This page offers information on selected teleconferences offered to students in the University of Maine's Digital Curation program.
Glen Weyl00:00 The problem with centralized platforms
02:02 Proliferating alternatives
02:36 Weyl, Ohlhaver, and Buterin on soul-bound tokens
03:20 Topics for this webinar
04:33 Digital curation
05:00 Glossary of web3 terms
07:02 Problems with financialized/NFT-driven web3
08:47 From platform to protocol in cultural institutions
09:32 Tokens for social connection
14:27 Trusted identities v. deep fakes
17:51 Copies as surrogate for trust historically (Mike Maizels)
22:48 Tokenizing social connections
26:17 Empowering diverse coalitions
31:11 Can tokens move among communities over time? (Ryan Cassidy)
32:48 Correlated opinion v. factual truth (John Bell and Regina Harsanyi)
35:52 Fake tokens
38:05 Fact-determining processes v. knowledge as social construct (John Bell)
40:02 Technical sophistication required (Regina Harsanyi and Mike Maizels)
42:02 Embedding social context in data (AI)
44:46 Linear provenance v. larger context
47:32 NFTs and copyright
50:44 Critique of Creative Commons
53:30 Can blockchains reconnect us to local commons? (Joline Blais)
55:27 Geographic and digital divides (Heather Van Dyne)
57:27 Decentralization v. distributed, eg Mastodon (Mike Hanley)
60:23 Renewing trust in institutions (Casey Kelly)
62:49 Decentralized government in Taiwan
64:53 The Louvre v. Weblouvre
66:04 Micro-DAOs (Regina Harsanyi)
70:42 Do we need blockchain?
72:41 Alternative webs of trust? (Joline Blais, PGP)
74:51 Elitism and the digital divide (Rene Cepeda)
77:11 Including outsiders (John Bell)
80:45 Tech/AI for diversity
82:27 Privacy
84:40 The responsibility to innovate
Regina Harsanyi, John Bell, and Jon Ippolito00:00 Potential and challenges for blockchain as a preservation tool
What this panel is not about
Assumptions (right and wrong) about NFTs
03:08 The three parts of this presentation
03:48 "Receipts" as inappropriate metaphor for NFTs
05:11 Sample works with significant on-chain dependencies
Mad Dog Jones, John F. Simon, Jr., Rhea Myers, Kevin and Jennifer McCoy
07:48 Rhea Myers' Tokens Equal Text (2019)
09:23 Kevin and Jennifer McCoy's Quantum Leap (2021)
11:49 Time-based media documentation standards and NFTs
12:27 The vulnerability of blockchain nodes
Only 2000 Ethereum operators at the time of this talk
13:50 Blockchain failure points
15:00 Net art precedents
John F. Simon Jr's Unfolding Object (2001) and Keith Obadike's Blackness for Sale (2001)
16:58 Variable media strategies
18:01 Storage strategies
Expire, freeze, or sustain?
19:11 Migration strategies
20:23 Emulation strategies
Reset, fork, or continue?
21:26 Obscurity in blockchain technology
22:58 Components of a blockchain
25:20 Components of a blockchain-based artwork
26:55 Components of the viewer
27:36 The spectrum of paranoia
28:30 Reconstructing these components with a virtual machine
29:03 Open questions for blockchain emulation
Can public transactions really be emulated?
When should you collect a copy of the blockchain?
Should you reset, fork, or continue the existing chain?
30:38 Response from Oliver Grau
31:24 Will one museum suffice or is a network required to preserve a blockchain?
33:35 Are collections considering NFT works that engage cultural content rather than just code?
35:19 Is it possible to emulate currency transactions?
Shelley Lightburn, International Court of Justice00:00 Shelley Lightburn is introduced by Jon Ippolito
02:35 Lightburn's career path
14:28 Authenticity in a criminal tribunal
17:52 Exhibiting evidence
22:21 How was the website built?
23:02 Objects on display
25:08 Sharing evidence without tampering
28:49 Retention of digital versus physical evidence
34:25 The burden of preservation
36:10 Low budget and small staff?
41:00 Versions
41:46 Can you minimize the mediation inherent in digital representations?
44:35 Evidence on outdated platforms
49:49 Emulation and proving correlation
52:23 Failures of migration
55:25 Maintenance
57:35 Preserving 3d files
62:53 Theory versus practice
65:37 Wrap up
Jason Scott, Internet Archive0:00:00 Introduction to the program and Jason Scott (Jon Ippolito)
02:47 "I literally stumbled backwards into becoming a librarian and archivist"
12:30 Dealing with entropy
16:04 Working at the Internet Archive (and fan-made subtitles)
21:11 Being proactive with the press and preservation
22:34: Archive Team: "We think of ourselves as EMTs."
26:34 Rescuing content from dying platforms
32:41: At what point did you start to consider yourself an archivist? (Beth Sanders)
35:34 Taxonomic structure of the Internet Archive
37:59 Working with Brewster Kahle
41:43 What is the long-term strategy for the Internet Archive's existence? (Lorraine Scott)
45:29 How does the Archive handle intellectual property rights of uploaded material? (Beth Sanders)
51:32 When material arrives, do you see matchmaking opportunities for documentaries? (John Bell)
00:00 Is material acquired by Archive staff more important, or what's uploaded by the "little guys"? (Renee DesRoberts)
04:25 Managing oversharers with "Stacks"
10:21 How to play vintage games without downloading anything
17:58 Emulating Flash animations and games
25:31 Do you have to create a new emulator when you acquire a new format? (Renee DesRoberts)
35:40 How can we support the creation of more emulators?
48:20 Is there ever a time when the Archive is not the best repository for something? (Beth Sanders)
55:06 How long does it take for the Archive to digitize analog material? (Blair Mueller)
1:02:37 Who does the digitization? (Beth Sanders)
1:10:25 Do you and the Archive work with groups in other countries? (Thomas Walskaar)
1:12:55 How to contact Jason
Anna Perricci, Rhizome/Webrecorder00:00 Introduction to the program (Jon Ippolito)
01:04 Introducing Anna Perricci
05:01 Introduction to web archiving
06:55 Automated versus human-scale archiving
09:35 Community collecting with Occupy Wall Street, Internet Archive, and Documenting the Now
10:50 Introduction to Webrecorder
14:19 What is high-fidelity web archiving?
20:27 Built-in emulation of vintage browsers
21:19 Autopilot
21:26 How to get technical help
23:17 Archiving representative samples (Matthew Revitt)
25:40 More on Autopilot (Meagan Doyle)
27:36 Browsertrix (Alex Kaelin)
28:25 How to patch missing content (Colin Windhorst)
29:41 Demo of Webrecorder acting on a site
37:04 "Capture URL again" v. "Patch this URL" (Sarah Danser)
37:50 Using emulated browsers for both capture and playback (John Bell)
39:11 Time frame for archiving a social media site like Facebook (Renee DesRoberts)
40:22 Capturing beyond images, eg iframes and hidden web structures
42:07 Capturing data-driven websites (Cynde Moya)
43:08 Capturing outgoing requests, like a query in a search box (John)
44:02 Ease of patching compared to other tools (Sean Crawford)
44:18 Editing options (Kim Sawtelle)
46:02 Capturing live content in real-time, like streaming radio (Alex)
47:43 Saving local backups (Colin)
48:44 Capturing dead links, eg in Scalar books (Colin).
50:24 Case study of media-rich journalism (Rhonda Carpenter)
51:45 Archive-It and capturing database content (Matthew)
54:17 Top-down harvesters (such as OAIS) versus bottom-up, human-scale solutions.
57:47 How to get more information
Trevor Owens, Library of CongressApproximate timecodes in Hours: minutes
00:00 Introduction by Jon Ippolito
01:40 Inspirations for writing "Theory & Craft of Digital Preservation"
02:50 Overview of the book
04:55 Divergent preservation lineages
07:47 1. "A repository is not a piece of software"
08:39 2. "Institutions make preservation possible"
09:25 3. "Tools can get in the way as much as they can help"
09:55 4. "Nothing has been preserved, there are only things being preserved"
11:04 5. "Hoarding is not preservation"
11:50 6. "Backing up data is not digital preservation"
12:30 7. "The boundaries of digital objects are fuzzy"
14:21 8. "One person’s digital collection is another’s digital object is another’s dataset"
15:00 9. "Digital preservation is making the best use of resources to mitigate threats and risks"
16:03 10. "The answer to nearly every digital preservation question is 'It depends' "
16:51 11. "It’s long past time to start taking actions"
18:03 12. "Highly technical definitions of digital preservation are complicit in silencing the past"
19:02 13. "The affordances of digital media prompt a need for digital preservation to be entangled in digital collection development"
21:02 14. "Accept and embrace the archival sliver"
21:48 15. "The scale and inherent structures of digital information suggest working more with a shovel than with a tweezers"
22:48 16. "Doing digital preservation requires thinking like a futurist"
24:08 Anne Schlitt: Who are the futurists that you read?
