Wow, VMS - thank you to all who attended our born-digital visual materials discussion on January 25, 2023! This meeting reaffirmed just how widespread this issue is and how urgently we need to address it.
About 60 people attended the event, plus several others who emailed me asking for notes. If you weren’t able to make it, here’s a recap:
This issue came up last fall during our Steering Committee meet-and-greet – several people attending at that time expressed an interest in work on born-digital visual materials. The Steering Committee scheduled this session with the aim of starting to determine the scope of the issue and forming a working group to address these tricky formats.
Another important note from that fall discussion – none of us are experts in this topic! We are all trying to figure it out as we go. So now we hope to do that in a more intentional and organized way to help ourselves and our colleagues.
We started off the conversation by identifying the formats in our collections. Attendees were invited to contribute to the list (feel free to continue adding to this document). A broad range came up, mostly for still and moving images, but also including things like architectural and mapping files.
We also compiled a list of the issues we face when it comes to working with these formats. Volume, duplication, metadata difficulties, space, lack of technical know-how, and administrative buy-in were common themes. Again, this list is available in the document and you can add your thoughts to it as well.
Finally, we talked about how we might tackle this problem. A popular idea was to create a paper or publication, perhaps even a book. Potentially useful models suggested were Photographs: Archival Care and Management and Born-Digital Design Records. Several attendees expressed a desire for a practical, step-by-step guide for working with born-digital visual materials from start to finish. As one attendee put it: a compendium of practices.
If you are interested in being part of the working group that will address these concerns, please contact me at SCaloia@wayne.edu. I hope to schedule our next meeting in the coming weeks. SAA membership is not required. We’d love to have people from a variety of institutions and experiences.
More to come as it develops!
Stefanie Caloia, VMS Chair (2022-2023), Archivist for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University.