As I mentioned briefly in our final class, perhaps big data’s greatest victims are our youngest internet browsers. My own teen years in the aughts saw social media evolve from Xanga(!) to LiveJournal to MySpace to Facebook (allegedly Friendster was in there somewhere too). Nowadays the platforms are too many to list—although Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter merit mentioning—and the modern American teen’s life is drenched in the internet in a way no other generation, mine included, has experienced: according go a 2015 Pew study, a whopping 92% of teens go online daily, aided by these growing platforms and the ubiquity of smartphones.

The difference between adopting social media and living in a world where it has always been the norm cannot be overstated. There’s a not-unfounded assumption that younger generations are inherently savvier with new tech, but without proper education, it would take an unusually paranoid teen to realize just how much information they’re giving away in what’s always been their everyday life. While educating parents and teachers is crucial, especially because big data is gathering information on their children from birth, teens as independent agents must be taught to be safe in ways beyond the easily ignored “because we’re adults and we say so” method.

This is why I appreciate Michael Keller and Josh Neufeld’s Terms of Service: it informs the reader about the dangers of big data through a narrative, and a visual narrative no less, to spread the message beyond the classroom. It may be wordy and dry at times—after all, this is a comic entirely about two men explaining things to themselves and getting things explained by others—but Neufeld’s stylish art design and the character arcs of Keller’s cynic and Neufeld’s optimist makes Terms of Service accessible to a far wider audience than the typical news article or academic paper.

Terms of Service charts the correlation between new internet technology and loss of privacy, beginning with the birth of Gmail in 2004. Former California state senator Liz Figueroa discusses what was then a fear and is now a reality: that Gmail not only mines data from its users, but from non-users communicating with Gmail users. While Google claimed to delete the data after collecting it, Figueroa’s attempt to codify this practice into law failed, largely thanks to the efforts of “good guys” like Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Al Gore. A telling panel sees Figueroa obscuring a crucial word in Google’s bygone motto “Don’t be evil.”

This theme of feared future outcomes coming to pass resonates throughout the text, and Cassandras like Figueroa are positioned as scrappy underdogs against an unstoppable force. While this narrative’s appeal is universal, it’s particularly potent for the teen audience: the slew of dystopian young adult bestsellers, for instance, relies on an identical power dynamic. Technology is new and exciting, so condemning it is generally seen as an act of the old and out of touch, but positioning big data as a corrupt institution to distrust makes it instantly relatable to the Hunger Games generation.

In an interview with danah boyd, Terms of Service explicitly discusses teens in terms of their use of social media to control their public image. For instance, a teen who wants to be seen as happy-go-lucky may exclusively write humorous posts, while one seeking support might write in a way that elicits sympathy from Facebook friends. Boyd* also notes that teens are as apathetic about privacy as their older counterparts: her research shows that youths will “give up WHATEVER to be able to hang out with their friends.” Facebook and its ilk have become seemingly non-negotiable elements of their lives.

This section accomplishes two important goals for teen readers. First, rather than isolate teens as problematic, Keller and Neufeld connect them with adults to show that apathy is a universal problem. In doing so, the teen reader won’t feel singled out or talked down to, and is more likely to pay attention. Second, after boyd explains the image-maintaining rationale behind many teens’ social media practices, Keller and Neufeld deconstruct the notion by pointing out how corporations can use a teen’s data to construct their own narrative about the user. Social media may appear to give power to teens, but it actually takes it away. While the text as a whole is an excellent primer for young readers, this message in particular is bound to resonate.

Terms of Service is hardly perfect teen reading: beyond the aforementioned bouts with dryness, a major story element is Neufeld’s frequent use of the already-outdated FourSquare, and the app-specific terminology can be confusing to the unfamiliar. All of its principal characters are understandably adults, who aren’t totally foreign to teens, but obviously aren’t as identifiable as their peers. This is forgivable given Keller and Neufeld didn’t create the text specifically for a teen audience, but whatever the reason, this text is not in and of itself the solution to undereducated teens.

The issue of web privacy and security has certainly been addressed in young adult literature before. The most notable example is Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, a near-future dystopia pitting a teen hacker and his friends against a drastic upswing in government surveillance. Doctorow fills the story with real-life tips on safe browsing and primers on peaceful resistance methods (mostly surveillance jamming), and despite being written in 2008 it remains a timely read.

However, corporate invasion of privacy is rarely written about for the audience most vulnerable to it; in fact, I’ve yet to find anything remotely close to Terms of Service in my usual search (using internet, library, and former bookstore sources). So, despite its flaws, the comic remains the best resource I’ve found to introduce teens to big data. We can only hope, for the future’s sake, that others will take Keller and Neufeld’s lead.

 

*While danah boyd doesn’t capitalize her name or personal pronouns midsentence, she does follow capitalization rules for sentence openers.

