Digital Collaboration and the 21st C.

By Stephanie Kanowitz  "Since 2011, the National Archives and Records Administration has uploaded more than 100,000 digitized records. To maintain the effort, the agency is working to develop new technology with the help of Wikipedia and the public.Specifically,  volunteers are working with NARA on Narabot, an upload script to port images to Wikimedia Commons, a sister project to Wikipedia and a repository of free media.[...]

However, archivists don't choose and upload images themselves. They are developing a workflow so that digitized records can flow from NARA's online catalog to the Commons.

They are developing a workflow so that digitized records can flow from NARA’s online catalog to the Commons. The agency has billions of analog textual records that have yet to be archived, so this effort will also help bring them online."

Via Karen du Toit

Posted by Andrew Janes:

"...it isn’t surprising that most people don’t know very much about what archivists do because the scope and responsibilities of the job vary quite a lot between different archives and between different roles within the same organisation. Some archivists work mostly with records made of paper and other ‘traditional’ materials but others work mainly or entirely with digital records. Some archivists, like me, spend a lot of time answering enquiries and talking to researchers, but others spend much less time doing that. 4 What we all have in common is our commitment to the records.

Sir Hilary Jenkinson, who was one of the most important British writers about archival theory and practice during the 20th century, 5 had much to say to about the role of archivists. According to Jenkinson, an archivist’s primary duty is the physical and moral defence of the records in his or her care. 6 Why is this defence ‘moral’ as well as physical? Archivists believe that preserving the intellectual properties of records and their relationships with one another 7 – which Jenkinson rather grandly terms a moral defence – is just as important as looking after the records physically."

Via Karen du Toit