval best practices simply for their own content of interest. Perhaps developing best practices that can be used by all (particular those employed where maintaining records is required - local, state and federal governments etc.) will make it easier for archivists to add items, keep up with adding to collections or starting new collections in the future. Our behaviors to make things easier for us now will also make things easier for archivists of the future.
2. "... groups of individuals successfully collaborate on large-scale projects following a diverse cluster of motivational drives and social signals, rather than either market prices or managerial commands." p. 395. Have any crowd sourcing problems been started with archives yet?
3. Other than domain expertise (on the item itself) is there special knowledge/skill needed to add metadata? Is this something that "the people" are able to do themselves or special training and skillset needed? Also what happens when wrong "incorrect" metadata is added to an item? How is the information verified prior to being accepted with the item? Will this process be just as time consuming?
1. The author frames archival records and information as being a part of a "non rival commodity" (p. 396). Outside of journalism/media, and entities who are in the business of information, in what areas is information a rivaled commodity? What does that look like and how does it impact the user/information consumer? 2. Overall, I appreciate Evans' argument for a collaborative archival system that is based around user demand. However, one issue I think this raises is that of--you don't know what you don't know. If the archive community only responds to public demand, there seems to be a great potential for small or seemingly lesser known materials with great significance to be forgotten or go unacknowledged. An archivists role here is not only to provide order, access and care to these materials, but to advocate for them; to make their importance and relevance known. 3. Again, I find Evans' argument appealing. Are there any examples or success stories of archival institutions that have taken on this more public/demand driven, collaborative approach?
1. In this article the author argues that archives should adopt a new model of operation. He states that because of the increase in amount of new work that must be done in archives that archives should rely on users to decide which records should be digitized and which records should not be digitized. Is this new model based on “market forces” a good idea? Should the user really be responsible for which records should be digitized? What about records that are not important now but may be so in the future?
2. The author suggests that archives should benefit from crowdsourcing to help fill in metadata on records that archivist cannot due to funding or time restraints. However since one of the main purpose of a record in an archive is to provide trusted evidence of something how can a record that has been worked on by a large number of anonymous individuals be seen as authentic?
3. In this document the archives that the author seems to be discussing are all government archives that are open to the public. He does not discuss archives like corporate archives that limit the people who are able to access them. How could the approach he has described here be applied to such an archive or would it not be possible to do so?
1. Evans writes that “as organizers and facilitators, archivists can recruit, train and manage a corps of volunteers to index their collections”. He points out, though, that much of the motivation for pursuing this crowdsourcing approach is that archivists don’t have the time or resources to address every item within their holdings. Doesn’t it take time and resources to recruit, train and manage volunteers?
2. I’m very much interested in Evans’ proposal of the customer (the user) “ordering” what they want to be digitized. He even refers to the finding aid as an “electronic menu”. Do you think this approach could potentially streamline the process of digitization? Does it make the most sense in regards to catering to the user’s needs and interests? Will it ultimately appeal to the user to be a part of the decision-making process?
1. Evans seems to firmly believe in the “more product, less process” stance of many modern archivists. However, he takes the theory a step farther by insisting that archivists cannot operate in isolation; archivists must give up some control over what gets processed to their patrons. How might processing collections “on demand” hurt or help an archive? Would this move turn archivists into processing automatons who simply answer to their audience or introduce a more dynamic relationship between archivist and patron?
2. Evans proposes a supply and demand, capitalistic attitude toward processing. Does this take away from both the objectivity of archivists and the purity of archival intentions?
1. Evans encourages inviting “researchers into the decision-making process” of prioritizing collections for processing. Are there downsides to this? In what ways could the desires of the researchers, of the “market”, go against the best interests of an archive?
2. What are provenance-based discovery systems?
3. It is fascinating that two different authors from two different fields look at the problem of information overflow and both turn to more cooperative efforts for the solution. “What could be more fair and democratic?” Evans asks. Cleveland also thought more information would make us a more democratic people. Is this true? Will we see this sort of solution popping up in more fields in the future? I’m curious as to what a world with more cooperation will look like.
1. I find the author's assumption/assertion that good-willed men and women, when presented with a choice of "watching television" or providing a meaningful contribution to society by working to catalog online archives, will take up the archivist mantle at best, laughable. To be sure, there are people who would, with opportunity, devote themselves to such a task. And then there are people like me, someone pursuing a degree in information studies and working in the information field who cannot be motivated to stop watching Netflix no matter the task at hand.
2. Though it sounds great from an accessibility standpoint, is it really beneficial/cost-effective to digitize and make publicly searchable every archive? Will the money saved in box retrieval and item preservation offset the cost of server space and human work done to digitize a collection?
