Post A9iWIWcsjaVDhcD0i0 by ajroach42@retro.social
(DIR) More posts by ajroach42@retro.social
(DIR) Post #A9hOCvUIORpGHR3Hyy by ajroach42@retro.social
2021-07-27T01:11:24Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
Working with a couple archivist on a podcast concept, and I'd like some feedback. 1/3
(DIR) Post #A9hOCvuAqEWfZh9xJo by ajroach42@retro.social
2021-07-27T01:16:31Z
0 likes, 2 repeats
The basic premise is to reach out to libraries and archives that have unique/one of a kind works that can't be publicly released for various reasons about those artifacts and those various reasons. Artifacts we're planning to discuss include:- UCLA Film Archive's DuMont collection (specifically, the 10 episodes of captain video. - Murder at Full Moon (Steinbeck's lost werewolf novel) from the University of Texas- Broadside TV collection at East Tenn. State 2/3
(DIR) Post #A9hOCwLTCkMOwLvkrg by ajroach42@retro.social
2021-07-27T01:26:04Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
So feedback! I'm looking for Artifact suggestions! Ideally, we'd like to run 6 episodes for the first season, so I need at least 12 artifacts, because chances are good that at least half the people we reach out to won't want to speak with us. I'm also open to suggestions on form, but that'll really come later. My chief focus at the moment is on content that Exists in university archives or library holdings, but isn't in general distribution. 3/3
(DIR) Post #A9iTD3t3rGu7G9ToJs by onan@dobbs.town
2021-07-27T14:06:13Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ajroach42 Some Reasons Why Things Go Out of Circulation, 1 of 3The Service Manager of the Bedfordshire Archives gives a seven-minute talk on the topic "Why not digitise everything?"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKNbhMCB_3g
(DIR) Post #A9iTIMusXEqNj3rPKS by onan@dobbs.town
2021-07-27T14:07:11Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ajroach42 Some Reasons Why Things Go Out of Circulation, 2 of 3I know a man who co-wrote a novel I like with someone he later had a falling out with. It took much of negotiation for them to each agree with me to put the book back into print, because they can't agree with each other about... anything.There is another out of print book I'd like to put into print again. The publisher says only the author can authorize that, and the author will not respond to the publisher (nor to me).
(DIR) Post #A9iTJ2ix5yG9OEbTZQ by onan@dobbs.town
2021-07-27T14:07:20Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ajroach42 Some Reasons Why Things Go Out of Circulation, 3 of 3J. D. Salinger refuses to allow 21 of his short stories to be reprinted.http://www.deadcaulfields.com/UncollectedList.htmlI have heard Haruki Murakami does not allow some of his novels to be reprinted, but I don't remember which novels.
(DIR) Post #A9iTwLwhYyHSIamMqG by onan@dobbs.town
2021-07-27T14:14:26Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ajroach42 Some Reasons Why Things Go Out of Circulation, 2 of 3A friend co-wrote a novel with someone he then had a falling out with. The novel went out of print. They could agree with me, but not each other, that the novel could go back into print. It took much negotiation to get even that far.There's another book I tried to put back into print. Publisher, said only author could authorize. Author would not respond to me nor to the publisher. Orphaned, forever.
(DIR) Post #A9iU1bPfU3YniXpac4 by ajroach42@retro.social
2021-07-27T14:15:21Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@onan Orphaned until it's copyright expires, yeah. In the US that's effectively forever.
(DIR) Post #A9iWIWcsjaVDhcD0i0 by ajroach42@retro.social
2021-07-27T14:40:49Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@onan Octavia Butler ditto.
(DIR) Post #A9ijRlHwt7iFBg9UzA by ajroach42@retro.social
2021-07-27T02:09:31Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
There are a lot of really interesting legal and technical problems to discuss in a show like this! We can talk about copyright, of course, and the role it plays in archival work, but we can also discuss technical limitations, budgets, shifting formats, contract agreements, etc.
(DIR) Post #A9ijRlkfAMgIcjaQk4 by ajroach42@retro.social
2021-07-27T02:09:40Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
The Video Databank and Broadside TV both present interesting technical and funding problems (that gear barely works today, I know, I have some. Even when it does work, those tapes are FRAGILE and might just be unrecoverable) as well as the usual issues.