 

References:

Michael Keller and Josh Neufeld, “Terms of Service”

Amanda Lenhart, “Teens, Social Media & Technology Overview 2015”

Stephanie Simon, “The big biz of spying on little kids”

As a part of Archives Week 2016, NYU hosted an event focusing on a digitization project currently underway. The presentation, titled “What’s on the Back? Updating the Definition of Complete for Digitization Projects,” was given by Alex Bero and Maggie Schreiner, the conservator and archivist (respectively) working on the project. They detailed their work in conserving and digitizing materials from two collections: the Richard Maass collection, which contains materials related to the American Revolution, and the Sylvester Manor collection, which documented early settlers of Shelter Island in Eastern Long Island. As they explained the plans and decisions they made working on this project, they elucidated the many issues one must consider when engaging in such a project.
Bero and Schreiner began by discussing the Richard Maass collection, a portion of which had been digitized in the early 2000s. These items had also undergone a conservation process at that time, but when reexamining the materials to be digitized for this project, it became clear that the previous conservation efforts had in some ways damaged the materials through the use of “archival tape.” The previous project had used tape to hold materials together, but Bero went into detail on problems of using tape, “the evils of which are not to be underestimated,” as one slide warned. Bero explained that tape of all kinds, even those designated as “archival” (which he asserted was a relative term), can dry, embrittle, flake off, stain documents, adhere pages together, cover up or discolor images and words, and is often stronger than the document itself, which can cause tearing. As tape was used liberally in the earlier effort, Bero had to remove it all, which went at a rate of roughly one inch per hour.
Many of the documents were also sealed, but the seals were original, not remnants from the previous project. In order to get clear images of the materials, it was necessary to unseal them, and Bero acknowledged that this in effect changed the original nature of the document. Bero argued, though, that “digitization is a form of preservation,” and unsealed the documents through moisture. However, changing the nature of the document alters its representation of history, and as Michèle Cloonan points out in their essay “W(h)ither Preservation?” “to digitize a collection does not necessary lessen the demand for the original material.” In this case, Bero decided that a clean digital image was more important, but something has been lost for researchers looking into manuscripts from this era. It points to a preference of digital preservation over physical conservation.
Turning to the digitization side of the project, Schreiner discussed the previous digitization project, which, even though it was carried out roughly 15 years ago, still adhered to standards considered appropriate today, and were scanned as 600 dpi TIFF files. However, the backs of many documents were not digitized, and the digital surrogates were only made available as an online exhibit, not linked to the finding aid for the collection. The file names were also very unstructured, with no clear identifiers. This, of course, hinders the ability to find and identify these images, and had they been dissociated from their metadata, it could have created serious problems for access. Schreiner rectified this by renaming the old files, giving them a persistent ID, and integrating the new files while maintaining the same structure. Schreiner also made sure to mention the surrogates will be published through the finding aid as well once the project is complete.
From here, the presentation turned to issues surrounding the Sylvester Manor collection. This was a much larger collection, and the materials were in worse shape, in part due to the use of iron-gall ink in the documents, which can embrittle and speed up decay in paper, and the ink itself can become damaged and even fall off the paper. The papers needed to be moisturized delicately in order to unfold them, as too much moisture would damage the paper. Bero detailed how it was necessary to flatten documents through wetting them along creases, to clean them using vulcanized rubber sponges, and to mend them with paper and adhesives that blend in to the original document and do not obstruct anything. However, he also noted that this process is done only for handling the documents one more time – for the purpose of digitizing them for this project. Their conservation effort is only a very short-term solution, and the documents will not be handled after this project. Again, this demonstrates their belief that digitization is preservation, but it does not clash as much with Cloonan’s suggestion cited above in regard to the other collection. Here, Bero made clear that these materials were badly deteriorated, and the idea that even with these efforts they could only be handled once means that without digitization, these would be inaccessible. It was a more clear-cut decision, and is a better example of when digitization may be the only way to preserve documents properly.
Schreiner noted that these fragile documents were just a small portion of the collection, and had been set aside because they were too fragile to travel. Much of the material was marked for digitization through a vendor, which they employed especially because of their inability to digitize oversized items in-house. Though digitizing oversized items was expensive, they were able to do so because they found room in their budget after calculating all other expenses. This provided an example of how financial issues can potentially restrict an institution’s ability to complete the projects it wants. It certainly gave some insight into why these collections were being revisited. Had they not found the money in the budget, they may have been forced to revisit the collections again in the future to capture the oversized items.
In a Q&A session after the main presentation, they explained that NYU has committed to maintaining and migrating the digital files as necessary, putting to rest common concerns about the stability of preserving digital media. They also explained that the process was facilitated by the existing finding aid and metadata standards, which they update as needed.
One thought I had (which I thought would be rude to vocalize, though perhaps I should have) was that this project was yet another effort to preserve the historical records of white patriarchal society. The fact that these collections had previously been digitized in part made me wonder if perhaps there were other collections that had been passed over which could have offered more diverse perspectives. As this was also a conservation effort, and the materials being as old as they are, it is understandable that these were prioritized. Another factor could have been their source of funding, which came from the Gardiner Foundation, representing a family some of whose members had openly endorsed slavery. This might possibly point to the amount of influence donors have on an archive’s ability to pursue projects; however, I regret to have not explored this topic with the presenters.