3. Is the general public really equipped to handle such tasks as cataloging?
1 - How does Evans' notion of "digitization on demand" and providing access to digitized copies of documents in lieu of an item-level description (392) fit into our discussion of information overload? Is providing users with layer upon layer of digitized documents going to provide them with resources more efficiently, or inundate them with page after page of material?
ReplyDelete2 - Evan's assertions of using volunteer power to digitize collections is useful, but I find it unrealistic. Primarily, we already have a huge shortage of jobs given the number of archivists that enter the market each year, and there is a large professional upheaval surrounding the ethics of using unpaid interns and volunteers to process collections. While it may be financially prudent to use volunteers, aren't we essentially de-valuing our job and simultaneously pricing ourselves out of the market, when positions in archives are already highly competitive and poorly paid? I do think using more community-based methods for tasks such as description make sense, but there needs to be a clear delineation between "using volunteers to add descriptive icing to the archival cake" and having volunteers process or digitize an entire collection.
Your first question makes a great point. Overwhelming numbers of digitized documents with only the lightest level of description could definitely add to a sense of information overload. However, it's important to consider the audience for these documents and why they might be wading through them in the first place. Depending on the archive, these researchers could be in a corporate environment where they just want to get to the appropriate information as soon and as easily as possibly- but they could also be historians with a passion and intimate knowledge of the resources related to the archives they're looking through and experience with large amounts of primary sources. I think Evan's "digitization on demand" policy would be a great fit for some archives but certainly not the answer for all of them.
Delete1. Is the pricing model for handling photo orders fair? If the first user is charged for making the negative, which is more than what the subsequent users pay, would it lead to everybody hesitate to become the first user and thus slow down the digitization process?
ReplyDelete2. The author argues that archives could borrow the collaboration model from the open source software community. But most of the open source participants are already people with solid programming skills. And also there are sophisticated version control system in the open source community to ensure the quality of the software. Since the users of the archive may not have the knowledge of processing archive collection, or expertise of processing it scientifically, how can the open participation model in archive ensure the quality of the collection?
1. Evans argues that a market-based solution is the most fair and democratic. The proposed solution involves researchers paying for requested materials to be digitized or otherwise delivered. Evans refers to these as “Archives of the People” where “The People” are customers only. (Evans 395) There is no suggested pricing model, but to what degree does this initial requirement of payment for archive services exclude research that is not popular enough to fund or is performed by a non-academic researcher?
ReplyDelete2. A further step in the process is the recruitment and use of volunteers to create item-level indexes for archives. This is done independently of the initial digitization/order process. (Evans, 392) How reliable is this labor? Can all archives rely on the public’s loyalty to history to speed the creation of indexing? The citations suggest that many archives have benefited from public voluntary labor, but does not rate how accurate this labor was.
3. Later, Evans discusses the resistance of volunteers and communities to attempts to commercialize the results of archiving efforts, often with the aid of licensing schemes such as the GPU. (Evans, 400) How does one balance the commercial order model presented initially with the use of volunteer labor advocated later? How can archives maintain their expenses alongside community expectations for access?
1. Evans’ article strongly supports the digitization of archives and attests to how beneficial it would be to have all archival items available online in a sort of “digital exhibit”. He claims, “In many ways . . . [digital archives] surpasses the reading room experience. An online researcher avoids travel and can work outside of reading room hours, conducting research in pajamas at two A.M., if desired” (391). However, while the convenience of a “digital reading room” is obvious, does it really surpass the quality of an actual reading room? Isn’t there something lost when the document itself can’t be handled and read/examined in person? What’s to be gained when all archived items are locked away and only pictures are available for researchers?
ReplyDelete2. Evans also advocates a “commons-based system” for the management of digital archives. He compares the system to existing freeware and other such collaborative projects, even stating that “some argue [Wikipedia] is more reliable and is certainly more current than the Encyclopedia Britannica” (396). However, given the fact that anyone can change information on Wikipedia, I’d like to see some more concrete evidence supporting that assertion. Furthermore, what would a peer-based collaborative system mean for archives? Would as be as simple and efficient as Evans seems to think? Wikipedia uses moderators to fact-check and take down incorrect information. Who would moderate the archives? Wouldn’t that also cost money? If misinformation was added to the metadata, wouldn’t that be detrimental to researchers who were trying to find an item?
3. Concerning the use of a “commons-based system”, Evans stipulates that the maintenance of this system would rely heavily on volunteers. He discusses the motivation for these volunteers, and states that, “. . . Most potential volunteers who have discretionary time can choose whether to watch television or be engaged in intellectually stimulating activities or socially important undertakings. Not so hard to imagine . . .” (398). I believe it is hard to imagine, though. While some may not choose television over “intellectually stimulating activities”, are they going to choose to help to maintain a digital archival collection? Evans cites the success of websites like Flickr to prove that intrinsic motivation works (398), but Flickr is a more personal-based website. People like to post pictures of themselves. Can that same concept be carried over to the maintenance of a digital archive collection? Or does Evans put too much faith in his volunteers?
