Community of Practice, Model Project 

Organization for Transformative Works: What We Believe

 

The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) is “a nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms.” Here it provides a model values statement showing how one community, rooted in a primarily female culture, views the importance of preserving its history and archive. Also useful for considering the ways that some community archives, in this case of transformative fan works, may require firm knowledge of copyright and fair use law — see the section on Legal Advocacy for more. Pairing OTW beliefs towards transformative works with readings on the privacy and intellectual property needs of other marginalized communities would be particularly fruitful, showing the complicated role of privacy and intellectual property in community archives.

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 

Data Culture Project / Catherine D’Ignazio and Rahul Barghava

 

The Data Culture Project is a model project for both a thoughtful approach to the use of data and technology as well as exploring methods for worplace education and change. Data Culture focuses on providing training for organizations “struggling to figure out how to build capacity to work with data.” The project leaders suggest: “You don’t need a data scientist; you need a data culture.” Helpful for cultural heritage organizations looking for staff training around more thoughtful production and use of their data, or as a model for how to run an effective educational initiative. Part of the larger DataBasic.io learning portal, led by well-known practitioners and scholars Rahul Barghava and Catherine D’Ignazio.

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/.
Reading or Video 

Democratizing the Digital Collection: New Players and New Pedagogies in Three-Dimensional Cultural Heritage / Jane-Heloise Nancarrow

 

“Three-dimensional modeling and printing of museum artifacts have a growing role in public engagement and teaching—introducing new cultural heritage stakeholders and potentially allowing more democratic access to museum collections. This destabilizes traditional relationships between museums, collections, researchers, teachers and students, while offering dynamic new ways of experiencing objects of the past. Museum events and partnerships such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art “Hackathon”; the MicroPasts initiative; and Sketchfab for Museums and Cultural Heritage, encourage non-traditional methods of crowd-sourcing and software collaboration outside the heritage sector. The wider distribution properties of digitized museum artifacts also have repercussions for object-based and kinesthetic learning at all levels, as well as for experiential and culturally sensitive aspects of indigenous heritage. This article follows the existing workflow from model creation to classroom: considering the processes, problems, and applications of emerging digital visualization technologies from both a museum and pedagogical perspective.”

Nancarrow, Jane-Heloise. 2016. “Democratizing the Digital Collection: New Players and New Pedagogies in Three-Dimensional Cultural Heritage.” Museum Worlds; Oxford 4 (1): 63–77. https://doi.org/10.3167/armw.2016.040106.
Model Project, Reading or Video 

‘Chuck a Copyright on it’: Dilemmas of Digital Return and the Possibilities for Traditional Knowledge Licenses and Labels / Jane Anderson and Kimberly Christen

 

An in-depth look at the history and considerations behind the development of the Traditional Knowledge labels, which pairs well with an investigation in to the TK Labels themselves. “This article focuses on the creation of an innovate network of licenses and labels delivered through an accessible, educational, and informative digital platform aimed specifically at the complex intellectual property needs of Indigenous peoples, communities, and collectives wishing to manage, maintain, and preserve their digital cultural heritage. The Traditional Knowledge (TK) Licenses and Labels answer a grassroots, global call by Indigenous communities, archivists, museum specialists, and activists for an alternative to traditional copyright for the varied needs of Indigenous communities and the cultural materials they steward. Local Contexts is a project and educational website dedicated to the production of new intellectual property frameworks for Indigenous materials that depart from colonial histories of collection and Western legal frameworks.”

Anderson, Jane, and Kimberly Christen. 2013. “‘Chuck a Copyright on It’: Dilemmas of Digital Return and the Possibilities for Traditional Knowledge Licenses and Labels.” Museum Anthropology Review 7 (1–2): 105–26. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/mar/article/view/2169.
Model Project 

Local Contexts: The Traditional Knowledge (TK) Labels

 

Providing a framework for sharing cultural materials that respects the wishes of the people to whom those materials belong, the TK Labels “are a tool for Indigenous communities to add existing local protocols for access and use to recorded cultural heritage that is digitally circulating outside community contexts.” They serve as framework for developing information system facets such as user accounts, access protocols, API features, and more.

“The TK Labels offer an educative and informational strategy to help non-community users of this cultural heritage understand its importance and significance to the communities from where it derives and continues to have meaning. TK Labeling is designed to identify and clarify which material has community-specific restrictions regarding access and use. This is especially with respect to sacred and/or ceremonial material, material that has gender restrictions, seasonal conditions of use and/or materials specifically designed for outreach purposes. The TK Labels also can be used to add information that might be considered ‘missing’, including the name of the community who remains the creator or cultural custodian of the material, and how to contact the relevant family, clan or community to arrange appropriate permissions.”

 

Anderson, Jane, and Kimberly Christen. n.d. “Traditional Knowledge (TK) Labels.” Local Contexts. Accessed March 2, 2018. http://localcontexts.org/tk-labels/.
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.