Cloonan, Michele Valerie. “W(H)ITHER Preservation?” The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy. Vol. 71, No. 2 (Apr., 2001), pp. 231-242

Gardiner’s Island: A Rich History. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.rdlgfoundation.org/history.ph

In class we mention Facebook, Twitter or any of the other – what feels like – million social media platforms and how it is information, or does creating a post make you an information laborer, etc. This got me thinking about how when we grew up, or when our parents grew up, we had photo or music albums or videos, maybe letters from our friends or families, and those are safe somewhere in your home. But nowadays most of our lives are online, in the million of social media platforms. So i decided to look for a webinar in preserving these precious memories we save online. I found one in the American Library Association website! It is literally called Preserving Your Digital Life, first aired on April 28 of this year – they have an archive of their webinars, link is below.

The webinar is described as “Our stories as individuals and as members of a community are preserved in each of our homes … —not just in libraries, archives, and museums. … The ability to easily create audio and video recordings leads to deep and rich documentation of events that may be personally important … Preserving these narratives for our families and for future generations means considering how we create the files and how we store them.” It sounded perfect to me! I’ll get to learn how to preserve my memories, and it’ll be simple enough where I can share with my parents and they can do it at home. Once I started watching, I realize this is more for someone who wants to preserve their memories because they may be important in a local or national significance, not for the average person. I’ll comment more on this as I go through the webinar.

The speakers of the webinar were Krista White – Digital Humanities Librarian – and Isaiah Beard – Digital Data Curator – both from Rutgers University. The intention of the lecture is to preserve audio and video files that document our personal and community’s “digital lives.” One of the first things they went over that I didn’t expect – though why didn’t I? – was that we should digitize the photographs, films or other objects that are forgotten but important to us. It is important for us to remember, while digitizing our lives, that certain electronics and softwares become outdated. Hence, the files you are trying to preserve may be lost forever. [This is one of the biggest problems New Media conservation in the art world has to daily deal with.] The best way to figure out which files or works you may want to preserve is to think: how will I feel if this picture, movie or sound recording goes away and I can never get it back? This is something they brought up that I never really thought about – again, why didn’t I? It is something we should keep in mind as you weave through your collection.

I really appreciated the speakers sharing the preservation terminology for those who are not familiar since they may encounter them when going through the settings of the app or software you end up using. Other than sampling rate, I was familiar with all of the terms, whether through art preservation or just life. The continued to break things down by explaining metadata, what it is and how we can use it. As someone new to library science, I appreciated the explanation – it was like Metadata for Dummies. They mainly focused on descriptive metadata – it connects objects to each other, i.e. a birthday video with the birthday photos, – technical metadata – the how and when we create something, – and rights metadata – who has the copyright, and who can do what with the object. For personal use we don’t need to worry too much about copyright but people in cultural institutions do. Then the webinar went into the different file formats and the preservation standards of sound and video. The speakers also shared where to find the guides for such standards, i.e. the Library of Congress, and the National Recording Preservation Board, etc. Storage devices were also gone over. They encouraged for everybody to have three copies of your data, two different storage formats and one backup copy offsite. This I found very extreme for someone just trying to preserve your memories. I personally save my files – photos, videos and documents – on a hard drive or the cloud and on the computer, which seems to be more than enough.

The speakers went into the steps you should take if you are considering preserving and digitizing your files: inventory, device and app evaluation, file formats, create metadata, and data integrity. An important thing to remember – which they stressed multiple times – is to keep the files as unedited and unmodified as possible. Also, to make sure the object is not connected to only one software, i.e. only works on a Mac or on a PC, or an old software on a PC, etc., because it’ll be really hard, if not impossible, to access the content.

The lecture was presented as “primarily intended for individuals, but will also be of interest to local historical societies and other cultural heritage groups.” I believe it should’ve been presented the other way. Although, this was an interesting webinar that will definitely come in handy in the future in terms of my career – if I decided to get into digital humanities or digitization of rare books – however, I believe the steps shown are a bit extreme for personal use. This is of course, unless you believe your family will be – or is – very important locally or nationally and this information may be subject to a study or these files will be donated to a cultural institution. This webinar can be seen as an introduction into a career in library science, information science or preservation since it does go into enough depth to wet your whistle.

Any quotations within the text were taken from the website or from one of the speakers.

http://www.ala.org/alcts/confevents/upcoming/webinar/042816

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mA5E1Ng6Qg&feature=youtu.be

 

Although I am a native New Yorker, I haven’t owned a New York Public Library card since I was about 10 years old when my elementary school class visited our local library branch. Since returning to the city in a more official capacity and attending Pratt, I felt it was necessary to register for a New York Public Library card. Signing up for a library card was simple. I completed part of my application online and then visit a local branch to provide a suitable form of identification and be issued a card. With this universal all-encompassing library card, I expected that any materials within the various collections of the library would be easily accessible. Yet, I discovered that it is not as simple of a process as one might assume.

