Panel 10: Capturing Digital Transformations (2016)

Capturing Digital Transformations

SALALM 61, Panel 10, Thursday, May 12, 2016, 2:00pm-3:30pm
Moderator: Taylor Leigh
Rapporteur: Antonio Sotomayor

Barbara Alvarez: “Capturing Digital Butterflies or How to Build Research Collections of Contemporary Literature in the 21st Century.”

-          Reflection on capturing digital collection from the point of view of a subject librarian.
-          Explore the range of strategies to capture digital tools from Brazil. Review of types of e-literature: digital, electronic, cyber, transmedial, new media, and 2.0.
-          Within e-lit there are multiple types such as kinetic poetry, interactive fiction, etc. E.g. Isa Mestre “Amar em Circulo” an Interactive novel; Chico Marinho “Palavrador” a 3D experience that interacts with the reader; “A derrubadora do Sarria” a poetic epic that depicts the Brazilian soccer defeat in Barcelona through text, video, slides, music, etc.; cronopios.
-          Works on facebook, but hard to find later on. They are taken out. Difficult to capture.
-          One possible tool: New Media and Literary Initiatives in Africa. Web archiving. Once captured, hard to provide access to users.
-          Others: Electronic Poetry Center, Electronic Literature Organization, Electronic Literature Knowledge Base. However, difficult to apply to mass acquisition for large academic libraries.
-          Current tools for web archiving in relation to works out there not enough to preserve the material.
-          Point of crisis.
Ricarda Musser & Anna Weymann: “Making Objects Mobile: Digital Transformation and the New Chances for Research and Collection Management.”
-          The IAI Posada Collection: popular culture c. 1900. 107 Booklets and 434 single sheets.
-          Posada, illustrator of Mexican life. Inspiring to Diego Rivera. Famous or Calaveras, Dia de los Muertos.
-          Managed in two parts: booklets and single sheets.
-          Mobile Objects, cultural and natural objects.
-          Three sections: Political object mobility, object mobility, digital objects mobility.
-          Digital Objects at the Iberoamerican Institute.
-          First step to process the Posada collection, good cataloging using Goobi. Goobi, a tested tool that has proven successful.
-          Then, quality digitization with 600dpi images. Project lasted five months.
-          Good results: a variety of information. Helped to make institute more visible, leading to more collaboration.
-          UNAM/Moreia: virtual reconstruction of the archive of Antonio Venegas Arroyo.
-          Link to another project: Impresos populares mexicanos (1800-1917).
-          New ideas: Literature material.
-          They learned from the project: Librarian is no longer a collector, but works with projects to facilitate research and knowledge. Collaborate outside your institution.
-          Librarians work closely with researchers and demonstrate expertise as information specialist.
-          Embedded librarianship to engage with researchers, professors, and students.
-          To promote digital competencies, keep collaboration to continue learning.
Enrique Camacho Navarro: “Los Estudios Latinoamericanos en la UNAM y las Necesidades de colaboración.”
-          Colaboración entre investigador (historia) y bibliotecarios.
-          Proyectos visuales: mapas, fotografías, pinturas, postales.
-          Mapas: mucha información que refleja el contexto de la época. Intencionalidad de las imágenes. Cartografías de imperialismo, progreso, modernización.
-           Utiliza de ejemplo “Conquest of the Tropics” de Adams. La portada, la cual se pierde en las bibliotecas, nos dice mucho más del libro.
-          Estudia como América Latina es representada como tropical, naturaleza exagerada. Industria y progreso llega con los EEUU.
-          En Latinoamérica las postales no son consideradas como importantes para la investigación. Archivos latinoamericanos no guardan postales.
-          Importancia de que los bibliotecarios y archiveros cataloguen las imágenes para poder proveerle al investigador información vital para el análisis.  El procesar las imágenes en su totalidad al digitalizarlas es de suma importancia.
-          Presenta varias imágenes y explica el potencial para interpretación.

Q&A

-          Luis González (Indiana) for Enrique Camacho Navarro: Que le sugeriría a los bibliotecarios sobre estas fuentes? Camacho: 1. tratar de preservar las portadas de los libros, porque tiene mucha información. 2. Ampliar los datos de información de imágenes, catalogación.
-          Ricarda Musser for Barbara Alvarez: Lots of questions about capturing e-literature. Offers collaboration as an alternative. Brabara: Lots of unpredictable behavior. Knowing the url is not enough. Special features of the work is not limited to the site, but to details.
-          Sotomayor (Illinois) for Ricarda Musser: Features of digital project?: OCR is good, but expensive. Single sheets, good metadata. Collaboration with UNAM = transcriptions of material.
-          Barbara Alvarez (Michigan) for Ricarda Musser: Crowdsourcing? Ricarda, yes. Working on the details, instructions, and applications. Distributed address to project for people to help process the material.