@amaliasl
Archives, life writing, history. Research focus: slavery & dependency; record-keeping & archives; Caribbean Jewish history; digital humanities. https://hcommons.org/members/amaliasl/ and https://heritedge.org/
⬇️ This.
Many collections everywhere, but particularly beyond Europe or N. America, are undercatalogued or not catalogued at all. When they burn, no trace survives.
For the "everything is online" crowd in the back:
Important to consider that "everything" cultural heritage related that is accessible online represents only 1% (one percent) of archives, libraries, and museum collections worldwide.
IN THE SAME SEA's team and Dr. Joy Lewis have guest-edited the special issue “Small Islands, Proximity and Connection in the Eastern Caribbean” of the Journal of Caribbean History.
See: www.uwipress.com/journals/the...
Thanks to all contributors and the journal’s main editor Kathleen Monteith.
Missed this 3 days ago, but we're thrilled this is out.
@ruthahnert.bsky.social @danielwilson.bsky.social & I wrote this after 6 years of collaboration + discussions about
- what "data" and "digitization" mean [in History]
- what we need to do to ensure data is findable & accessible
"Cultural institutions face a perfect storm of risk factors. Operating budgets prioritise immediate public service – acquisitions, exhibitions, programmes, access – over invisible infrastructure investments."
informationsecuritybuzz.com/the-cyberatt...
On ransomware and under-funded GLAMs: 'At no point was the British Library particularly negligent or unprepared. Instead, it was hindered by vulnerabilities shared by the majority of cultural institutions. ...the attack [is] a warning to the whole sector.' informationsecuritybuzz.com/the-cyberatt...
Important article that emphasizes proliferation + fragmentation of hist datasets & the need to
- rethink our responsibility+commitment as scholars to FAIR principles
- reeducate in dig skills for locating/navigating/using hist datasets
- build communities around data to naturalize reuse/engagement
Looking forward to listening to this work, Elise. Your paper "Morbid Crossings" has stayed with me...
6/6 In most of this cases, in lack of good inventories, we'll never know the true extent of what was lost.
It is sad to see how little heritage is valued. Despite frequent assertions to the opposite, there is a lack of serious and consistent funding and commitment for its protection and promotion.
5/ In 2020, the Royal Chapel in Milo, Haiti, was burnt, and its dome collapsed.
www.haitilibre.com/en/news-3052...
4/ On September 2, 2018, the National Museum of Brazil's collections were up in fire.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...
3/ On March 25, 2019, the St. Lucia Folk Research Centre's collections were destroyed.
www.caribbeanliteraryheritage.com/archival-tre...
2/ On June 18, 2024, a major fire at the Barbados Archives Department destroyed important original documents, as Tara Inniss' article describes.
barbadostoday.bb/2024/06/18/h...
1/ Important new article by Dr. Tara Inniss that discusses the "chronic underfunding, aging infrastructure, and climatic threats" of Caribbean archives, compounded by vulnerabilities and policy gaps.
Thread w recent examples of destruction of collections by fire:
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Community archives "have been chronically underfunded by government agencies and private foundations..., passed over in favor of wealthier institutions that...promise longer term stability and prestige, but they also propagate dominant narratives."
medium.com/community-ar...
Thank you for reading! 🤗
Image: Jamillah Knowles & We and AI / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ A neural network comes out of the top of an ivory tower, above a crowd of people's heads. Some of them are reaching up to try and take some control and pull the net down to them. Watercolor illustration.
📣 The public deserves more than basic training on how to use AI. That’s why we’re launching a new AI Civics initiative, treating AI not as a tool to be mastered, but as a domain of civic life where people have rights, responsibilities, & avenues for collective action. datasociety.net/points/build...
If Bad Bunny can cover the history of Puerto Rico, colonialism, transatlantic slavery, hemispheric consciousness, as well as contemporary life and politics in under 14 minutes, you can do your 15- or 20-minute conference presentation with time to spare.
Everyone should be following the digitization and posting of the Adam Jacobs Collection. A 10,000 live concert chronicle of rocknroll-live-in-Chicago between the mid-1980s and today. archive.org/details/aada...
Cover of Indigenous Archives: The Maya Diaspora and Mobile Cultural Production by Floridalma Boj Lopez. The cover features a photograph of two young Mayan women wearing traditional clothing sitting on steps. Below this is solid purple with the title written in white in all caps. A yellow line separates the title and subtitle. The subtitle is written smaller in white. Below is the author's name italicized and written in all caps.
The Weekly Read is "Indigenous Archives" by Floridalma Boj Lopez, which analyzes the modes through which young Mayas in Los Angeles and Guatemala make sense of and respond to transnational structures of settler colonialism. Read the entire book for free now thanks to TOME!
buff.ly/BTvGoKo
5/5 There are of course several digitization guidelines out there but most address well-resourced institutions in the "global North."
The resources here have been shared because they take into consideration local issues in small under-resourced locations.
4/ The guide by the Int Council of Archives (ICA) & the Int Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH) was designed "for smaller, under-resourced institutions & take into consideration various scenarios from natural disasters to military conflicts."
www.ica.org/ica-and-alip...
3/ The Digital Library of the Caribbean @dlocaribbean.bsky.social that works with partner institutions across the Caribbean and Latin America provides several good guides for digitization, digital curation, and training.
dloc.domains.uflib.ufl.edu/technology/
2/ The Modern Endangered Archives Programme @modarchivesucla.bsky.social provides pring, audio, and video digitization guidelines for their grants that are also applicable widely.
meap.library.ucla.edu/applicants/g...
1/ The Endangered Archives Programme out of British Library provides guidelines that contain "hints, advice and experiences from people who have completed projects everywhere around the globe from Latin America to Africa to Asia."
www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.116...
Digitization in countries beyond Europe and North America is often a fine balance between standards and realities on the ground.
Several institutions provide digitization guidelines (and grants) that have been developed for projects in such locations.
Here I point to some:
Now available graphic. Background image is stack of books - The House Archives built by Dorothy Berry. Text is centered. We Here Press logo, weherepress.org, title of book and "Now Available" in yellow text.
now available — the house archives built & other thoughts on black archival possibilities by @dorothyjberry.bsky.social (3rd printing) www.weherepress.org
Next week Wednesday 11 February we are delighted to have @pbhellawell.bsky.social & @libertypaterson.bsky.social present their paper titled 'The Ship Bedford: Atlantic and Archival Crossings in the Long Eighteenth-Century Slave Trade'. Join us either in person at the IHR or online from 17:30
Beautiful public outreach! Academic research on archival material "transformed into a series of stunning musical arrangements on stage."
We’re thrilled to launch the BlueSky page for CONTACT
🧪We are using radiocarbon, isotopes, DNA & historical analysis to map the timeline of Norse expansion into North America. Follow along!
A 5-year ERC-funded project @rug.nl
#Norse #Archaeology #NorthAtlantic #Research