(DIR) Post #A9ijRmCfUF5C1agnOS by ajroach42@retro.social
2021-07-27T02:11:27Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
The big answer for "why isn't this more widely distributed?", in my experience so far, has boiled down to: 1) We didn't think anyone cared. 2) It would be too expensive. 3) We're not sure if we're allowed to. 4) Pay Me.1) and 2) are often wrong. 3) and 4) can be bigger problems (which is to say that "Pay Me" is usually more about turning profit than it is about the cost of archival.)
(DIR) Post #A9ijRmdFtOLlM381po by ajroach42@retro.social
2021-07-27T02:12:00Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
There are also works that present other challenges. The works of Henry Darger for example (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Darger) represent a massive logistical challenge, in addition to all the usual stuff.I'd love to talk to the folks who manage that collection about those challenges.
(DIR) Post #A9ijRn38LB3AeJEhAe by ajroach42@retro.social
2021-07-27T15:18:55Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
Still really enamored with the idea of doing a podcast where we talk to the people who run archives about unique media objects in their collections, and what prevents those media objects from being distributed. Gotta figure out: 1) What to call it 2) If I should host it (I get Angry about these things, maybe I should not) or get someone else to 3) Which additional institutions/artifacts I should reach out to/about beyond the 6 or 7 on my list right now.
(DIR) Post #A9ijRnTMle29xfVe3k by ajroach42@retro.social
2021-07-27T17:05:18Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
The best name I've thought of so far is "This doesn't (just) belong in a museum"
(DIR) Post #A9ijRnuf89rtKKHRbc by penguin42@mastodon.org.uk
2021-07-27T17:08:10Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ajroach42 How about recordings that aren't allowed to be released due to them being (purposely) based on another work and the original composer disliking the results? The one I remember (but which looks like it might have been sorted out in the end?) is the electric version of the Planet suite by Tomita.
(DIR) Post #A9ijURSf3suqYyROjI by ajroach42@retro.social
2021-07-27T17:08:40Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@penguin42 Yeah! same energy.
(DIR) Post #A9jMWlUFTTDBSlHXkm by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2021-07-28T00:26:01Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@onan @ajroach42 Ugh.Her argument largely boils down to "copyrights", "cost", and "the perfect is the enemy, and in this case, righteous vanquisher, of the good". The first two have some validity, the last is sheer obstructionism.As Bedfordshire's SM states things, the existence of the archive is more important than access to it, and the argument reads (whether it's intended to or not) as one for doing nothing rather than a best or reasonable effort.Let's look at the objections ...1/8#Archives #Archival #copyright #digitisation #DigitalArchives #BadArguments #libraries #BedfordshireArchives
(DIR) Post #A9jcKlKroGEgmkBzjU by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2021-07-28T00:26:27Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@onan @ajroach42 Copyright is the most legitimate complaint, though even it applies largely to only 20th century works, nearly all published after 1925. (There are exceptions, this is law, jurisdictions differ. But as a rule that holds.) Copyright is indeed hugely culpable for restricting rather than enabling access to works, as UC Berkeley Law Prof Pam Samuelson has said.Quantity is the first of the red herrings. If you've a lot of something to do, and actually do want to do something with it, doing something is more likely to get you there than doing nothing. This means devising a plan, prioritising works to process, perhaps setting up processes for new aquisitions such that they're archived on arrival. Even a random sampling is better than nothing. Roughly 140 million books have ever been published, unpublished media (manuscripts, notes, etc.) expand that, but the set is finite.2/8#BedfordshireArchives #libraries #BadArguments #DigitalArchives #digitisation #copyright #Archival #Archives
(DIR) Post #A9jcKmCObF3PSlEkAS by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2021-07-28T00:26:58Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@onan @ajroach42 Quality is the second pink fish. Even low-quality digitisation is better than none for billions of people worldwide. And reasonably quality scans are readily attainable. Several false objections are raised (colour scanning is possible and widely practised). And the best way to improve a process is to practise it, see what works, what doesn't and improve it as you go. So long as the originals exist, they can be re-scanned if technology improves sufficiently that this is justified.Odd Formats is another canard. If standard formats are easiest to process, work on those first. Categorise and clasify exceptions. Come up with reasonable mechanisms for addressing them. One thing about publishing, and even manuscripts, is that formats tend settle into a reasonable set of widely used formats in large part. Again, with practise comes improvement.3/8#Archives #Archival #copyright #digitisation #DigitalArchives #BadArguments #libraries #BedfordshireArchives
(DIR) Post #A9jcKmvlsXLljUSytU by calcifer@hackers.town
2021-07-28T02:56:46Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@dredmorbius "So long as the originals exist, they can be re-scanned if technology improves sufficiently that this is justified."I agree in spirit, but of course It's Complicated. One issue with digitization is that all known digitization methods do some degree of damage to the original. You cannot infinitely re-digitize, so there is a sweet spot of what counts as "good enough" that it's worth the degression you're introducing.Conservators are, IMO, overcautious about that. But some caution is actually warranted. @onan @ajroach42
