Vintage Points

Today is the Day of Digital Archives!

The Intersections of Oral Traditions and Digital Archives. (Happy Day of Digital Archives, Oct 12 2012)

Older ways of representing information, especially in the everyday library setting, are often rule-based, linear, and resistant to change. Digital repositories/ digital archives, in contrast, provide alternatives to linear, monolithic descriptions for sharing knowledge.

Digital repositories, with their array of metadata schemas are elusive like the spoken word. While the backend of repositories, like the structure of language, preserves and exports in a standardized form (usually METS XML), digital collections similar to oral cultures are mediated and exhibited in a wide variety of ways. Although direction is maintained, both traditions allow for multiple visits, varied connections, and a lot of variation within limits.

Perhaps the digital archive, as a repository, is the culmination of archival theory itself: collections connected in an interoperable and emergent manner. Digital archives, as archival theory has long promoted itself as the vestibule of different kinds of exchanges, scholarship, and uses. The material is free from the linear and isolating confines of the academy; instead the material is presented in a distributed and interrelated manner. JD

In my social circle, there are those who lament the ubiquitous presence of popular culture, the lack of physicality in the electronic book, and the missing discipline and linear hierarchy offered by Wikipedia. My information-professional colleagues offer discipline-specific, but similar protests: a fear of new metadata schemas, which disrupt centralized cataloging and dismay over the potential lack of unity with digital collections.

I offer a different hypothesis, as a former student of anthropology who often reflects on the cultural aspects of digital archives development, Walter J. Ong’s research is informative. He notes that oral cyclic thought is characteristic of primary oral cultures, whereas linear thought depends on writing. Although unreasonable to some, I posit that humans’ oldest form of communication and one of the newest forms of technologies are fundamentally the same. Oral tradition and digital object description share the following:

•  Navigating through networks or collections, which are not fixed entities and exist more as a “knowledge constellation.”
•  Time and text are not linear. Both oral tradition and digital archives are participatory.
•  Digital archives and oral traditions seem to parallel the way we think and seek knowledge.

In the information discipline, specifically libraries, we still rely on a linear fixed bibliographic record (MARC and a small step forward with RDA) and are only beginning to experiment with the potential of the multiple fluencies of digital repositories. This type of cataloging lacks the ability to reflect how current information users search for knowledge. MARC, although “machine-readable,” is an extension of the card catalog and is simultaneously an ill-fitted way to describe digital collections. RDA, in contrast, is preparation for linked data approach for cataloging. Unfortunately, RDA still relies on legacy standards designed for the card catalog world, such as creating uniform titles for grouping items, highly structured format descriptions, and emphasis on textual “citation-like” notes fields. Legacy practices (the afore mentioned) ignore the reality of the digital world, where identity is rarely expressed in a static or textual manner. Using persistent identifiers as part of the metadata like Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI) works much better.

Information users seek and use different non-linear ways of access, such as, multiple exchanges, translations, links, multiple objects, and commentary. Patrons of digital technologies are fluent in various means of “information languages” and their research needs are similar. For example, they do not necessarily need to be forced to search in a monolithic system.

The range of metadata schemas like VRA Core, MODS, Darwin Core, etcetera, with a standardized data schema on the backend, represent a shared identity of an object. The identity is less about the object itself; instead, the importance lies in the relationships between objects.  Arguably, this is they way humans naturally think and search, which stands in sharp contrast to the highly structured nature of linear descriptions. Indeed, more aligned with textual dominance, older static schemas and descriptions are not ideal for digital collection building and do not reflect the way we think, lacking different kinds of uses and scholarship opportunities.

Digital archives/ repositories provide direct access to the primary object, as part of an interrelated “knowledge constellation.” This results in immediate use in classrooms, Web sites, museum exhibitions, blog posts, and e-publications. One might argue that this form of of-the-moment access lacks the central authority and is untraditional.  Although true, this criticism only reveals a partial picture. Similar to griots or other keepers of oral histories, the stories or digital objects in a digital repository are accessed and passed along in different forms. In other words, they are repurposed as bounded aggregations of a whole and they are shared.  By forging semantic links in repositories, it keeps those links active and dynamic, allowing for new scholarship and forging new connections. Recently, digital archivists and other information professionals have been discussing the social graph, which shows social relationships on the web based on Facebook and Twitter. The linked data element of an institutional repository might produce a similar graph. Interestingly, what these graphs and the constellation of data behind them dynamically demonstrate is not so different from our human ancestors’ shared stories and their networks of knowledge. – JGD

The annual public reading by actors from the Williamstown Theatre Festival of the Declaration of Independence of July 1776, the British reply to the Declaration of September 1776, King George III’s speech to Parliament of October 1776, and the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution will take place on Wednesday, July 4th, at 1:30 p.m. outside the Williams College Museum of Art. Heather Lind (HBO’s Boardwalk Empire) and Finn Wittrock (Broadway’s Death of a Salesman), both currently featured in the Williamstown Theatre Festival’s world premiere production of The Blue Deep, will read the Declaration of Independence and Preamble, while the British reply and the King’s speech will be read by comedian and WTF favorite Lewis Black, reprising his appearance from last year.