26:35 Who determines our technological future?
27:53 Colin Cruickshank-Windhorst: Can a repository be too big?
32:14 How does the Library of Congress accommodate a futurist viewpoint?
36:07 Kyle Walton: What are the best practices for converting to paperless office?
40:05 How can digital details like the lowly spacer GIF shed light on decades of Internet aesthetics and politics?
46:22 Twitter as an example of a readymade collection.
48:42 Cruickshank-Windhorst: How do you work with grad students in community digital preservation projects?
54:13 Conclusion
George Willeman, Library of CongressApproximate timecodes in Hours: minutes
00:00 Introduction by Jon Ippolito
01:19 How George came to manage the nitrate film archive
04:25 Facts about the collection
05:02 The Culpeper complex (and the zombie apocalypse)
10:08 Vault conditions and discovery tools
12:24 Importance of a human archivist
14:02 Deterioration of nitrate films
16:10 Nitrate: an explosive medium
21:30 Safety (acetone) film isn't safe
25:28 What can you do about decaying formats?
27:02 Fred Seavey: what are the LoC's holdings of nature and educational films?
30:10 Other national film archives
30:50 Georges Melies and the beauty of reprinted negatives
32:13 The first 3d films
32:53 Legal rights and preservation
35:10 What copies should be saved for preservation?
36:35 Preserving film versus slide frames
38:07 How you get a print or copy from a negative?
39:51 What is lost and gained in going from film to digital?
41:29 Unique qualities that can’t be reproduced digitally
43:26 Process for digitizing film
44:35 Rhea Cote Robbins: How do US and Canadian film archives compare?
45:02 "Frozen Time": documentary on deteriorated nitrate by Bill Morrison
46:27 John Bell on paper prints
50:44 Preserving microfilm
51:35 Should old formats be discarded upon digitization?
52:20 Fred Seavey: initiatives for preserving home movies?
53:44 Mystery film of JFK's assassination
54:20 LoC's recommended digitization formats
56:50 Storage of digital formats
57:35 Magnetic tapes versus hard drives
58:10 Proportion of collection digitized
58:34 Offsite backup versus cloud
59:41 Colin Windhorst: how hard is adjusting to the transition to digital?
Anne Knowles, University of Maine historianApproximate timecodes in Hours: minutes
00:03 Introduction by Jon Ippolito
00:43 Introducing DIG students.
01:26 Anne introduces historical geography
03:53 GIS (Geographic Information Systems) versus GPS
04:30 "95% of information collected by humans is geographic"
06:22 Extracting digital insights from analog maps
07:30 Mapping the battle of Gettysburg
11:51 How to digitize an analog map
12:57 What could Robert E. Lee see at Gettysburg?
15:54 Shelley Lightburn on using geographic data for the United Nation's Missing Persons project
17:21 The need for better education about maps
18:18 Shelley on maps as crucial evidence in the International Criminal Tribunal
18:48 Viewshed analysis: what can be seen from points on a map
20:02 Mapping community health needs in rural Maine with GIS
22:03 Jo Ana Morfin on mapping as a generalizable practice
24:09 How to trace a printed map to produce a digital one
27:52 Combining analog maps with "digital stitching"
28:53 Scanning very large maps
30:48 Digitizing globes at the Osher library
31:16 Patricia Prescott on gantry scanners and cameras
32:31 The Holocaust and the limits and potentials of digital scholarship
32:45 Geographies of the Holocaust book
35:10 Mapping the difference between rhetoric and reality at Auschwitz
36:36 The problem with "perpetrators' maps"
36:50 Geographic distribution of concentration camps
38:19 How can we represent the qualitative experience of victims?
39:10 Tagging survivor testamonies with keywords
40:12 Natural language processing of transcripts
41:40 Beyond geographic maps: linguistic and emotional correlations
43:14 Authoritative v. subjective: perpetrators' facts and victims' stories
45:12 Natural language processing v. corpus linguistics in Shoah testimonies
47:04 Patricia on maps in maritime history
47:20 Colin on individual stories within large-scale systems, as in Schindler's list
48:35 Broader issues of digital curation
49:03 Colin on inferring human stories from data in rural Maine
50:22 Can interactive books bring human voices to mapping?