 

Before visiting the NYPL’s main branch, the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, I searched through the library’s online catalog of collections to identify what I wanted to view at the library. I found a few nineteenth century photographically illustrated books that were being held on-site in Photography Collection of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs and were labeled as “Available”. However, within the online catalogue system I was unable to place these items on hold as the item record stated that although it was available it was accessible “By Appointment Only”. While you can access almost all of the resources available within the NYPL, you must gain special permissions and admissions by “the keepers” of those collections. As Barbara Case and Ying Xu argue about the resources within public libraries, archives and museums, in Access to Special Collections in the Humanities: Who’s Guarding the Gates and Why?, “…access to research materials under each institution’s protection may be granted in accordance with a variety of restrictions and practices” (134). The procedures and permissions required for gaining access to special materials within libraries is important as it ensures that collections are well-preserved over time and that the patron requesting access genuinely needs access to the materials. However, during my observation trying to gain access to a nineteenth century photographically illustrated book, I experienced the blatant hegemonic restrictions and practices within the NYPL.

 

As the materials I wanted to examine were available and stored on-site in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, I had to simply make an appointment to gain permission to view these nineteenth century photobooks. The NYPL website is confusing of how to best go about making an appointment and gaining access to the materials you want. It suggests calling or emailing the Photography Collection librarian reference desk in regards to your inquiry, while also proposes that you can come in-person to make an appointment. The website also mentioned a form that may have to be filled out in-person to acquire a “Card of Admission”, which would require one to provide a traceable identification and supply the name and address of a non-relative for the library to verify. As I was unsure what was the easiest and quickest method to make an appointment and issued a “card of admission”, I traveled to the NYPL’s main branch to inquire.

 

Upon arriving at the Schwarzman building I had no idea of where to go to make appointment to gain access to the Photography Collection. The Photographs Study Room did not open until 1:00 p.m. so thought that any of the staff within NYPL would be knowledgeable about this “standard” procedure. I approached to the first Information Desk on the Third Floor and asked how I could make an appointment. I was directed to the Reference Desk in Bill Blass Public Catalog Room, in which I asked the same question to this Reference Librarian. The Librarian was not familiar of how to make appointments with this specific collection and referred me to the information on the website, which of course was not helpful as it was the same information I had consulted earlier. I was then referred to ask the Information Librarian in the Rose Main Reading Room, who then referred me to ask a Librarian in the Art & Architecture Wallach Division Room 300, as these Librarians had more connection and access to the Photography Collection. The Librarians in the Art & Architecture Wallach Division were also not sure how I could make an appointment, and were conflicted with instructing me to send a general email or call the Photography Collection. They decided that since I was here in the library it would be better if I called them as they should pick up the phone even though the study room wasn’t open to the public before 1:00 p.m. So, I walked out of the Wallach Division doors, through the Rose Main Reading Room, and then the Bill Blass Public Catalog Room and out into the large hallway of the third floor to make a phone call, as all of the rooms on the Third Floor are quiet areas.

 

As soon as I called the Photography Collection, a librarian immediately picked up and was able to help with my request for an appointment and pull the books I wanted to consult so I could access them when the doors opened at 1:00 p.m. When I gave the name of the book I wanted to view and was informed that it was available and would be ready for me that afternoon. I didn’t have to give the Librarian my name or library card number, but was informed that I would have to fill out a form and provide information when I arrived at the study room. In order to gain entrance into the Photography Collection study room I had to buzz a doorbell. The door is locked from the inside and one of the Librarians had to get up and unlock the door for me to enter. I then had to sign into the daily register book, as well as fill out an admission form to acquire a special collection library card. The admission form asked for my name, contact information, address, affiliations, reason for accessing specific resources and requested the name of a non-relative to verify my request to gain access. Though I was immediately issued a Special Collection Library card valid for 6 months and given access to the resources I had requested, this process and procedure implemented by the Photography Collection staff exemplified the authority librarians have over their selected domains.

 

The “keepers” of these collections have control and power in determining whether or not you are allowed and given access to consult specific materials. Moreover, this example also demonstrates the librarians have authority in determining which materials require special permission to be accessed and which can be called by anyone at anytime. Certain resources within the NYPL have been determined as “valuable” by those that control the ways in which information is structured and accessed. These issues of accessibility and control with determining the “value” of resources, address concerns pertaining to “Information Literacy” and the power and bias formed through the ways in which archives and records are classified, organized, preserved, and actively managed by librarians and archivists as well as the institutions. These hegemonic library knowledge organizations and structures directly affect the accessibility of information by consumers. The control and power gatekeepers have over these records can be used to aide or prevent users from finding and accessing collections.