1 - Your discussion here about "significant properties" (the aspects of a document/artifact we consider vital to retain/translate in the process of digitization/archiving) is an ongoing struggle in the development of online collections and digital repositories. Archives face a huge challenge with digital materials: people assume everything is--or should be--online, without really thinking about the cost of digitization, the loss of valuable information (a watermark or faint pencil sketch isn't going to always get read by a scanner, nor can we use OCR to make handwriting "legible"), but at the same time, archivists don't always have the resources, knowledge, or worker/volunteer base to make digitization happen. And most grants that provide funding to digitize collections stipulate that 1) the materials must already be in public domain (no copyright issues) 2) the material cannot be charged for, which puts the work in direct conflict with Evans' pay schema. Although I would argue that materials are not "locked away" once digitized--access is always a struggle, but left with the choice between a researcher never being able to visit the repository and therefore never interact with the materials vs. giving them a digital copy, I'd opt for the digital copy.
Delete3 - This point about volunteers is incredibly important. I have worked with, and been, a volunteer in both a public library and several archives, and volunteer work is notably hit or miss, both in terms of quality and consistency. Some people commit, then never show up, or work less than planned, or half-ass it, and realistically I don't think archives can rely on a steady stream of volunteers to produce anything in a timely fashion - people's lives get in the way too frequently and it's rare for a volunteer to see a project through from beginning to end.
1) Evans’s idea of on-demand digitization calls for the initial costs being shouldered by the first person to request that a document be digitized. This raises possible concerns about an undue financial burden being placed on researchers who are studying more obscure subjects—who, in addition to being the first to request a higher percentage of their necessary documents, are also less likely to get substantial institutional funding than researchers who are studying more mainstream or fashionable topics. Is this a major enough concern to consider a different cost-management structure?
ReplyDelete2) Similarly, what might happen to archival materials pertaining to topics that are not currently being studied? Evans proposes cursory metadata for all materials and more detailed metadata for the materials that are used more often. Does this run the risk of letting potentially important archival materials fall into meta-obscurity because they do not currently pertain to a popular topic?
3) Like several past readings, Evans describes information as a “nonrival” commodity (396), whose value remains neutral or (in the case of archival materials) even increases when they are used by multiple people. I thought this was interesting in light of his proposal that scholars who use archival materials also be asked to provide metadata about these documents. Would it be interesting and useful for digitized archival documents to include links to other research on a particular document? How would archives go about facilitating this kind of cross-referencing?
1. What Evans proposes is a more streamlined way to deal with incoming archival material and backlog. The concepts and proposed solutions on how to do this are very interesting, but somewhat idealistic. It's a proposal, in someways, that seems to completely buck traditional archival practices. In a way, it seems like he's saying out with the old, in with the new. For archivists who don't have access to training in open source software, or funds to receive such training, will they simply be phased out? Is it a matter of having a wider knowledge base of new archival techniques or the manpower to accomplish the task of digitizing entire archival holdings?
ReplyDelete2. At one point in the article, Evans uses the term 'archival engineering' (p. 391). The use of such a term makes me think that maybe the solution isn't in peer-production (or at least not THE solution), but in a more interdisciplinary and collaborative approach to archives in general. The transfer of ideas from software engineers to chief archivists and whoever else could potentially be involved, might allow everyone to focus on their specialization, but also be in an environment where not everyone is thinking just like you.
3. The peer-production concept is a very intriguing one. While in some ways, it seems only beneficial, I wonder at the trust archivists can place in volunteers and peer-production. Volunteers and interns are a great way to take care of the simple, grunt work, but when it comes to establishing metadata or really giving a collection the attention it needs, is their input reliable? Someone who has 30 years of experience doing genealogy could be a great asset as a volunteer, but there could be great pitfalls to depending too much on volunteerism.
1. The notion that archivists make all their collections known and invite researchers into the decision making process is an interesting one but the obvious flaw in it is that market forces want what they want and don't take into consideration other factors that might take higher precedence. If the process was made more open and more democratic what would happen with collections that are not as popular in the market but could potentially be lost while waiting behind popular collections?
ReplyDelete2. The idea to use volunteers to tag and help archive collections is noble one but one that I would approach with trepidation. I do not argue that other similar projects utilize this model successfully but I think they are more the exception than the normal. The requirements for projects to be put online and to utilize volunteers are not hard to meet but I think there has to be a special connection between the content and the volunteers to make distributed projects successful.