The Chapin Library’s collection of the Founding Documents of the United States is on display at the Williams College Museum of Art until the completion of the Stetson-Sawyer project in 2014. On July 4th, the Museum galleries will be open from 11:00 to 3:00. – WGH

Update: A video of this year’s July 4th event may be seen on YouTube. The readings were introduced by Robert Volz, Custodian of the Chapin Library.

With support of a gracious donor, a wonderful scrapbook collection of news clippings, photographs, sports ephemera, and awards relating to Michael Reily (class of 1964) was reformatted by Williams Archives and Special Collections into digital form for preservation and access.

Please browse the Reily Scrapbook here.

While at Williams, Reily established himself as one of the best line-men ever to play at Williams College. Named to the All-New England, All-East, and All-American teams, Reily also served as captain for the Williams football team. Abruptly and sadly, Reily died of cancer shortly following his graduation.

The digitized scrapbook created by Michael’s mother, Lelia Manning Reily, documents both the too short career of a brilliant athlete as well as campus life at Williams during the first half of the 1960s.

John Winfeld (class of 1964) writes of classmate Mike: “I often think of Mike Reily, not so much as a friend lost, but rather the embodiment of good and excellence in youth. He is an integral part of our days at Williams. His influence on my life, and on many of our lives persists.” – JGD

Reily Scrapbook, page 39

Williams alumni weekend brings many wonderful guests to the Archives. Nancy Clapp (class of 1987) was no exception,  donating a wonderful collection of correspondence and photographs pertaining to her father, Charles Clapp II (class of 1945) and his Psi Upsilon fraternity brothers. Using a mail service in order to share their writings with their “delegation,” the correspondence encapsulates both the culture of war and memories of their beloved Williams College. In a September 2, 1945 letter, Clapp wrote about completion of his coursework while stationed in the Pacific: “Williams came through with my degree the other day.” (See letter below)
Archives and Special Collections hope to make this collection, along with other war-time materials digitally accessible later this year. -JGD

As archivists and special collection librarians at Williams, longevity of digital and analog materials is inherent to our work. And, of course, we are interested in best practice implementation about this subject, especially on the international level.

Indeed, digital information/ collections has economic value as a cultural product and as a source of knowledge. It plays a major role in national sustainable development as, increasingly, personal, governmental and commercial information is created in digital form only. In 2011, the European Union adopted a Recommendation on Digitization and Digital Preservation. The Recommendation asks the Member States to step up their efforts, pool their resources and involve private actors in digitizing cultural material and making it available through Europeana. The United States is slowly following suit.

PeDALS  (Persistent Digital Archives and Library System) is a project funded by the Library of Congress, National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) as part of its Preserving State Government Information initiative. project has released Persistent Digital Archives and Library System: Final Project Report to the Library of Congress, April 19, 2012 .

Here’s an excerpt:

The Persistent Digital Archives and Library System (PeDALS) research project was funded by the Library of Congress’ National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program as part of its Preserving State Government Information initiative. The project explored the development of a curatorial rationale to support an automated workflow to process collections of digital publications and records, specifically using Microsoft BizTalk Server middleware to manage the collections and rules-based processes for their ingest. PeDALS also examined the practicality of Stanford University’s LOCKSS, or Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe, storage networks as an effective and inexpensive method of distributed preservation. In addition to those technical goals, PeDALS worked at building a community of shared practice among its partner states in the hopes that shared software development and best practices would foster a system that could be applied to a variety of repositories. – JGD

The report

As noted before on this site, items from the Chapin Library are frequently lent to the Williams College Museum of Art in support of exhibitions. This is the case also with the re-installation opened in April 2011, entitled Reflections on a Museum. WCMA staff have helpfully created a series of video tours of its component displays, in some of which Chapin loans can be seen.

In Don’t Fence U.S. In: Part I, Dalila Scruggs introduces an exhibition in WCMA’s American galleries. On the wall behind her is the Chapin Library’s copy of the very important, and very large, 1755 Map of the British and French Dominions in North America by John Mitchell. In Don’t Fence U.S. In: Part III, Joann Harnden speaks briefly about the Founding Documents of the United States, on loan from the Chapin Library until our historic rooms in Stetson Hall re-open in 2014.

Finally, in The Medium and the Message former Deputy Director of WCMA John Stomberg shows a 13th-century manuscript Bible made in Paris and a 15th-century Bible printed in Augsburg, both from Chapin collections, next to a Sony Reader “open” to a passage from the Bible. (Note: The latter books have now been returned to the Library’s South Street rooms.) – WGH

A second group of documents has been transferred to the Chapin Library from Chesterwood, the former Stockbridge, Massachusetts country home and studio of the sculptor Daniel Chester French. The bulk of the Chesterwood Archives was given to the Library in June 2010, but plan files and a few boxes were kept back for further sorting. These have now come to Williams, divided between the Library’s temporary quarters in the Southworth Schoolhouse and Williams’ off-site Library Shelving Facility. The new materials include drawings and blueprints by Henry Bacon (1866–1924), an architect with whom Daniel Chester French often worked.