 

This observation study case of the NYPL also demonstrated that each of their collections and divisions are very separate entities from one other. None of them know the specific procedures or information of the other. As the NYPL is a huge library with vast collections and numerously staffed, this is understandable. However, each individual division holds extraordinary power over their specific collections. While it is important that individual divisions control and are specialized in the knowledge and organization of there collections, for such a large institution with numerous collections under the same umbrella of the NYPL, information and access to those materials can be confusing, difficult and determined solely by one entity. Furthermore, if access were to be granted to anyone for whatever reason, why make patrons go through the entire ordeal of making an appointment to request permission to access a select group of materials? Does this process properly ensure that a patron truly wants and needs to access that information? Regardless, this process and procedure demonstrates that access to specific materials within a public domain is controlled by various individual hegemonic systems.

 

Case, Barbara, and Ying Xu, “Access to Special Collections in the Humanities: Who’s Guarding the Gates and Why?,” Reference Services in the Humanities, ed. by Judy Reynolds, CRC Press, 1994

Pawley, Christine, “Information Literacy: A Contradictory Coupling,” The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, Vol. 73, No. 4 (Oct., 2003), pp. 422-452

Drabinski, Emily, “Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction,” The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, Vol. 83, No. 2 (April 2013), pp. 944-111

Schwartz, Joan M., and Terry Cook, “Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory,” Archival Science 2: 1-19, 2002

Caswell, Michael, “”The Archive” is Not an Archives: Acknowleding the Intellectual Contributions of Archival Studies,” Reconstruction, Vol. 16, No. 1 http://reconstruction.eserver.org/Issues/161/Caswell.shtml

 

“Certain stories are privileged and others are marginalized.”[1]
The archive is a powerhouse of memory and identity through materials and framing. If marginalized voices are not heard, then the world cannot remember them. Whether materials are created and/or valued is due to the social structure surrounding it. “Mining the Archive: A Conversation on Anti-Arab and Islamophobia in Visual Culture” was held on October 20th 2016 at NYU. It reflected on how acknowledgement of difference in treatment is the first step in reflecting on these issues within the United States. If marginalized groups can be acknowledged, and made important today, it will reflect in the archive of the future. The first step in understanding which direction the archive will remember this moment, is to look at how it is acknowledged now.

One example of a marginalized group in the United States is that of Arab and Islamic Americans. The “Conversation” was led by Salah D. Hassan, and Marina Budhos. Salah D. Hassan, is a professor at the University of Michigan where he does academic work on the representation of Anti-Arab and Islamophobic feelings in the United States. Marina Budhos is an award winning author who writes fiction and non-fiction work through her own lens, as an Arab immigrant herself who grew up in New York City. They both represent different lenses while looking at the same material. Hassan pointed out the political facts and statistics surrounding the Anti-Arab and Islamaphobic feelings within the United States, and the racial feelings of the average American about Arabs and Islamic Americans. He mentioned the agreement of 2014 that 60% of Americans believe that Arab peoples cannot perform their jobs if they held political office and other misconceptions that are results of visual representation. Budhos really looked at these issues from inside, she reads into this perspective, giving a voice to the victims of the visual culture reflected in the talk. Her perspective enhanced the “Conversation” by using her literary voice to depict the situations of discrimination Arabs and Islamic American communities face.

Television and mainstream visual representation was the focus of this discussion. Hassan had drawn the conclusion that the reason for such negative representation of Arabs and Islamic peoples is consistently based in specific political motives. Organized anti-Muslim feelings are tools for a political purpose, just as hate speech always has been. His research has found that historical events have little to do with the anti-Muslim feelings present in today’s America. He also found that the threat of anti-Muslim groups is higher to the general public than Muslim groups targeted for their expression. These are facts that are not accurately represented in American mainstream visual representation. In terms of the Archive, television is a medium that can be preserved easily. Framing is the issue. Through just representation in American television of Islamic peoples and Arabs, there is a different narrative than what actually occurred. Unless the Archive is sensitive to the marginalized voices, it will not accurately capture this moment in time. The Archive must frame it’s materials in a way that showcases this misconception and then the materials available, rather than feeding into this false representation.

As the discussion went on the topic of identity and the idea of “coming out” as Muslim became an idea that described the process of coming to terms with an ostracized identity. They are only their label without any humanizing traits assigned to them by the mainstream visual culture. For example, Arab and Islamic people are seen on TV as entering and building mosques on the news in order to create a sense of fear in people, without any knowledge of what mosques mean as social centers. The fact that Arab and Islamic people are regularly a topic of discussion but are not seen as people is something that does not only reflect political agendas, but also what stereotypes are active in American society. Watched, Marina Budhos’ book, investigates how identity changes in an inner city Iranian boy as he is intimidated by the police and integrates in American life. Her book reflects on how he is labeled, how he attempts to combat that, as well as how he reclaims his identity. Budhos read excerpts from her book that exemplified the boy’s relationship with his community and those outside it. The book reflected a narrative of someone that is connected to his community but is turned against it by an altered view of his reality. Stories like this one are why the archive is important. A well rounded archive can take a narrative like Budhos to frame a collection of visual media resources that contain Anti-Arab or Islamaphobic feelings, making it a positive representation of this historical moment.

