Presentation of Our Marathon (as a case study as part of a Digital Humanities Data Curation Workshop held at Northeastern University in Boston, MA (May 1, 2014).
http://www.dhcuration.org/institute/schedule/
Our Marathon Presentation at DH Data Curation Workshop
1. Our Marathon:The Boston Bombing Digital Archive
DH Data Curation Workshop
May 1, 2014
facebook.com/OurMarathon www.northeastern.edu/marathon @OurMarathon
6. AUDIENCES
• Regional: Boston, MA residents directly and indirectly
affected by these events
• More broadly, a “general” audience of anyone
interested in these events
• Researchers and Scholars: interest in preserving items
/ files and creating / preserving metadata
7. BUILDING OUR MARATHON
4,700+ items
Boston City Archives material
289 stories from the Globe Lab
307 memes (image macros)
40 oral histories (WBUR)
raw news footage (WCVB-TV)
12. KINDS OF ITEMS INTHE ARCHIVE
• “Born Digital” Material (photos, text, memes,
screencaps)
• Scanned / Digitized Items (BCA Items, Boston Medical
Center Items)
• Modified Items (redacted files, edited audio files)
13. SOME ITEMS / FILETYPES INTHE ARCHIVE
• BCA Items (Hi-Res Scans:TIF files; JPEG Copies)
• Web Sites (Archive-It /The InternetArchive)
• Oral History Audio Files: .wav and .mp3
• Crowdsourced contributions: variety
• Social media files: screencaps
14.
15.
16.
17. Crowdsourcing
Challenges of “Born Digital” Content
• PerceivedValue By Contributor
• Copyright Issues and Social Media
• Preservation Challenges
• MetadataChallenges
18. DUBLIN CORE METADATA FIELDS
• Title
• Description
• Source
• Date
• Rights
• Language
21. LONG-TERM PRESERVATION PLANS
• Northeastern’s Libraries (Archives & Special
Collection) is final home of Our Marathon items
• Items Public NowWill Be Public InThe Future
• “PlannedObsolescence” (Home Page / Site)
• Five year position (Basic Monitoring of Archive)
22. SHORT-TERM CHALLENGES
• What MetadataCleanup to Do Now (BCA Items,
Public Submissions)
• HowTo Make Content More Accessible (Tags, Maps)
• Social Media Content (Tweets)
23. SOME LONG-TERM CHALLENGES
• Institutional Memory of Project (Documentation of
Methodologies, Meta-Archive)
• When to phase out web site / “ShareYour Story”
Plugin
• When to make sensitive material public
• Approval Process for Researchers / Scholars
Not just “newsworthy” stories, but what we’re trying to collect are the stories about everyday people being impacted by this event
The future of the physical artifacts; the role of the website as a kind of memorial (and this goal will often determine what we make public on the site)
Ephemeral digital artifacts
What’s in therenow
Adapting Omeka through plug-ins; New tools, technical