(DIR) Post #A9jcKnM0J0Kl2qjvma by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2021-07-28T00:27:27Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@onan @ajroach42 Changing digital formats has greater legitimacy. Both file formats and physical media change with time, though that rate of change seems to have slowed. (Physical media similarly went through several stages of evolution though again, eventually settled on a fairly stable set of formats.) Major file formatss (TIFF and RAW uncompressed images, JPG, GIF, and PNG, Postscript and PDF) are now decades old, and remarkably stable. Digital archivists are looking at long-term storage. Phyiscal media are similarly being designed for long-term archival, on the order of millennia, and there's a pretty good possibility that they'll succeed in this. Meantime, online or nearline storage (disk and tape) can be replicated and upgraded with reasonable ease. Raw storage costs for the entire US Library of Congress is on the order of a few thousand dollars of physical media, and is falling by an order of magnitude every decade. (Provisioning, maintenance, and access costs add to this, but again the sums are quite suprisingly reasonable.)4/8#BedfordshireArchives #libraries #BadArguments #DigitalArchives #digitisation #copyright #Archival #Archives
(DIR) Post #A9jcKoYRqDskljZNom by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2021-07-28T00:27:48Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@onan @ajroach42 Fidelity to the original is another "perfect as the enemy of the good" objection. True, no copy will ever fully reproduct all aspects of an original, but ... Porquay no los dos? With both the original and multiple copies (perhaps deep scans --- multiple wavelengths, microscopic resolution, penetrating images, chemical analysis), ever-better fidelity can be achieved. And many works within archives are themselves copies, often by hand, of originals. Duplication through time, and the issues it presents, is already integral to archival, and itself plays a key role in historiography and tracing the spread of documents throughout the ancient world.5/8#Archives #Archival #copyright #digitisation #DigitalArchives #BadArguments #libraries #BedfordshireArchives
(DIR) Post #A9jcKpROXvpnW9HGSm by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2021-07-28T00:28:06Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@onan @ajroach42 Funding and its impacts is another legitimate concern, though past experience strongly suggests that increased access and awareness should improve the argument for preserving archives, facilitating sharing and replication, and even in tackling some of the other concerns such as copyright impediments to providing greater access.6/8#BedfordshireArchives #libraries #BadArguments #DigitalArchives #digitisation #copyright #Archival #Archives
(DIR) Post #A9jcKqIDNY5M9xzRnE by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2021-07-28T00:28:25Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@onan @ajroach42 So, yeah, no, I find the arguments given highly unpersuasive.There are other arguments which could be made:Authors restricting access to works. Here my feeling is that peer pressure form dead people should have an expiry date. The argument largely stems from copyright. Either an author should take responsibility for deleting works, or it becomes the common heritage of later generations.Cataloguing and classification. I'm surprised this didn't feature in the video. It's a huge problem with current online archives. Essentially, the problem should already be a major part of an archive's work, and translating metadata to digital formats already a part of existing practice.Integrity and control. This is the elephant in the room for much of the talk. Again, ultimately the works from the past belong to all of the current generation, and future ones. Archivists are their custodians, but not the gatekeepers to them.7/8#Archives #Archival #copyright #digitisation #DigitalArchives #BadArguments #libraries #BedfordshireArchives
(DIR) Post #A9jcKrWmmrKpzRob8y by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2021-07-28T00:28:36Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@onan @ajroach42 I find it interesting that until a few months ago, this video was the most recent one published by Bedfordshire in years. I'm hoping there's been a change in leadership and philosophy there. And at other archives.8/end/#BedfordshireArchives #libraries #BadArguments #DigitalArchives #digitisation #copyright #Archival #Archives
(DIR) Post #A9jcKsjwHRRzkWycHg by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2021-07-28T00:42:30Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@onan @ajroach42 And just so context on Bedfordshire is clear:The Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service is a county record office, holding archival material associated with Bedfordshire and Luton. Established in 1913 by George Herbert Fowler (1861-1940) as the Bedfordshire Record Office, it was the first county record office in England.[1] It is located in Bedford.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedfordshire_and_Luton_Archives_and_Records_Service
(DIR) Post #A9l1szgPfFaj8oeMAS by ajroach42@retro.social
2021-07-28T12:55:51Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@calcifer @dredmorbius @onan I have a really hard time with this argument. "All known digitization methods to some degree of damage to the original" is a really loaded statement that ignores the fact that non-digitization viewing is equally or more destructive (as, often, is the passage of time.)
