I have so much to learn. In addition I have so much to learn about archives, libraries, technology, digital project management, digital collection curation, managing people to manage systems, improving efficiency while maintaining standards, creating a name for my institution in preparation for a Web 3.0 environment (which is emerging right in front of our eyes).
Okay, so, in short, I have a lot to learn.
I would like to start an interrogation at one question: What is the difference between archive and library?
There are more than one, so change that verb to "are" and since the subject should agree, make "difference" plural.
1) Library houses copies of data, to be handled, sneezed on, and generally mistreated; archive houses unique materials, to be handled in a controlled environment where sneezing is prevented and mistreatment frowned upon.
Unique materials. Copies of materials.
In learning about managing digital archival projects (special collections), I've been trying to piece together information from archivists, librarians, IT people, technical communicators, and researchers. And I have come up with two things:
A) It is important to make digital avatars of archival materials because this is the only way people might be able to access these materials. (And thus the materials should appear as similar as possible to the original.)
B) It is important to keep people's hands off the original materials. (For very practical, obvious reasons.)
2) In library, what gets scanned is often making a copy of a copy; while this is very important for research availability, the information scanned isn't really something that it is readily apparent must be preserved. In archive, the exact opposite is true--scanning and metadata are tied together, packaged up, and preserved whole, entirely with the goal in mind that this eventually might be the only extant copy of the item.
2B) Then, if library successfully does its job, would no items ever have to go into archive again? (Just a curiosity.)
3) Archive and Library metadata are very different. (Derr...)
4) Sometimes Library and Archive don't communicate or see eye-to-eye with one another in terms of digital practice. Or, sometimes library A will see eye-to-eye with archive B, while archive A and library B say this should not be the case.
What other differences and similarities can we come up with here?
I'm mulling over this one.
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Looks like you have a good grasp on it. In archives provenance is also important - where did it come from, who had it before, where was it published, etc. etc. These are not as important in libraries (or are rarely important).
ReplyDeleteOn 2B, if you are just making a copy of a copy in a library then yes, the original is still important to the archive. Also, who owned the copy may be important - did they add their own notes to the item? Was it autographed? etc.
Marginalia, sketches (I always think of the pervy schedules in medieval manuscripts...hehe), donors, any kind of changes to the physical text (for instance, I've recently been working with a book that had contained censored poems; the poems originally had been cut out, but someone had skillfully resewn the pages back into the book, though we weren't able to tell if the resewn pages were the same source).
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