51:37 Paul Smitherman on comparing genders with Big Data techniques
52:19 The Maine Historical Atlas
53:07 Jo Ana on documenting political graffiti
54:35 Crowdsourcing metadata for the 60,000 keywords in Shoah videos
55:12 Another example of crowdsourcing: Art Crimes graffiti website
56:30 What should we archive in our increasingly visual world?
58:44 Colin: "Graffiti in ancient Rome was a pretechnological Twitter"
59:08 Challenges of opening up the Shoah archive
61:13 Scalar, open archives, and linked data
62:39 Do we risk bias by importing implicit spatial metaphors into the digital world?
65:58 Drawing by hand to awaken the spatial imagination
66:41 Paul: Is there a "human geography of Facebook"?
67:58 Facebook as geographic supplement to Arab Spring
68:50 Colin: letterforms as small-scale geography
Ben Fino-Radin, Museum of Modern ArtApproximate timecodes in Hours: minutes
00:00Introduction by Jon Ippolito.
01:48Ben Fino-Radin on acquiring the earliest Macintosh icons
07:21Obsolete media: digitizing obsolete floppy disks with the Kryoflux
11:09Obsolete file systems: imaging early Macintosh/Windows file systems
12:47Obsolete formats: using emulators to read disk formats
14:07Missing software: opening images without the program that created them
15:22How to provide access for curators
20:13Museum versus archival collections
21:24The first work of Internet art collected by a museum
23:17Missing software: how do you reconstruct server scripts?
27:31Handling error-filled content (invalid HTML)
28:41Forking a work into multiple versions
30:58Rewriting code and security concerns
32:31Restoring two versions of the same work
33:08The new, live version: a functioning participatory interface
33:43The restored, historic version: updating Web links with the WayBack Machine
35:51Multiple restorations with different purposes
38:12Web browsers as the future of media access
40:08Professional versus crowdsourced preservation
42:05Transfer Station (XFR STN), and a cat
45:42Solutions for small collections
46:19Case study: Cory Arcangel Studio
46:49DropBox for remote access and backup
48:32Infinite version history and checksums
49:38Binder: a digital repository manager developed at MoMA
50:38How to get Binder
51:53Matters of Media Art: Solutions for collections of middle scale
53:23Open-sourcing a website by hosting it on GitHub
55:18Re-casting older technology in openFrameworks
57:50Conclusion
Craig Dietrich, Scalar/MukurtuApproximate timecodes in Hours: minutes
00:00Introduction by Jon Ippolito.
02:09Craig Dietrich on his neighborhood and maps as technology
05:45Hypercities: an caveat about dependence on corporate platforms
09:00Katrina Wynn on comparable mapping projects
10:25Neatline
11:18Internet archive
15:04The Critical Commons copyright workaround
20:25Mukurtu Archive and Local Context
28:36What is metadata?
30:00Metadata for traditional knowledge
34:00Is enforcement of cultural norms necessary?
36:15Katrina Wynn: how is access controlled?
37:37Misuse of material from Shoah Foundation archive
39:26Introduction to Scalar
41:52Example of a digital edition: Ancient Monuments
47:00Easily make a digital book with Scalar
48:15Linking to archives with Scalar
55:10Tensor: a user-friendly archive lookup tool
59:18Round-tripping metadata
59:54Barbara Finley: does Scalar accommmodate Traditional Knowledge labels?
63:16Katrina Wynn: how can metadata protect sensitive material?
65:12Molly Carlson on Zaption, which inserts quizzes into video.
69:50Enforcing learning sequences via online tests
71:45Molly Carlson on standards-based education versus non-linear learning
73:07Hypothes.is, a community-based text annotator, integrated
76:34Katrina Wynn: how useful is the Dublic Core standard?
78:03How funding has influenced the rise of metadata
78:34Scholarly contributions to archives via metadata
79:59Dublic Core and alternative metadata standards
81:46Diane on the Omeka Neatline plugin
84:12Vectors version of Google Maps
85:11Tracking black ops flights with online maps
87:57Installing and using Mukurtu
89:29Installing and using Scalar
90:21Reclaim hosting and Scalar
91:20Conclusion
Dragan Espenschied, RhizomeApproximate timecodes in minutes:seconds
00:00 Introduction by Jon Ippolito.