(DIR) Post #A9l1t0ABsXPWdAa8a8 by calcifer@hackers.town
2021-07-28T13:07:36Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ajroach42 I don't think it "ignores" anything; lots of items in conservatorship aren't allowed to be viewed without a high value justification either, for the same reasonsIt's simply not true that you can digitize as often as you wish, for the same reasons fragile items have access issues in the first place. A good conservator will want to make sure that the quality of a digitization is high enough to justify the wear and damage.You can argue that they're getting that balance wrong. I'll even agree with you. But I have a big issue with 'we can digitize as many times as we want'—we can't. There's a limit. And with some items, that limit may be very low. @dredmorbius @onan
(DIR) Post #A9l1t0a4KK6vvQgnuy by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2021-07-28T19:35:32Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@calcifer In the context of the original argument (From the Bedfordshire Archives, who, incidentally, likely have relatively few silver-nitrate cellulose film stock records), the issue is that the argument vergest strongly on NO digitisation, and for numerous specious reasons.Even in the case of your precious decaying film stock, there's a threshold at which SOME record is infinitely preferable to NO record.The decision isn't a blind one either. It's possible to look at the rate of development of duplication and handling methods, to assess archival items for their own scarcity and/or fragility, and to make determinations against the capabilities of available preservation/duplication methods.Argument-from-outliers-to-general-cases is tedious, tendentious, and obstreperous. It lacks any nuance, and again as I've argued from the start, makes the perfect the enemy of the good.@ajroach42 @onan
(DIR) Post #A9l1t0ivnNCSMupsjQ by ajroach42@retro.social
2021-07-28T13:02:44Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@calcifer @dredmorbius @onan I work with film most often. Film decays with age. It's not inevitable, but it's pretty likely. A VHS telecine transfer of a complete copy of a film that is widely distributed without causing further damage to the original is going to be significantly more useful for researchers than an original copy that gets projected every two weeks until it shreds in the projector or rots in it's can.
(DIR) Post #A9l1t0zwm6oLDgnTFo by onan@dobbs.town
2021-07-28T19:44:11Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@dredmorbius Please release me from this thread. Thanks.
(DIR) Post #A9l20lh7YcYO4agjBo by onan@dobbs.town
2021-07-28T19:45:38Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ajroach42 Please release me from this thread. Thanks.
(DIR) Post #A9l22UyAiAlomSUM7c by ajroach42@retro.social
2021-07-28T00:32:09Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@dredmorbius @onan So there's a book that you might dig called "The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation" which is written by the dude that is the head of digital collections at the LoC. It gets right in to the nitty gritty of "good enough is better than not at all" which so many archivists seem to shy away from. There is something to be said for clarity and fidelity, but that comes after basic preservation and access.
(DIR) Post #A9l22WN1VGF97p7iUq by dredmorbius@toot.cat
2021-07-28T00:41:58Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@ajroach42 Oh, thanks for that.Trevor Owens, The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation, Johns Hopkins University Press (2018) Worldcat: https://www.worldcat.org/title/theory-and-craft-of-digital-preservation/oclc/1140942640And on LibGen: http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=8E21432AD484BCD133BD2A1B4FD126DD@onan
(DIR) Post #A9l22XdimfC73twZA8 by anj@digipres.club
2021-07-28T09:02:49Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@dredmorbius @ajroach42 @onan the pre-print/draft copy of the whole book is available from Trevor’s website at http://www.trevorowens.org/2017/06/full-draft-of-theory-craft-of-digital-preservation/
(DIR) Post #A9l22YI8MPWL5Eqq9Y by onan@dobbs.town
2021-07-28T19:45:56Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@anj Please release me from this thread. Thanks.