I’m Annie, Digital Image Metadata Librarian at UMass Amherst, member of VRA and ARLIS. I have to admit that I’ve been a reluctant cheerleader for digital humanities as a librarian, because I’m not sure how to make it my job. I am, however, a big fan of Open Access and the public domain. READ: what do I need to learn in order to help faculty, students and researchers? It’s only when I’ve come across really cool, successful projects that seem to start with a problem (rather than those that seem to be an excuse to use a solution) that my interest is really piqued. Examples:

• A Rhizome blog post from today called The Distributed Monument
• This Piers Plowman map
• Photogrammar

I am interested in learning more about working with collection data. Here is a cool Twitter account that uses the MoMA collection data dump: twitter.com/modernart_exe

I have looked longingly at descriptions of Beautiful Data and so many projects of the Berkman Center, but I am still unsure about where I/my job fit into all of this.

As exhibition, publishing, and access, paradigms move swiftly to digital platforms, cultural heritage and memory institutions are compelled to collect and curate completely novel visual and art historical resources with the same breadth and rigor as they do their traditional, paper-based predecessors. Emergent tools and models for web archiving make preserving and accessing archived materials feasible, but it can be difficult to know where to begin. This workshop will demystify the process of establishing a web archiving program based on institutional needs and strengths, will expose participants to the tools and resources they need to start such a program, and briefly train them in software designed to meet their needs at their respective scales of need.

Snapshot from the Chicago Architecture Biennial 2015 Web Archive

Each attendee to this 60-to-90-minute workshop will devise a collecting scope for web-based resources vital to their institution, then work together in small groups to archive material from the live web using web archiving software. After reviewing the process and its results, attendees will be empowered to articulate the best next steps for their respective programs and propose opportunities for the further use of their web archives in data mining, exhibition, integrated discovery, and other related areas.

This workshop will be led by Karl-Rainer Blumenthal, Web Archivist for the Internet Archive’s Archive-It service and former National Digital Stewardship Resident embedded with the web archiving program at the New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC).