Class Notes for October 3

Thiemer, Brier and Brown, “A Practical Guide to Collaborative Documentation in the Digital Age”
Compare the processes: http://911digitalarchive.org/ and http://braceroarchive.org/
Key concepts
- An archive or a collection?
- “archivist-historians”
- born-digital vs. digitized acquisitions
- inequality of access to digital media
- review different methods of inputting information: text and image scans, emails, websites, listservs, text via form on site, images and video via upload, call-in system, collaborations with other collectors (e.g. Sonic Memorial Project and Here is New York: A Democracy of Photographs), digital and analog interviews and sound recordings (including collaborations with Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, and the Chinatown Documentation Project
- Insuring a range of perspectives
- Challenges: more standardized open-source database and web publishing platform, more complete metadata, redesigned web site, permanent archival home (expected to turn over to LOC in 2013), 508(c).

Quotes from the Bracero Historical Archive that are useful for planning your group project
- “First, decide what kind of collaboration you wish to have, since that decision informs the rest of the process, from technical to communication considerations. If your partners will merely be commenting on each others’ work, you can afford to think more about ways to share files and accommodate the comment process.”
- “If your partners will each be contributing work to the project, or if there are task- sharing aspects to your project, you must also ensure that partners have the ability to contribute efficiently and that you can hold each other accountable for your contributions.”
- “Make sure each partner understands exactly what their contributions are, and when those contributions are due. You will use meetings or other communications to manage those deliverables, but it is crucial that all partners are agreeing to the same thing.”
- “Flexibility is key. No project is able to anticipate all problems or challenges before they occur, but simply acknowledging that challenges may arise, and allowing time and budget for those challenges is helpful. For example, deciding as a partnership that in the event of an unanticipated technical problem, Partner A will take the lead in resolving it, means that you will not lose valuable time assigning that responsibility at a critical moment.”

Group 1
Caroline, Anton, Eli, Cameron, Leanardo

Group 2
Estevan, Tatsiana, Phillip, Jordan Burgos

Group 3
Felipe, Jordan Smith, Robert, Pablo

Group 4
Guang, Cary, William, Stephen, Shaif