3. Using incentives to promote participation in a distributed project like is mentioned in this article is a good way to stoke activity but I don't think that the incentives that Evans mentions are enough to keep a sustained effort in the processing of these archives. As I mentioned above, I think there must be a connection between the volunteer and the archival content for this distributed type of system to work.
1. On page 389 and 390, the author talked about initial processing and detailed processing. The author mentioned that MARC and EAD would effectively expose hidden collections if accepted and followed. Why and how does it work? Besides, the author also talked about that the archivists could give each document a priority. Is that subjective? And would this effect the result of information retrieval?
ReplyDelete2. On page 395, the author mentioned commons-based peer-production, which means that archives operate as hierarchical institutions organizing their work around demand decided by archives users. Will this bring a problem that some important information would miss because users had not realize the importance of those information, just like sometimes we do not know that we know any meaningful knowledge?
3. On page 396, the author mentioned Benkler's theory about peer-production. This is a good way that gives opportunity for intelligent people to satisfy their curiosity and contribute to society. But do we still need a lot of work force to maintain the system to edit or cancel the production "with mistakes"? How to decide this boundary?
1. Max mentions “Indeed, this model argues for a largely demand-driven process that shifts the organization of archival work away from a central, command-and-control model to a more market-oriented approach.” As we know, for retail or manufactory industry, the companies always have survey feedback to determine the market need. But how do the archivists find the market need?
ReplyDelete2. Max emphasis many advantage of accessing the archives online instead of reading room. An online researcher avoids travel and can work outside of reading room hours, and originals will not be mishandled, misfiled, or stolen. However reading room is still the mainstream of our choices, will it be replaced in the future.
3. This is probably not a question, but a link to another reading. On page 396, max assumes an archival record bears out this conclusion: it is a nonrival commodity that becomes more valuable the more people use it. With the article “Information as resource”, we have the same conclusion, information will not depreciate.
1. Evans claims that his new system would surpass the "reading room experience" in terms of its convenience for researchers and potential for protecting and preserving the items. What would be some of the disadvantages of his system? Also digitization, no matter how advanced, cannot do justice to three-dimensional items and artwork. How does he propose to deal with those types of items?
ReplyDelete2. The author proposes a system that utilizes thousands of volunteers to do much of the 'legwork.' This sounds frightening to a person looking for a paying job in the field. Would his system diminish the need for archivists? Would it change their job description to volunteer coordinator?
3. Evans praises Benkler's concepts of commons-based peer production at great length including Wikipedia, which has often been derided for inaccuracies. With so many volunteer contributors, wouldn't his proposed system be susceptible to quality control issues and errors as well?
1. Max argues that the people should have greater say in what collections receive the most description and digitization attention by archivists. Should this concept carry into the realm of archival appraisal? Should potential acquisitions be listed online and voted on by the people for which ones the archives should collect?
ReplyDelete2.Evans argues that minimal description should initially be added to a catalog record of the collection in order to quickly make it accessible to the users. He also advocates that users should be able to select from this description, the items they would like digitized. With limited description, researchers will be uncertain whether much of the materials will be relevant to their research, so they will probably select for large amounts of be digitized. Is it possible for an archives to keep up with so much digitization? If the first researcher to request the material must pay for the digitization, this will no doubt be expensive. What would happen if a researcher pays for a large digitization in the hopes there will be relevant content for the research, and it turns out there wasn’t anything?
3.Many archival collections are currently still under copyright which prohibits institutions from undertaking large scale digitization projects of the material. If minimal description of these collections are offered online with no option to digitize, will these collections fall into obscurity as researchers can not know if there is relevant material in them without a detailed finding aid by an archivist?
1. I liked the idea of “market based” solutions to backlogs for archives and digitization on demand. I think it serves the public and the institution well. The one fear I would have would be the loss of control and the level of attention an archive may devote to collections that they know internally to be important. While an institution will always have a final say over how they devote their resources, I could imagine a situation where institutions are pressured to provide the public with what it wants and not necessarily what the institution believes would be the best use of their resources. I guess it just reminds me of the purchase on demand model that libraries have adapted to please their patrons. While these programs are popular I believe there are larger opportunity costs than most institutions would care to disclose. I also think about what might happen to controversial or unpopular materials that may be crucial to research but not nearly as requested?
ReplyDelete2. This article also brought us the idea of a “commons-based peer-production” where volunteers would help to do the work of description that was traditionally provided by archivist. While I see the benefit of letting archivist do what they do best and having teams of volunteers to help out with the work, I question whether these volunteers have the knowledge and expertise needed to properly do the work needed by archives? What will be lost by their lack of experience with the work they do? While the perfect volunteer would have the required experience or expertise, what is lost when they do not? Can we truly depend on them for accurate descriptions and pertinent metadata? What training would be involved, and if none, what is lost by possible inconsistencies in description?
