NDSA:Clearinghouse Action Team

Return to NDSA:Content Working Group Home

Clearinghouse Action Team (Group B)

Description of Work

Develop a clearinghouse that will enable a variety of stakeholders (content producers, archives and libraries and other potential preservationists) to:

• Determine what specific types of content or collections are at risk.
• Identify at-risk content or collections for preservation.
• Match orphan collections with appropriate trusted partner for access and preservation.

At the December 8th call, it was decided that this group would start with determining what specific types of content or collections are at risk.

Action Team Members

• LEADER: Kristine Hanna, Internet Archive (kristine@archive.org)
• Michael Stoller, New York University (Michael.stoller@NYU.EDU)
• Glen McAninch, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives (Glen.McAninch@ky.gov)
• Matt Kirschenbaum, University of Maryland (mkirschenbaum@GMAIL.COM)
• Deborah Rossum, SCOLA (drossum@SCOLA.ORG)
• Pat Steele, University of Maryland (pasteele@umd.edu)
• John Weise, University of Michigan (jweise@UMICH.EDU)
• Amy Pienta, University of Michigan/Data-PASS (apienta@umich.edu)
• Tricia Cruse, California Digital Library (patricia.cruse@ucop.edu)
• Curtis Pulford, Wisconsin Department of Administration (curtis.pulford@wisconsin.gov)
• Cathy Hartman, University of North Texas (cathy.hartman@unt.edu)
• Guest Participant: John Faundeen, US Geological Service (faundeen@usgs.gov)

If you are interesting in joining this Action Team, please contact Kristine Hanna to sign up.

First meeting (January 19)

Curtis Pulford: I did want to advocate for temporal spatial data layers (particularly those the GIS community describes as ‘framework layers’) as the At Risk collection near and dear to me. I will be happy to elaborate on this at a future meeting or in writing somewhere. But the core issue is that data sets (like parcels, administrative boundaries, hydrography, transportation, etc.) are being replaced over time – without any archive. Custodians of this data are many and diverse (local, state, private) and most have no funding or mandate to store historical collections. As such, our ability to look at, or learn lessons from, our spatial data history is now (in the electronic data age) becoming impossible. People simply don’t draw maps and file them away anymore.

Pat Steele: One thought I had for getting us started on this is to pilot self-nominations of collections from the community to then assess their characteristics. This might help us determine elements and lead to criteria - just a thought to get us going.

Kristine: Should we look at some spontaneous events as "at risk" content to save as the event unfolds on the web (Hurricane Katrina is the most familiar example)

assemble categories/types of born digital collections that are out there. does everyone go out and find collections

examples: 1. local government (cities, counties, commissions) are posting more records on their website - what should be saved? 2. permanent state electronic records - do we want to/need to prioritize them (some document activity, some are for research) 3. Native American groups turning their oral history into digital formats 4. Science elements (GIS, geo spacial, aerial photography) federally funded is separate from universities/academia 5. Creative Arts (writers digital manuscripts, musicians, performance artists, painters that are working in primarily digital form) 6. News content that exists in digital form only (community, metro, national) 7. any existing NDIIPP projects we want to look at and what was identified as potentially still 'at risk'. 8.