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Interview with the MetaArchive Project, Page 3
What methodologies are you using to determine which materials to preserve?
We preserve items that meet criteria for both at-risk materials and Southern cultural heritage materials; we prioritize preservation efforts based on (1) the fitness of the materials to our collection focus and (2) the urgency of preserving the at-risk materials.
At-risk materials are understood as those materials that, according to the NDIIPP parameters, are Web-based or born-digital materials without analog counterpart. Southern cultural heritage materials represent or capture the distinctly Southern way of life. This includes materials that originated from or describe those areas geographically identified as part of the South; however, this also includes materials describing or originating from areas not typically associated with the South but nevertheless capturing or referencing Southern-ness, broadly construed.
As a way of helping partner institutions identify and prioritize objects and collections relating to Southern culture, we asked them to consider the range of themes outlined in the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture’s Table of Contents:
- Agriculture, Business, and Industry
- Art and Architecture
- Education
- Environment
- Ethnicity
- Folk Art
- Folklife
- Foodways
- Gender
- Geography
- History, Manners, and Myth
- Language
- Law and Politics
- Literature
- Media
- Music
- Race
- Recreation
- Religion
- Science and medicine
- Social Class
- Transportation
- Urbanization
- Violence
Partner institutions first identify materials relevant to the project’s focus on the cultural heritage of the American South. Then the institutions consider whether these materials meet the definition for at-risk materials and make archiving decisions based on other aspects of these materials (e.g., their storage medium, copyright restrictions, online availability and so forth). For example, objects and collections only available offline are considered at high risk and would therefore receive highest priority for preservation. In deciding what to preserve and the priority for preservation, MetaArchive partner institutions also consider materials’ and collections’ potential long-term value for scholarship. For example, such primary resources as creative works, datasets and video or audio recordings may provide the source material for new scholarship and thus are important to preserve because of their long-term value. As they make these decisions, partner institutions also attend to other factors that work against the likelihood that certain materials will be preserved. Such factors include the absence of clear ownership or support; a broad range of digital formats comprising the digital object or collection as a whole; content-rich Web resources with dynamic components; and materials based on older or outmoded technology.
Interview Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