3. One of the biggest concerns I took from the article was the minimal level description promoted as a solution to help archives bring out their collections. While I see why minimal information is better than no information, I think there could be a better solution to the problem. For instance, when fulfilling a digitization on demand request, why not provide the record with more detailed metadata? If the argument is that it will take too long, then when will they ever find time to actually provide the needed descriptive metadata? If the piece is being retrieved as a request and someone is handling the material, I would promote a core level record that has more than a basic description but maybe not the full item level description that would be considered laborious. Why put off description for later when you are handling the materials today? What valuable information can be lost by not providing metadata at the point of digitization?
1. Reading this article, I was struck by how Evans' framework moved from positively appropriating the concepts and terminology of free market capitalism to advocating a communist/direct democracy model for archives. I have many, many thoughts on this, but, in light of our other readings for this week, I'm wondering how we might use this conceptual model to explore the value of collaboration (versus competition), especially regarding his final warning about "preventing third-party commercial appropriation" of volunteers' aggregate work.
ReplyDelete2. Another broad thought/concern I had while reading this was that Evans was erasing the specialist knowledge (and, therefore, value) of the subject specialist versus the lay contributor. In an archive or special collection, isn't a cataloger also a subject specialist, or working closely with one, usually someone with at least a secondary master's degree in the field in question? When he talks about "Archives of the People" on page 395 (again using the free market buzzwords "customers" - who are "deciding (voting by their orders) what to digitize," isn't he erasing subject specialists? What is lost between digitization and description done by a specialist vs. by a volunteer with little to know subject knowledge? Can we do both types of "deciding" simultaneously? Can we use "democratized" indexing or digitization systems to share both archivists' and volunteers' work with a wider group of potential users?
Finally, he does acknowledge at the very end, on page 399, that "unless these projects are carefully managed, the advantages of a peer-based system can become disincentives." Fair enough, and I'd like to read a whole, supplemental article exploring *that*. Meanwhile, I'm left wondering, who will formulate the management systems for these projects? Who will be the authority? I'm thinking both in terms of professional management systems and best practices *and* the more logistical considerations, such as how can archives achieve a workable volunteer management system while already facing significant budgetary and time pressures?
1. Max states that the Information Age brings the advantage of easily,quickly available information and making people more aware of archives and historical records. Apart from the difficulty of scanning,uploading and entering the metadata online, is it possible to obtain an exact copy of the physical material? Won't a physical historical record be more interesting and informative than a digital one?
ReplyDelete2. Archival digitization or mass digitization is explained as digitizing the entire archival material instead of digitizing selected documents from a variety of collections to produce digital exhibits. If the entire material is digitized , there can always be a chance where there are some documents that are not of much importance or relevance. If that's the case, given that there is a tsunami of records yet to be digitized, how feasible or prudent is the concept of mass digitization?
3.Under 'Archives by the people', Max brings out an article by Benkler which talks about thousands of people who collaborated in five minute increments to map Mars craters, that would normally be performed by PhD astronomers. How can we test the accuracy of such archives and the reliability of the sources?
1. Evans article brought up many interesting questions about using the work of volunteers to help organize and facilitate item-level describing and indexing projects. Do you believe that future archives might look more like digital file sharing repositories? Do you believe increased access to digital archives could help to facilitate peer-reviewed metadata?
ReplyDelete2. I am currently working for the technology integration services at the PCL here at UT. One of the major issues we are facing relates to the fact that the UT library webpage was designed for librarians and not for its users. This in turn makes it difficult for those who need access to information but lack a librarian’s skill. Evans raised a good point about the changing role of archives as hierarchal resources to public resource. As a result of this, I am wondering if the archival model will need to change in order to be easily understandable for those who Evans wishes to serve as contributors? How might a less formal system look?
3. Evans article raises another interesting question about the possibility for archives to inform one another with metadata or additional information about items that might not have been possible without open access. With increased access to archives, are their any foreseeable downsides? I am wondering if this idea would be possible for a corporation or government archive?
1. Evans highly valued digitalization of archives in his paper and he believed it would be easy for reading and also for checking at any time. I'll not argue about these merits of digitalization due the success of Wikipedia. Instead, I'll argue that the loss of information during the transferring from materials to digital copies. For example, an oil painting will lose its smell and sense of real after digitalized. Yes, I believe reducing redundant information is a way to deal with information overload but is it possible that the information lost in the process of digitalization is the essence that people truly want in some cases?
