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For 3.30 on Thursday I attended the session entitled “How do members of society view access and privacy issues.”

First, Johanna Smith on access to the 2006 Census:

~ The census resistance movement is more prevalent in the United States, as the census is seen as a symbol of government control. Resistance also comes from a fear of function creep: that the census will be in future used for other purposes (including historical research!)

~ The 2006 Census was sent out with a release consent question. However, it’s not clear how informed this consent actually is — the issues can’t be fully explained in the paragraph or so explaining the question.

~ 56% of people agreed to the census information release; this appears to be geographically consistent, and beyond that it’s hard to tell if it’s a representative sample or not.

~ What’s really needed is education on the subject, so that people can make informed decisions. However, the current education has been directed towards making a particular decision, which might force their opinions. And it represents archives as primarily a privacy concern, without reflecting other important aspects.

~ Also as people’s perceptions of privacy and archival issues change with time, this will change the proportions or subset of whose records are preserved, affecting the record.

~ These issues will be reviewed again in 2016, so we have until then to figure out how to approache the problem.

Next, Michael Moir on “Impact of Access Restrictions on Use of Private Papers.”

~ He described a case where a researcher was using the records of a still-living subject with her complete permission. The subject was not particularly concerned with her own privacy. Upon her death, the remaining set of materials became inacessible due to the ownership not being transferred.

~ Very important to a university to have its collections accessible (clearly) as that’s their purpose in collecting.

~ Donors have incentive to donate for posterity, and for the tax receipt.

~ Privacy is important; it becomes the responsibility of the archivist to control access and even act as a censor at times.

~ The practice of collecting papers is changing. More and more often archivists are acquiring the papers of those who are still living. Archives no longer deal with only the long-dead.

~ Researchers are more and more interested in sensitive documents, as it becomes important for biographies to “tell all.”

~ Another challenge is that of third parties mentioned in archival documents. This has always happened, but with increased online access to finding aids, it is being noticed at a much greater rate.

~ Important for donors to gain a better understanding of the nature of their donation to prevent future problems.

Commentary, by Ian Forsyth:

~ For the census, this is an issue of trust: important for Statistics Canada to be seen as a trusted institution. The only way to do this is to be seen as acting impartially.

~ This problem is not restricted to the census: applies to many other sources of vital statistics. However, most other documents like this don’t require informed consent; why the census?

~ It was once common for archivists to accept any and all donor requests. This needs to change. A balance must be struck between the rights and needs of three groups: donors, researchers, and third parties who are affected.

~ Do involved persons trust the institutions to whom their information is entrusted? In most cases, there is a lack of confidence.

Questions (partial list, names not recorded):

~ Commercial rights for still-living donors? The papers are often a significant monetary asset. Intellectual property rights always stay with the donor; copyright is given to archives. This strategy is less practical when there is a literary or artistic work involved.

~ Obligation to inform people of issues regarding census consent? Yes, thre is an obligation. Unfortunately, we are living in a culture of secrecy, where people are afraid of who may be reading their data.

Reactions:

I was a bit disappointed that the third speaker was unable to make it. This would have been concerning FOI. However, there will be a report released on the subject later in the year.

I have recently worked with materials donated by a still-living donor, and yes, that can confuse the situation. In our case, it was problems to do with appraisal and our need to dispose of much of the donated material as being archivally irrelevant. (Very, very irrelevant. There were kitchen utensils.) I can only imagine that copyright and privacy, being much touchier subjects, would cause even more challenges.

“Leveraging the power of the past” this session was entitled, and promised to describe how to use archival collections and services to directly (and obviously) benefit their holding institutions — basically, how to prove that the archives are worthwhile.

First, Jim Burant spoke about LAC:

~ has a multiplicity of stakeholders: primarily the Government of Canada itself

~ Archives had a mandate as a museum until 1966, as library until 1953. When those roles were eliminated, it began taking a more important role in managing government records, including microfilming.

~ because there are so many different stakeholders (gov’t, citizens, various other groups) there’s a challenge in trying to serve many different people with different needs simultaneously.

~ thus, a concentration on website, education. Events and anniversaries are targeted.

Jean Elliott from J.P. Morgan Chase archives:

~ small archives has survived through a large number of mergers and other changes in administrative structure

~ self-marketing and education is a constant process, taking up much of the time.

~ in industry, the most important benchmark is customer service: by allowing the corporation to improve its customer service using archival material, the archives can conclusively justify their existence.

~ important to describe services rather than resources: while the instinct may be to talk about extent of holdings, and that other stuff that tends to be exciting for archivists, it won’t have nearly as great an impact as addressing what the archives can actually do.

~ this organization has put a lot of work into exhibits, brochures, and the like which can be shown off to clients.

~ important to keep records of all this sort of work, so it can be used as a portfolio later. Take photos of exhibits, etc.

~ this institution also had success with creating replicas of artefacts to be given as gifts, reproducing photographs as note cards, and giving interviews in the media.

Questions (most of which were specific):

How to deal with marketing, etc, when you’ve got little training or specialization in it?

~ Important to build teams, reach out to allies, take responsibility.

How to balance self-marketing with actual archival work?

~ In this case, a high priority is given to marketing. Though depends on the situation.

How are reproductions/exhibits/displays paid for?