The archive has enough power that it does not need to choose a side of the mainstream or the marginalized. The archive can remember everything that society deems important. Acknowledging these issues today is key in making them important for tomorrow. The power of the archive acts as a memory bank. But a hidden power of the archive, is its ability to choose the frame to which the nation remembers something. “Mining the Archive: A Conversation on Anti-Arab and Islamaphobic Visual Culture” created a dialogue about identity and memory which led to larger questions about how these themes effect the archive, and how the archive will use its power to represent or ignore the marginalized.

[1] Joan M. Schwartz and Terry Cook, “Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory,” Archival Science 2 (2002): 1-19.

 

Adrianna Martinez

On October 12^th, I attended an illuminating (if depressing) talk from Emily Drabinski, the Coordinator of Library Instruction at Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus, on the ongoing struggle between LIU’s administration and faculty, particularly in the library department. Facing one of the few unionized faculties in private higher education, LIU has systematically sought to bust unions and cut employees to save money.

With the arrival of new president Kimberly Cline in 2013, LIU’s focus has narrowed to cutting costs and expanding the endowment by any means necessary. Two unionized campus organizations (its security and janitorial staffs) were removed and replaced by private firms, followed by widespread firing of non-union staff (including an employee with over fifty years at LIU who was fired during her vacation). Funds were transferred from the operating budget to the endowment, shifting the cost of vital resources to the faculty and slowing basic infrastructure projects.

LIU’s faculty union is the Long Island University Faculty Federation (LIUFF) which operates under the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). After negotiations with the administration fell through, LIUFF’s contract ended in August, leaving the faculty’s future uncertain. Over Labor Day weekend, the union faculty learned that they were being locked out, their syllabi taken and used by makeshift non-union replacements as classes began. Drabinski noted that on top of the wildly unethical informational theft this action entailed, it showed a deep disrespect for LIU’s students in assuming they wouldn’t notice such a radical change in courses.

While the lockout left librarians and professors without work and pay, it came with one benefit: locked out employees cannot legally be fired, allowing them to speak out without fear of immediate retaliation. With the support of students and AFT, LIU’s faculty vehemently fought back against the administration’s actions.

Letters were sent to the American Library Association and the Department of Education, each of which has the power to pull LIU’s library school accreditation; with help from the State Department, the administration eventually caved. The lockout ended on September 14th, weeks into the semester.

This solution is temporary, with a contract lasting only until May 31st, 2017. Lost pay is still being negotiated, with the administration offering uneven compensation among departments (librarians, for instance, were docked pay at a higher level than fellow faculty). These unequal wages evoke one of LIUFF’s many issues with LIU: its Brooklyn campus employees are, for no visible reason, paid less than their Long Island counterparts for the same work. Drabinski sees this as a tactic to divide the faculty, as those paid more might fear lowered salaries if they demand equal pay for those paid less.

Drabinski also noted, with some frustration, that individual power is limited, with actual negotiations dominated by ruling classes (LIU’s administration on one side, and AFT top brass on the other). Power can only be found in larger organizations, and a case like this in a smaller school than LIU, in an area with less press coverage than New York, would likely see the union forced to cave with little fanfare.

While Drabinski obviously presented this information from the perspective of herself and the union, further research more or less confirms her version of events. LIU’s story has been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the Nation, and continues to draw attention on campus and across unionized bodies. Since Drabinski’s talk, 14 union faculties in Pennsylvania state universities went on a three-day strike ending on October 21st; dissatisfaction between administrations and faculties is hardly an isolated incident.

 

While professors at a private institution don’t fit perfectly in Lipsky’s definition of a street-level bureaucrat (they aren’t government employees, which is a basic requirement), they fill an similar role to public school counterparts in function. LIU’s faculty certainly shares Lipsky’s dreary description of the job environment: resources are limited, their authority is routinely challenged, and job expectations are unattainably high. However, the faculty’s issues are not the direct fault of the government, but a private administration that severely underappreciates information laborers.

Note that information itself remains valuable to the administration: the library wasn’t shut down, and the course syllabi were stolen taken to maintain the flow of information to students. Even in lockout, LIU was ostensibly committed to an information-based service, one that is neither free nor inexpensive for its information-seeking patrons.

The discrepancy in respect given to information compared to information laborers could be a simple matter of pragmatism: information itself doesn’t demand equal wages or benefits, and seems cheaper than ever in the internet age. But it highlights a fundamental misunderstanding of information labor, lumping everyday acts of gathering information (as described by Downey) with professionals who make their living by keeping the wheel of information turning. If working in information is something that everybody does these days, what makes a school faculty so special? What makes the students—who are information laborers as well—worthy of well-paid librarians and professors?