ReplyDelete2. Apart from the question #1, I'm also thinking about the possibility of digitalization of archives. In the paper, Evans proposed an ideal way of hiring volunteers to transfer archival materials to digital ones. In my mind, it works in some specific areas, such as translation of ancient words. However, due to the cost and the basic level of requirement for the volunteers, is it possible to store all the archival things in the hardware merely by volunteers?
3. Evans proposed many ideas and one is using metadata and digital structure that sounds like Wikipedia to present the information and to describe the knowledge. But, does such a way fit all the forms of information? For example, as one type of information, music also meet the problem of information overload which calls for a better way for people to choose the music they like. Will the structured metadata ease the music overload in our age?
1. I think the digitization the author proposes is not a one-time-shot. I take the term "Archives of the People, by the People, For the People" similar to the term of "User Centered Design". It should be an iterative process. If there is new need for the material touch of the painting from the users, then the archivist can add that metadata or other ways to convey that information.
Delete1. On page 390, Evans proposes the idea that, rather than digitizing an entire archival collection at once (because it can be time consuming), to instead use finding aids as a means for researchers to 'order up archival digitization-on-demand', saying that archives should just digitize pieces of a collection as they are requested. While I can see his point, on the other hand what's being given as an idea is that archives keep track of miscellaneous orders they fill for researchers with hope or intent that over time they will slowly process an entire collection. This means until then they must keep a record of what scant items of an entire collection they have already worked on. I must ask, how is this less time consuming? Wouldn't it be far easier in the long run to focus on completing 1 collection in its entirety? Or, if you must break up the work, why not just create a timetable with a quota, and accomplish it that way? The idea that a collection will be so in demand that patron orders will take care of the digitization of a collection feels a bit overly optimistic.
ReplyDelete2. On Page 399, Evans mentions his belief that if the tradition of sharing information is strong within the genealogical community (as well as the idea of a large group of people pooling their expertise), the same should work for archives. He even stresses the point by saying that while an archives' major asset may be an archivist's skill at assigning value in description, the community model would foster a commitment to keeping access to materials and information about it from being commercialized. With that in mind, given people's busy lives (and the grueling nature of processing, digitizing, or entering metadata), what could an archives hope to offer its volunteers as rewards for their efforts that wasn't financial or that violated archival principles? And how can an archives keep their volunteer pool motivated and engaged?
3. While I do like a number of Evans' ideas, particularly as a possible means of community outreach for archives (thus opening the door for potential new donors and adding to the pool of knowledge held within an archives), isn't the other ultimate thing to keep in mind is that archives by their very nature are specialized libraries, libraries that the public should not be encouraged to see and treat as they would their public libraries? The suggestion of an increase in unannounced visits for instance; if what a patron wants to see isn't housed in that specific facility, and someone just turns up expecting it to be there, what then?
Again, while I think it is a good thing to foster a sense of responsibility and ownership over archival collections within a community, I also feel it's necessary an archives still be viewed in a different light, which gives them control over their holdings, how they're used... and sometimes most importantly the means to say no to a collection if they feel it doesn't fit the scope of their mission.
I very much agree with the points you make in question 3 and beyond. I feel like his example, like you point out, of someone just walking into an archive unannounced does not necessarily cater to or exemplify what an archive does or how it interacts with its users. That's not to say this sort of thing won't or doesn't happen, though. All in all, it's interesting for me to consider archives working more towards public outreach. A lot of the motivation in digitizing items is to draw the public in and attract a crowd you may not otherwise attract. Back to your question, though, I also agree that archives, by their nature, are not the same as public libraries and should not be handled in the same manner, but I think, in their attempts to stay relevant (which is silly because I think they will always be relevant) they do feel the need to reach out more actively. Ultimately, though, I'd be curious to see how many archives, being trained as you and the article suggest to maintain control over their holdings, would actually be interested in adopting this sort of approach.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete1. In the “Detail Processing” part, I think it is a good idea to decide which collections need more processing by referring to customers’ demands. However, it seems to be even more complicated to track every collection as well as to read researchers’ comments and requests. If archivists could have enough time and energy do all these, why not doing more processing on every collection? I wonder if there is any better method for archivists making decisions. How about requiring specialist archivists to have enough knowledge in a specific field? If so, they can make a decision on the basis of their knowledge and experience.
ReplyDelete2. I think it is not reasonable not providing an item description but only offering the picture of a document. It might be easy for people glancing over but making lots of trouble when people want to retrieval it. It can also do no good for the database to store those documents. For example, if I want to search a textbook, which is the third version of it, it is better have some description since different versions might have similar covers and content. Maybe it is too difficult to decide minimizing metadata to what extent.
