Slides from an invited presentation I gave to the University of Pittsburgh's iSchool. "Ensuring long term access to digital information sounds like a technical problem. It seems like digital preservation should be a computer science problem. Far from it. In this lecture Trevor Owens, a digital archivist at the Library of Congress argues that digital preservation is in fact a core problem and issue at the heart of the future of the digital humanities. Bringing together perspectives from the history of technology, new media studies, public history, and archival theory, he suggests the critical role that humanities scholars and practitioners should play in framing and shaping the collection, organization, description, and modes of access to the historically contingent digital material records of contemporary society."

1. DIGITAL PRESERVATION’S
PLACE IN THE FUTURE OF
THE DIGITAL HUMANITIES
THOUGHTS FROM TREVOR OWENS

2. WE CAN’T JUST
BUILD THE RIGHT
SYSTEM. DIGITAL
PRESERVATION IS
NOT PRIMARILY A
TECHNICAL
PROBLEM.

3. WHAT ON EARTH IS A
DIGITAL HISTORIAN?
AND WHAT DO YOU
HAVE TO DO WITH
DIGITAL
PRESERVATION?

5. WHAT IS/ARE (THE)
DIGITAL HUMANITIES
AGAIN?

7. 1. COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS
2. MODES OF COMMUNICATION
3. DIGITAL PRIMARY SOURCES
MY DIGITAL
HUMANITIES ARE

8. SELECTION
&COLLECTION

10. PITFALLS IN
DEFINITION &
SIGNIFICANCE

11. WHAT IS
PITFALL

12. “SOLUTIONISM PRESUMES
RATHER THAN
INVESTIGATES THE
PROBLEM IT IS TRYING TO
SOLVE”
MOROZOV/DOBBINS

13. CHIMERICAL
SIGNIFICANT
PROPERTIES

16. http://contemporary-home-computing.org/1tb/archives/3214

17. DIGITAL
MATERIALITY
& INSCRIPTION

18. THINK LESS
ABOUT
CHARACTERS
FLUTTERING OFF
THE EDGE OF

19. CHIMERICAL
SIGNIFICANT
PROPERTIES
DIGITAL IS
MEASURED IN
MICRONS

20. MEDIA AND DATA
STRUCTURES AS
FONDS

21. HERBERT A.
PHILBRICK PAPERS
AFTER
PROCESSING
HERBERT A.
PHILBRICK PAPERS
BEFORE
PROCESSING

22. ORDER IN LARSON
PAPERS FLOPPY DISK

23. GLITCH & SCREEN
ESSENTIALISM

24. CHIMERICAL
SIGNIFICANT
PROPERTIES
DIGITAL IS
MEASURED IN
MICRONS
SOFTWARE READS

25. CHIMERICAL
SIGNIFICANT
PROPERTIES
DIGITAL IS
MEASURED IN
MICRONS.MP3 AND .WAV
VERSIONS OF SAME
RECORDING OPENED
AS .RAW FILES IN
PHOTOSHOP

26. FORMAT & MEDIUM IN
PLATFORM STUDY

27. BUT HOW DOES
PITFALL SEE THE
SCREEN?

28. CHIMERICAL
SIGNIFICANT
PROPERTIES
DIGITAL IS
MEASURED IN
MICRONS

29. THE BORN DIGITAL
RECORD IS BORN
COMPUTABLE

31. DIGITAL
PRESERVATION AS
PART OF THE DIGITAL
HUMANITIES

32. A GOLDEN AGE FOR
BORN-DIGITAL
SPECIAL
COLLECTIONS,
ARCHIVES AND
CRITICAL EDDITIONS