Right now, the best case scenario for LIU’s faculty is that after the end of this school year, they get to keep working for an administration that frankly treats them like garbage. Information labor is routinely exploited, from capitalizing on unpaid labor (such as Facebook Likes or shared tweets) to content moderators paid below the poverty line, and as LIU shows, the mindset that information labor has minimal worth has ramifications even in ivory towers. The long-term solution is a shift in values, placing prestige in information labor itself in all its forms; until then, LIUFF’s struggle, and the struggle of their counterparts around the world, is bound to continue.

References:

Michael Lipsky, “Toward a theory of street-level bureaucracy”

Gregory Downey, “Making media work: time, space, identity, and labor in the analysis of information and communication infrastructures”

I would like to address Michèle Valerie Cloonan’s idea around the paradox of preservation. Archivist, preservationist, and conservationist have the difficult job of trying to keep an object the same as when it was made. Keeping with this paradox of what and how to preserve something I would also like to talk about Joan M Schwartz and Terry Cook’s concept surrounding the power of the archivist, to choose the objects that represent our history. Today’s struggle is on what to do with digital material, and how digitizing old material makes information readily accessible to society. The questions we must continuously ask are what to hold onto, how to maintain them, and why, to continue building a history for the future.

The paradox of preservation can come at a cost to the creation of history. “To conserve, preserve or restore is to alter” as stated by Cloonan.[1] The objects of history that represent a period of time are slowed down in their aging process to last as long as they can for our needs as librarians, historians, scientist, etc. To conserve something is the process of handling the physical material and to preserve is to house the object in a controlled environment. The paradox that Cloonan addresses is this exact issue, how to maintain an object or material when it was naturally meant to deteriorate overtime. Paper was not meant to last forever in the state that it was made or originally used. In my own lifetime I have seen my own projects, on paper, turn yellow or fade due to exposure to sunlight and air. How have we affected the material that was made over 200 -1,000 years ago? Have we altered history by saving and learning from these objects that the creator did not imagine reaching this millennium? What we know and learn today was chosen by archivist of the past for future use.

While reading Schwartz and Cook I began to question the history that I have studied and will study. What information is missing? What an archivist chooses to maintain, preserve or conserve is kept to inform the future of what has happened in the past. What about the objects that were not saved, based on the archivist personal influence? We cannot take individual feeling and thought out of the archivist, but when it comes to the choice of what will represent a time, place and people neutrality sounds like it would be a good position to take. Yet an archivist cannot be neutral in their actions of preservation as they are cognitive thinkers, making an important decision. Which does not mean they choose to omit historical material for the purpose of erasing the information from history. The power of the archivist has profound impacts on all aspects of society. “Control of the archive…means control of society thus control of determining history’s winners and losers”, which is a scary prospect when thinking about what our society would look like today if an archivist had saved one more object or chose something different.[2]

In this modern era we have are creating digital objects and materials that are meant to last forever due to a process that is in fact harmful to its preservation. Trying to keep up with preserving material being continuously generated and altered by multiple contributors brings us to recognize the paradox. These are objects that have been created digitally, like a photograph, video, website etc. One-way to archive and preserve these is to transfer the information onto a CD, DVD or hard drive. Which begs us to ask the question, is this worth holding onto, due to the issue of space. Digital material that has been created as long lasting intangible electronic files will increasingly be in need of a holding space. As archivist with the power to choose what to save, digital information is a new concept that is hard to grasp. At what point do we save something for an archive that could be changed at any moment with open source accessibility. We have to consider that “…digital documents force us to preserve them on their own terms,” making us think about what to preserve for further use and what can be let go.[3] Although digital materials make us question the future of archiving how can we use digitizing material to aid in preserving the past?

I would like to point to another paradox in the use of digital material as suggested by Paul Conway in the Cloonan article. While digital archiving is a difficult concept to grasp Conway states that the “application of digital technology: protects originals, represents originals and transcends originals.”[4] With the use of digital media the creators have to be cautious that their information will be inconsistent or altered throughout its existence. There is an optimistic use for digitizing material. Throughout the world objects have been archived for the purpose of preservation, allowing limited accessibility due to age and material instability. The older the object, the more damage can occur with the least amount of physical contact. Yet as Cloonan points out from a study done “the public believes that a key function of these institutions is to preserve cultural heritage than merely make it available.”[5] The British Library’s extensive collection of manuscripts, materials and objects from their worldwide conquest throughout history, has developed a project called Turning Pages. This project has digitized their collections while simultaneously limiting the close proximity of the public to the physical resources. Turning Pages has reconsidered the users contact in accessing information. As Conway states “…digital preservation brings the user into the picture,” which is what the British Library considered when making their collection available to the world. Along with open available access this digital tool allows the preservationist and archivist to do what they need at their own pace to maintain the material the way it is, without being interrupted by researchers interrupting their process.

The paradox of the field makes the job that more exciting. While constantly receiving material the archivist must choose what to keep, with the hope that the decision will be made to represent an encompassing amount of history. While the issue of power and neutrality are clear in this field the idea needs to be addressed, so that information is not lost and that history will be understood from all perspectives. Yet we cannot ignore the new digital future of history, but with proper use we can explore materials from the past that will not be with us much longer. Due to this contradiction the material saved has lived longer than it was meant too, surpassing its natural existence.