00:24 Dragan Espenschied on Rhizome's mission.
01:50 Crowdsourcing archival acquisitions.
03:37 Obsolescence and the archive.
04:00 Problems of archiving social media.
07:18 Example: Facebook redesign.
08:02 Example: MySpace redesign.
08:52 Preserving records versus preserving user experience.
10:31 Jon's summary of challenges faced by Rhizome.
11:55 Scale for the Internet Archive and Rhizome.
15:22 Limits of metadata.
16:13 How do you know what software you need to run an artifact?
18:02 Preservation through access.
18:50 demo of bwFLA CD-ROM emulation.
22:08 Viewing a Mac OS9 "Read Me" document in browser-based emulation.
22:08 Viewing the Mac OS9 CD-ROM "Vexations" in browser-based emulation.
25:41 Advantage of saving only the differences between system configurations.
27:29 Viewing Theresa Duncan CD-ROMs in emulation.
28:01 Spawning an emulator in the cloud.
31:05 Why should collecting institutions help develop emulators?
32:55 How do you emulate network-based resources, like outdated URLs?
34:06 Resurrecting Geocities with a proxy server.
39:21 Researching history of software via DROID over Geocities.
40:40 Leveraging the Internet Archive for obsolete software.
42:14 Web archiving: public documents versus personal media.
44:05 Webrecorder archives Web content that a robot can't.
46:16 JavaScript, not HTML, is now the language of the Web.
48:07 The challenge of archiving Facebook.
49:47 Webrecorder contrasted with traditional Web archiving.
51:15 Archiving Instagram with Webrecorder.
52:45 Why we need to archive emojis.
54:38 Archiving Yelp with Webrecorder.
57:30 Where is the border of an online artifact?
57:58 The challenge of archiving results from search boxes.
1:03:10 What is a WARC file?
1:07:20 Why you need to save collections for each user.
1:08:19 Demo of Webrecorder applied to the New York Times.
1:12:11 Demo of Webrecorder applied to Vine.
1:12:27 Why archivists need futuristic approaches, and how art can help.
1:14:38 How browser-based emulation can focus on the work preserved.
Jason Scott, Internet ArchiveApproximate timecodes in Hours:minutes
00:00 Introduction by Jon Ippolito.
00:02 Archive Team members check in.
00:03 Jen Bonnet describes her "Re-Gift" variable media case study.
00:08 Jo Ana Morfin describes her "No-Content.org" variable media case study.
00:10 Jen Bonnet on using the Variable Media Questionnaire.
00:12 Jason Scott on preserving journalism in a digital environment.
00:16 Printing from the browser-based emulator JSMESS.
00:21 Emulating different game consoles with JSMESS; exploiting modularity; JavaScript as cross-platform language.
00:26 Emulation helps expose intent of original creator.
00:35 Copyright as obstacle to preservation.
00:48 How do you decide what to preserve?
00:55 Storing artifacts versus networks of associations.
00:57 Limits of magnetic storage.
01:01 Storing context and ArchiveBot.
01:07 How to get the Archive Team to help you.
01:09 Difficulty preserving multi-user environments like social networks and game worlds.
01:13 Is there anything the Internet Archive would not archive? ("If nobody on Archive Team can come up with even the vaguest use case...")
01:19 Automated metadata creation, a la OCR.
01:18 "Students say they went into archives so they wouldn't have to deal with computers. They are so doomed."
01:22 Magnetic flux readers like Kryoflux.
01:29 Preserving data from the Internet of Things. (Will there be an Internet Archive equivalent of Google Streetview trucks?)
01:34 Constraints of historical technology (visualizing the ocean's doldrums).
01:37 Destruction as part of the digitization process. (Should you break a book's binding to scan it?)
01:38 Responsibility of creators to preserve their work. (Was President Chester Arthur justified in burning his papers two days before his death?)
01:46 Art and the right to be forgotten (as in ephemeral net art).
01:58 The obsession that is Archive Team. (18,000 manuals uploaded by Godane).
02:03 Crowdsourcing the file format problem and why it was a problem for industry professionals. ("They hated it. It was too expansive, we put everything in, like three-ring binders.")
02:08 Wrapup and shoutout to Archive Team.