Case Study 

Mapping Violence: A Case Study on Project Development, Iterative Approaches to Data Collection and Visualization, and Collaborative Work With Undergraduates / Jim McGrath

 

This case study looks at an important benchmark in the development of Mapping Violence, a digital project interested in histories and records of state-sanctioned racial violence on the Mexico/Texas border in the early twentieth century. Specifically, it focuses on work completed in the summer of 2016 with a team of undergraduates at Brown University, documenting some of the collaborative, iterative, pedagogical, and ethical dimensions of the project’s ideas of data, interface, and audience.
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Model Project 

artasiamerica

 

artasiamerica is a digital archive for Asian and Asian American contemporary art history. It is an excellent example of a long-term community archive (based at the Asian American Arts Center in New York City), beginning with deep physical collections of which a selection have been processed and digitized. The digital collections are notable for their careful consideration of metadata application, using both existing standards and local headings when existing standards do not have needed terms (see a brief discussion in the FAQ.)

“Artasiamerica - A Digital Archive for Asian / Asian American Contemporary Art History.” n.d. Accessed October 23, 2018. http://artasiamerica.org/.
Model Project, Reading or Video 

CWRC Ontology Specification – 0.99.6

 

The CWRC Ontology Specification (at version 0.99.6 as of this posting) is an excellent example of a thoughtful technical specification showing the process of both creating methods for standardizing data while grappling with the difficult process of distilling human experience into data definitions. The intellectual context included in the robust documentation would be helpful for any project dealing with questions of standardization in cultural heritage data. The ontology itself offers a rich vocabulary for literary study and history with a strong emphasis on representing concepts through careful gender and intersectional analysis. The ontology is a project of CWRC, the Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory, which “brings together researchers working with online technologies to investigate writing and related cultural practices relevant to Canada and to the digital turn.”

“CWRC Ontology Specification - 0.99.6.” n.d. Accessed January 22, 2019. http://sparql.cwrc.ca/ontologies/cwrc-2018-02-22.html.
Community of Practice, Model Project 

Black Metropolis Research Consortium

 

The Black Metropolis Research Consortium is a model project for inter-institutional collaboration and community partnership. The project focuses on methods needed to surface and connect materials related to the history and culture of African Americans. The BMRC’s activities include support for internships and fellowships along with projects such as surveying and processing relevant collections for inclusion into their specialized search of finding aids related to African American history and culture. See in particular the BMRC database as an example of increased accessibility through the focused processing of archival collections. The BMRC is, from their website hosted at the University of Chicago: “a Chicago-based membership association of libraries, universities, and other archival institutions. Its mission is to make broadly accessible its members’ holdings of materials that document African American and African diasporic culture, history, and politics, with a specific focus on materials relating to Chicago.”

Black Metropolis Research Consortium, and University of Chicago. n.d. “Black Metropolis Research Consortium – A Resource for Black History in the Chicagoland Area.” Accessed October 16, 2018. http://bmrc.lib.uchicago.edu/.
Community of Practice 

Archivists and Archives of Color Section

 

The Archivists and Archives of Color Section is an essential group, informally known as AAC, that creates space and advocacy for archives and archivists of color. A section of the Society of American Archivists, AAC members are often at the forefront of thinking about how to partner with marginalized communities and steward community archives both physical and online. It is also an essential community of support for archivists of color.

Study Path 

Enhancing Description to Make African American Materials More Discoverable / Katie Rawson & Trevor Muñoz

 

This study path will ask learners to replicate the methodology/follow the model described in Dorothy Berry’s case study “Digitizing and Enhancing Description Across Collections to Make African American Materials More Discoverable on Umbra Search African American History” in order to better understand the value and values of additional description in surfacing materials from marginalized groups.

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Reading or Video 

Introducing Critical Race Theory to Archival Discourse: Getting the Conversation Started / Anthony Dunbar

 

An excellent introduction to and definition of key terms such as critical race theory, microaggression, and social justice, clearly linking those terms to core archival concepts and processes such as how one defines and structures an archival “record”.

“This article introduces the application of Critical Race Theory (CRT) to archival discourse in order to demonstrate how such a critical and analytical approach can help identify and raise social and professional consciousness of implicit racial bias. To demonstrate the potential of CRT, the paper discusses how the terminology and methodological structures of CRT might be applied to some aspects of archival theory and practice. The paper concludes that CRT can contribute to a diversified archival epistemology that can influence the creation of collective and institutional memories that impact underrepresented and disenfranchised populations and the development of their identities.”

Dunbar, Anthony. 2006. “Introducing Critical Race Theory to Archival Discourse: Getting the Conversation Started.” Archival Science 6 (1): 109–29. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-006-9022-6.
Model Project 

Umbra Search African American History

 

Umbra Search African American History “makes African American history more broadly accessible through a freely available widget and search tool, umbrasearch.org; digitization of African American materials across University of Minnesota collections; and support of students, educators, artists, and the public through residencies, workshops, and events locally and around the country.” Umbra brings together metadata and items from across archival collections, and thereby helps surface items related to African American history that may not be well-cataloged in physical format, and therefore less find-able in the physical collections. Umbra is also notable for its robust outreach program.

University of Minnesota. n.d. “Umbra Search African American History.” Umbra Search African American History. Accessed October 2, 2018. https://www.umbrasearch.org/.

We are excited to also host a case study based on author Dorothy Berry’s work at Umbra: Digitizing and Enhancing Description Across Collections to Make African American Materials More Discoverable on Umbra Search African American History.

Model Project 

Digital Transgender Archive

 

“The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world.” The DTA was partially developed in response to the placement of transgender history within the archival record: it is often not cataloged and difficult to find, and often difficult to uncover within larger collections. Changes in language around the transgender experience also present challenges in locating older items, and developing new and inclusive cataloging standards that both shares transgender history but respects the privacy of individuals. The DTA is particularly notable for developing clear policies around metadata, copyright, and reuse, as well as developing a model to digitize and bring together items that are physically dispersed.