Dana Pilson, who has been working in the Chapin Library to research the contents and former appearance of French’s studio at Chesterwood (her website documenting her work may be found here), has called our attention to the fact that Daniel Chester French’s nephew, Prentiss French (1894–1989), graduated from Williams College in 1917. From Williams, he went on to Harvard, receiving in 1921 the degree of Master of Landscape Architecture. His mother, Alice Helm French, a portrait painter who lived in Williamstown for many years, helped in the creation of costumes and scenery for performances of Williams’ drama association “Cap and Bells”. Prentiss French’s father, William M.R. French, was Director of the Art Institute of Chicago. – WGH

Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774) is best known as a novelist, poet, and playwright. But he also published two works in the sciences: History of the Earth and Animated Nature (1774) and A Survey of Experimental Philosophy (1776). The Chapin Library recently acquired a copy of the latter, much rarer title, published after Goldsmith’s death but evidently completed a number of years earlier. Experimental philosophy in this context is another term for what we would now call Physics.

Goldsmith was not himself a learned scientist. He had a large personal library, and at least a passing knowledge of a wide range of sources. These included serious works of science: in his introduction to the Survey, he drops the names of Roger Bacon, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton. Elsewhere he draws upon the Comte de Buffon. How much he looked to more complicated works by the likes of Newton, however, and how much to more popular sources, would be a matter of complex analysis. Suffice it to say that in the Survey Goldsmith drew upon many writers, beginning with the ancients, to compile two volumes which (like the earlier eight volumes of the Animated Nature) are a lengthy popularization of the subject.

The result is interesting mainly as an unusual and lesser-known product of a distinguished figure in 18th-century English literature, and as a popularized treatment of science in that period, rather than as an introduction to Physics one could reliably recommend to students. Goldsmith’s reputation for error in the Animated Nature precedes him, and the Survey is not, shall we say, driven by the author’s passion for his subject. By the end of the second volume, Goldsmith seems to have wearied of the task: in his final paragraph he concludes

Shown is the title-page of volume 1 of Goldsmith’s book. This set has the added interest of having been owned by a woman, Caroline Anne Horde, who signed both volumes in March 1791. This may have been the Caroline Anne Horde, spinster of Bath, whose portrait was painted by Gainsborough Dupont.

The literature of Christmas is vast, and well represented in the Chapin Library, from the Nativity related in early manuscripts and printed books to the image of Santa Claus in contemporary illustration. Among these works, A Christmas Carol, in Prose by Charles Dickens holds a place of special renown. It was the first of Dickens’ Christmas stories, and remains his most celebrated.

Dickens wrote the novella in only six weeks. It was first published in London by Chapman and Hall on 17 December 1843, and was immediately popular. Its first printing of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas eve. Many further printings and editions followed. The costs of production – borne by the author himself – were so high that the book brought Dickens disappointing profits. Its artistic success, however, was enormous. Critics praised it, and readers took it to their hearts. Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, and the phrase “Bah! Humbug!” became part of Western culture. A Christmas Carol also helped to raise public awareness of the plight of the poor, contrasted with the rich but miserly Scrooge who, in the course of the story, finds his social conscience; and it fostered the secular idea of Christmas as a festival of generosity centered on the individual and the family.

The Chapin Library has several editions of A Christmas Carol, most notably the first, illustrated with black and white wood-engravings and hand-colored etchings drawn by John Leech; the first American edition, by Harper & Brothers, 1844; and the 1868 Ticknor and Fields edition of A Christmas Carol adapted by Dickens for public reading. These are part of a sizeable collection of Dickens’ works, formed principally by Alfred C. Chapin, Class of 1869, Donald S. Klopfer ’22, and William E. Park ’30. Visitors interested in seeing A Christmas Carol, or a copy of a Dickens novel as originally issued in monthly parts such as David Copperfield or Bleak House – fascinating examples of publishing to suit impecunious readers (and to generate advertising revenue for the author) – are welcome at our temporary quarters in the Southworth Schoolhouse. – WGH

Shown is the frontispiece by John Leech, Mr. Fezziwig’s Ball, from the 1843 first edition of A Christmas Carol, in Prose.

Rare books, manuscripts, maps, and photographs in the vast collections of the Library of Congress, and the Library’s magnificent Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C., will be featured in an original, 90-minute, behind-the-scenes documentary scheduled to air on C-Span on Monday, July 18th, at 8:00 and 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Previews can be seen online in advance of the broadcast at http://www.cspan.org/loc/.

Whet your appetite for special collections with this program, then come see us in the Chapin Library and College Archives! – WGH