 

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/virtualbooks/

 

[1] Cloonan, Michele, Valerie. “W(h)ither Preservation?” The Library Quarterly 71.2 (2001): 231-242. 235.

[2] Schwartz, Joan M., Terry Cook. “Archives, Records and Power: The Making of Modern Memory,” Archival Science 2, (2002): 1-19, 4.

[3] Cloonan, 237.

[4] Cloonan, 236.

[5] Cloonan, 234.

 

As I rang the doorbell at the end of a corridor deep in one of the New School’s campus buildings, I was hardly given the feeling of having arrived at a place of great power. I had set up an appointment with the University Archivist to conduct an informational interview a week hence and had envisioned something quite different—or, at least above ground. Instead of a grand place proper to the “power over the shape and direction of historical scholarship, collective memory, and national identity, over how we know ourselves as individuals, groups, and societies,” (Schwartz & Cook, p.2) I was received in a neat and very plain space about the proportions of a conference room.

The layout was divided by open bookshelves which almost reached ceiling height into three parallel areas according to their function. The dividers stop short of the edge of the room to allow for a small walkway on either side. The first such section is primarily used as a working space for researchers where they are provided large tables on which to spread out their documents of interest. In times when no researchers are present or expected, this space may also be used for meetings or as an auxiliary space for archival processing.

The second, middle space had been set up as the offices of the University Archivist and her assistant. A pair of long desks framed the inside of this cordoned off area, each stretching the length of the bookshelves.  Two large iMac’s occupied the desk nearer to the back of the room, where the staff worked on finding aids and description work. The desk on the opposite side was left clear of any permanent items so they would be available for boxes which needed to be close at hand while working on the computer.

Behind the office area was the third space set up for storing, finding and processing documents. The back wall was made up of eight to ten large archival storage cabinets that moved along tracks in the floor as the archivist spun a ships wheel-shaped lever. Another table was set up near the cabinets for quick pulls from storage. Though this modern, compact shelving system provided several hundred linear feet of storage, approximately nine-tenths of the archives are hosted off-site on the other side of the Hudson River. The materials kept on-campus had either been requested in advance of future visits by researchers or were slated for processing/re-processing. The arrangement of the space was an almost perfect representation of its intended function: the ignoble and tedious tasks of re-foldering and arranging documents, describing and providing access to collections.

Judging only by appearances it is easily understood how Archivists come by their reputation as “objective, neutral, passive (if not impotent, then self-restrained) keeper(s) of truth.”(Ibid., p.5) The two-thirds of the archives – the office and storage areas – which are the domain of the archivist are laid out for tasks related to the preservation and retrieval of documents instead of analysis of their content which was relegated to the research space.

However, while the archivist typically does not produce research or build collections, the power to determine which collections would be either accessioned or relegated to the dumpster of history belongs mainly to the archivist. This is done in accordance with a document known as the institution’s collection development policy which details the purview of an archives’ collections. Typically, the parameters of a University Archives are fairly established, including materials of permanent value which are deemed relevant to notable alumni, faculty or institutional history. In certain cases, the committee responsible for deciding the scope of collection development will also accession materials which may not be related to the institution per se but to a subject area which has special significance to the university. In the case of the New School, whose most notable division is Parsons School of Design, it was decided that collections related to fashion and graphic design would be given special consideration during the appraisal process.

From this it clear that the archivists generally have some role in modifying their institution’s collection policy. Although the archives’ focus —  whether an institution, corporation or subject area – determines much of what is to be collected, archivists have further power outside of official policy in appraising a collection for accession.  Until recent decades, this has meant that archives “systemically excluded records about or by women from their holdings and, as institutions, have been willing agents in the creation of patriarchy by supporting those in power against the marginalized.” (Ibid., p.16) As a reflection of hierarchical social relations constructed on the basis of gender, race and class, there was created a strong tendency to preserve on that historical evidence which originates in or supports the master narrative. In the contemporary context, this may have the effect of rejecting collections for accessioning based on the archivist’s own prejudices as they inform the worthiness of preservation regardless of whether the materials fall within an archives’ scope of interest. Thankfully, as the archival profession has developed — growing increasingly self-conscious about their role in providing historical evidence to researchers in the distant future — a tendency to counteract the layers of historical exclusion by seeking out marginalized records has also grown. Archives, despite their pretensions of a neutral, professional outlook and humble, dusty circumstance do wield some power over what will be preserved.  Of course, archivists are still both limited to the documents which have been collected in the first place (often skewing towards those with greater resources) and directed by the research interests of those they serve (historians, the public and other collection committee members). The true power of the professional archivist to balance the elite-skewed record of events can be located in the actual appraisal process when applied to individual collections.

 

Bibliography:
1)Schwartz, J.M. & Cook, T. Archival Science (2002) 2: 1. doi:10.1007/BF02435628