ARMA-CT, May 22, 2013

1. Facing Up to ARMA-geddon:
Preserving Cultural Records in the Digital Age
Gregory Colati, University of Connecticut
ARMA CT May, 2013

2. May 22, 2013ARMA CT2

3. The Dilemma of Modern Media, 1996
 BEFORE YouTube, Facebook, and Smartphones
May 22, 2013ARMA CT3

4. Dilemma of Modern Media, 1912
May 22, 2013ARMA CT4

5. Cultural Armageddon, 1980s
May 22, 2013ARMA CT5

6. Cultural Armageddon, 1990s
May 22, 2013ARMA CT6

7. Cultural Armageddon, 2000s
May 22, 2013ARMA CT7

8. Cultural Armageddon, 2011
Source: University of Southern California
Credit: Todd Lindeman and Brian Vastag/ The
Washington Post
May 22, 2013ARMA CT8

9. Cultural Armageddon, 2012
May 22, 2013ARMA CT9

10. Cultural Armageddon, 2013
“You may not incorporate the information… in any …archive”
May 22, 2013ARMA CT10

11. Cultural Armageddon: The Digital Attic
May 22, 2013ARMA CT11

12. Cultural Armageddon, 2013
May 22, 2013ARMA CT12

13. Cultural Armageddon, 2014?
May 22, 2013ARMA CT13

14. What Has Value?
May 22, 2013ARMA CT14

15. What is Noise?
May 22, 2013ARMA CT15

16. May 22, 2013ARMA CT16

17. Everything can be data…
“When it was made simple, counted in bits, Information
was found to be everywhere”
-James Gleick, The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood (2011)
“It is not just about the data, it is about the story”
-Arianna Huffington (2012)
…and used to tell a story.
May 22, 2013ARMA CT17

18. Five Equations of the Cultural Record
Content = Data
Analog = Non-existent
Unconnecte
d
= Invisible
Reusable = Valuable
Storytelling = Visualization
May 22, 2013ARMA CT18

19. The Dilemma of Modern Scholarship
How do we insure that resources that
support scholarship and research that exist
in digital form today will reliably exist and
be discoverable in the future?
2013 2???
?
May 22, 2013ARMA CT19

20. Digital Repositories organize data…
 Digital representations of analog
originals
 Born digital objects with no
“original” analog form
 Still Images
 Data Sets
 Documents
 Moving Images
 Complex objects
May 22, 2013ARMA CT20

21. …to be used in one environment…
http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/leonardo/
May 22, 2013ARMA CT21

22. … re-used in another…
http://www.bl.uk/app/treasures.html
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23. … to tell a story.
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24. Non-consumptive Analysis
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25. Four “–ity”s of the Digital Cultural Record
 Sustainability
 The digital object can be maintained and accessed
over time
 Authenticity
 The digital object is reliably true to the original
 Interoperability
 The ability of one standards-based object to be
used in any other standards-based system
 Reusability
 Objects can be used in ways not related to original
purpose
May 22, 2013ARMA CT25

26. CtSDC
Other
Partner
s
Administration Presentation
Public facing
CHS
Contribution
Connecticut Digital Archive
Backward facing

27. Greg Colati
Sr. Director
Archives, Special Collections and Digital Curation
University of Connecticut
gregory.colati@uconn.edu
Slides and text available at: http://www.slideshare.net/Gcolati/
May 22, 2013ARMA CT27

28. Credits (In order of appearance)
 Big Brother: http://www.flickr.com/photos/duncan/5510161001/
 Paul Conway, Preservation in the Digital World http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/conway2
 Wax Cylinder: Flickr image from the National Film and Sound Archive Australia
 Brittle page: http://chla.library.cornell.edu/c/chla/about2.html
 Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/graphic/2011/02/11/GR2011021100614.html
 Digital Universe: http://www.emc.com/leadership/programs/digital-universe.htm
 Singularity Hub: http://singularityhub.com/2010/07/20/your-entire-life-recorded-lifelogging-
goes-mainstream/
 Justin TV: http://justin.tv
 Google glass: http://www.google.com/glass/start/what-it-does/
 Iris: http://www.lowes.com/cd_Iris_239939199_
 DCC Lifecycle model: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/curation-lifecycle-model
 Locomotive: Archives and Special Collections, University of Connecticut
 Leonardo’s notebook: http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/leonardo/
 British Library tablet app: http://www.bl.uk/app/treasures.html
 Inventing Europe: http://pro.europeana.eu/web/guest/inventing-europe
 Google Ngram viewer: http://books.google.com/ngrams/
May 22, 2013ARMA CT28