3. “Archives by the people” is a good idea and following the trend of Web 2.0. However, relying on volunteers to index collections is not a perfect solution. First of all, we need to consider is there an efficient way for archivists evaluating volunteers’ work. It cannot work well if they do not evaluate, however, is it worthy for them to pay lots of energy and time to evaluate it? If they have to do an evaluation, to what extent is better? Maybe just like Wikipedia cannot replace digital library, this cooperation cannot be authoritative enough to replace traditional archive.
Evans puts forth the idea that “market forces”(390) would drive processing to go above and beyond a minimal amount. What then becomes of the archives or collections which fall out of favor or maintain a small level of interest?
ReplyDeleteEvans makes a lot of assumptions in regards to adopting a set process for dealing with archives and digitization. He makes sure to mention the various systems which touch on the collaborative effort needed to achieve his goal. But, he also mentions how these systems “must accommodate local and institutional variations in staffing, resources, and policies”(393). Assuming a universal system could be developed, how would the disparity between different archival institutions affect the overall system of implementation?
The article seems to be in essence calling for crowd-sourcing the archives but with archivists leading and volunteers being the crowd. Would it be at all possible for true crowd-sourcing to take place in order to help manage archives, akin to zooinverse or wikipedia? Or would the influx of non-archivists cause a disruption in maintaining a uniform system?
1. On page 394 Evans says that “the growing phenomena of folksonomy and social tagging demonstrate that interested individuals will devote their time and energy to make sense of the World Wide Web.” In what context though? If I bring up hashtags (which I think are the death of the English language), I and many others could argue that half of the things created and uploaded to the Web are useless. Social tagging is making some things more segmented and I think it’s doubtful that someone studying hashtags from a scholarly viewpoint hundreds of years later would be able to understand the majority of the context of any hashtagged message as there would be only #snippets #of #the #full #story.
ReplyDelete2. On page 400, Evans says that “the nation’s archives must continue to be open and accessible to all without cost...” I think others will agree with me in saying that this idea is a pipe dream. Archival institutions have special needs for their incoming collections and maintaining what they already have. Most actually need more money than is allocated. The idea that archives should be open and free is an impossibility that would probably close doors. Money is most definitely needed to maintain/preserve/collect resources and pay staff.
3. On 393, Evans writes that levels of “intellectual access to the records in archives have largely been at the discretion of the archivist (or the managers of the institution), based largely on the extent resources can be devoted to the work. Considering how hard academic databases and like JSTOR or EBSCOhost are to access for someone not affiliated with a university, do you think there will ever be an end to the stranglehold companies have on academic research? Will academic research or archival
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete1. There is no doubt that we live in the information age, and we have to communicate with data and information everyday. This article was published in 2007 by Max. And at that time, the author said that the ‘American archivists today face fundamental challenges to their basic beliefs’ (p387). They found it is difficult to process records. However, today, the hottest topic in information science and technology is ‘big data’. And I think the problem can be solved easily with the big data process technology, which can handle super large amount of data with high efficiency, and relative low cost.
ReplyDelete2. When talking about ‘detailed processing’, Max argues that ‘To understand customers demands, archivists must rigorously track the use of collections, but not just to produce aggregate statistics for the annual report.’(p390) I wonder whether it is meaningful to know the ‘use of collections’ and ‘researchers’ comments’. I mean different people use different data for different purposes. To collect the ‘use of collections’ and ‘researchers’ comments’ itself is really a hard work and also one ‘use of collections’ may not fit other ‘uses of collections’.
3. In the item-level description part, the author analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of this level description. As far as I can see, the disadvantages are much more than advantages. It has little value and costs a lot of money. So is it necessary to do this? And the author also mentions that ‘The strategic model…can deliver document images without extensive metadata’ (p394). Is that possible?
1. In this article, the author claims that "researchers' interests and demands create market forces that should influence the decisions about additional processing." But how to investigate researchers' interests and demands? It is rather hard to categorise, as there are thousands of studying fields and theories in the world.
ReplyDelete2. Archivists cannot collect everything and they cannot treat all collections at the same level. But, as we learned before, every data or item has a potential to be useful to certain people. So, does the thought of setting priorities and building alliances to be effective in today's information economy seem to be subjective and unfair?
3. On P396, the author introduces Benkler's project of creating a more efficient human-edited directory. However, all open archives may have a period of being used by very few people at the beginning time. So, my question is how to protect and guarantee the archive correction when only few people edit and use it?
1. In thinking about the future and as the information overload trend continues, people will need best practices in organizing their own needed information (personal as well as professional). Individuals will need to develop meta-data, keywording and search-retrieval best practices simply for their own content of interest. Perhaps developing best practices that can be used by all (particular those employed where maintaining records is required - local, state and federal governments etc.) will make it easier for archivists to add items, keep up with adding to collections or starting new collections in the future. Our behaviors to make things easier for us now will also make things easier for archivists of the future.
ReplyDelete2. "... groups of individuals successfully collaborate on large-scale projects following a diverse cluster of motivational drives and social signals, rather than either market prices or managerial commands." p. 395. Have any crowd sourcing problems been started with archives yet?
3. Other than domain expertise (on the item itself) is there special knowledge/skill needed to add metadata? Is this something that "the people" are able to do themselves or special training and skillset needed? Also what happens when wrong "incorrect" metadata is added to an item? How is the information verified prior to being accepted with the item? Will this process be just as time consuming?
1. The author frames archival records and information as being a part of a "non rival commodity" (p. 396). Outside of journalism/media, and entities who are in the business of information, in what areas is information a rivaled commodity? What does that look like and how does it impact the user/information consumer?
ReplyDelete2. Overall, I appreciate Evans' argument for a collaborative archival system that is based around user demand. However, one issue I think this raises is that of--you don't know what you don't know. If the archive community only responds to public demand, there seems to be a great potential for small or seemingly lesser known materials with great significance to be forgotten or go unacknowledged. An archivists role here is not only to provide order, access and care to these materials, but to advocate for them; to make their importance and relevance known.
3. Again, I find Evans' argument appealing. Are there any examples or success stories of archival institutions that have taken on this more public/demand driven, collaborative approach?
1. In this article the author argues that archives should adopt a new model of operation. He states that because of the increase in amount of new work that must be done in archives that archives should rely on users to decide which records should be digitized and which records should not be digitized. Is this new model based on “market forces” a good idea? Should the user really be responsible for which records should be digitized? What about records that are not important now but may be so in the future?
ReplyDelete2. The author suggests that archives should benefit from crowdsourcing to help fill in metadata on records that archivist cannot due to funding or time restraints. However since one of the main purpose of a record in an archive is to provide trusted evidence of something how can a record that has been worked on by a large number of anonymous individuals be seen as authentic?
3. In this document the archives that the author seems to be discussing are all government archives that are open to the public. He does not discuss archives like corporate archives that limit the people who are able to access them. How could the approach he has described here be applied to such an archive or would it not be possible to do so?
1. Evans writes that “as organizers and facilitators, archivists can recruit, train and manage a corps of volunteers to index their collections”. He points out, though, that much of the motivation for pursuing this crowdsourcing approach is that archivists don’t have the time or resources to address every item within their holdings. Doesn’t it take time and resources to recruit, train and manage volunteers?
ReplyDelete2. I’m very much interested in Evans’ proposal of the customer (the user) “ordering” what they want to be digitized. He even refers to the finding aid as an “electronic menu”. Do you think this approach could potentially streamline the process of digitization? Does it make the most sense in regards to catering to the user’s needs and interests? Will it ultimately appeal to the user to be a part of the decision-making process?
1. Evans seems to firmly believe in the “more product, less process” stance of many modern archivists. However, he takes the theory a step farther by insisting that archivists cannot operate in isolation; archivists must give up some control over what gets processed to their patrons. How might processing collections “on demand” hurt or help an archive? Would this move turn archivists into processing automatons who simply answer to their audience or introduce a more dynamic relationship between archivist and patron?
ReplyDelete2. Evans proposes a supply and demand, capitalistic attitude toward processing. Does this take away from both the objectivity of archivists and the purity of archival intentions?
1. Evans encourages inviting “researchers into the decision-making process” of prioritizing collections for processing. Are there downsides to this? In what ways could the desires of the researchers, of the “market”, go against the best interests of an archive?
ReplyDelete2. What are provenance-based discovery systems?
3. It is fascinating that two different authors from two different fields look at the problem of information overflow and both turn to more cooperative efforts for the solution. “What could be more fair and democratic?” Evans asks. Cleveland also thought more information would make us a more democratic people. Is this true? Will we see this sort of solution popping up in more fields in the future? I’m curious as to what a world with more cooperation will look like.
1. I find the author's assumption/assertion that good-willed men and women, when presented with a choice of "watching television" or providing a meaningful contribution to society by working to catalog online archives, will take up the archivist mantle at best, laughable. To be sure, there are people who would, with opportunity, devote themselves to such a task. And then there are people like me, someone pursuing a degree in information studies and working in the information field who cannot be motivated to stop watching Netflix no matter the task at hand.
ReplyDelete2. Though it sounds great from an accessibility standpoint, is it really beneficial/cost-effective to digitize and make publicly searchable every archive? Will the money saved in box retrieval and item preservation offset the cost of server space and human work done to digitize a collection?
3. Is the general public really equipped to handle such tasks as cataloging?