~ In this case, paid for by the department that benefits from them.

Reactions:

I found the second presentation to be fascinating in terms of remarkable successes. However, I’m not sure how many of the projects discussed would be applicable in other situations, such as a non-profit organization like the one I work for currently.

The notion of selling the benefits of an archives programme, though, seems to be fairly widely applicable. I’ve already had some experience with this: by doing something as simple as sorting the big box o’ photographs by approximate decade, I was able to give a reasonable degree of access to the advancement office, which made them very happy. Anything that has an immediate, obvious benefit to stakeholders is immediately a good thing.

I’m certainly thinking long and hard about how to apply this to my current situation. Most of what I’m working on right now is supposed to have an immediate, apparent benefit — though I’m encountering resistance from the most unexpected corners.

“Accessing Archival Information in the 2.0 Digital Age”

The title they gave to the presentation was “Collective Collection: discovery and delivery in a collaborative context.”

Brian Bell, Loren Fantin speaking on the services Alouette Canada and OurOntario.ca.

These systems they refer to as discovery systems, useful primarily to help the end user discover new materials through browsing and casual searching, rather than being dedicated to the purposes of archivists themselves or experienced researchers.

They spoke on:

~ A shift of environment or context between 1998 and today, resulting in a much more digital world. These systems are a response to the new environment.

~ Referred to the sector as GLAM, or Galleries-Libraries-Archives-Museums. (I think I like “GLAM”; hope it sticks.)

~ As the networked environment becomes much more important, the “user” becomes a combination of “consumer” and “creator.”

~ Able to use new digital technologies to study the way searches are performed and the success of their results, which allows for the continual improvement of the way searching is done.

~ The definition they give of the ubiquitous “2.0″ is a combination of content creation, interaction, and assembly and sharing of content. The thing is not about the tools, and it’s not about the content: it’s about the act of collaboration and the result for the end user.

~ As previously separate institutions are brought together as one sector, the challenge becomes finding a way to bring together many different types of data. Thus, they refer to the systems discussed as being in “perpetual beta.”

~ “Discovery is global” — they want to move towards more global search capabilities, more akin to Google than to searching a single institution’s catalogue.

~ “Power of the network” — the more information that you have, the more can be done with it — able to use observations of prior users to assist newer users.

~ “Endless sharing” — the data is out there and can be used in many ways. “The power of the network will take over.” It is important to not just store information about collections on one’s own website, but also share it widely enough with other groups so that it is discoverable. From this stems the huge importance of standards.

~ A community may have more knowledge, collectively, than the institution. There should be a way to access this body of knowledge.

~ The software and metadata of these two systems are standardized. OurOntario is a subset of Alouette Canada, containing those records that are from Ontario or about Ontario. (This is superior to having the larger portal built up of smaller, regional portals — which would restrict the Ontario subset to institutions contributing to it directly–probably institutions from Ontario only.)

~ There already exist many excellent digital collections — the need is to enable discovery of those collections.

~ The national portal (Alouette) is not a replacement for strong provincial, local, or sectoral portals; it builds upon and depends upon their work. The large network improves sustainability of the project.

~ The attitudes of researchers are changing: they are beginning to expect that all material will be available digitally. This means that organizations that fund digital programs expect that there will be successful networks between projects.

~ Now a need to deal with user-created metadata, as well as that provided by the creator or archivist. There exists a large amount of information about digital objects that is not stored in the system.

~ These systems have a function that allow the archivist to ask questions about the digital object provided, in order to solicit particular community contributions. So far, this has worked fairly well.

~ Presented the notion of the archivist as a custodian, where the true story of the document belongs to its users.

~ A significant challenge is how to present the finding aid. New ways of doing so would be welcomed.

~ Users do not care much about the differences between libraries, archives, and other institutions. It is best to reduce the appearance of silos, of differences — to the end users, at least. Interfaces integrating data from multiple institutions should not go to effort to distinguish between types of institutions.

~ Very emphatic that they were not repackaging institutions’ content — that local brands are maintained. The portal points to existing sites.

~ Includes use of Google Maps to site geographic metadata — users can see and work with locations of photographs.

~ “At the heart of digitization lies collection management.” The digital collection/exhibit is (perhaps?) just another way of dealing with existing collections.

Questions:

(At this point, I was not keeping a record of who was asking and answering each question.)

~ How to help people understand that digital content is only a small portion of available content? –> Provide a blend between finding aids for digital and non-digital collections –> catalogues and finding aids should be digitized –> design towards a goal of “someday it will all be digitized”

~ How to simplify ordering of prints of photos? –> not solved yet –> Picture Australia currently working with Flickr

~ Sustainability is a problem: how to keep all this from disappearing? –> multiple copies, multiple hosting of metadata

~ Dealing with variety of standards? –> try to be un-dogmatic about the types of standards they accept –> handle a variety of formats –> working towards a METS solution –> each sector will standardize at lower levels –> though yes, standards are very very important.

Reactions:

As much as I love “2.0″, I’m also always skeptical about it — particularly how long these systems are expected to last. Sustainability is a real problem, exacerbated by rapid change: while something like this is really neat, it’s hard to tell if it’ll still seem as useful or important in five years.

I do agree with the basic premise that the user interface is hugely important. The more it looks like Google, the more people will come back to it: the ability to “search everything at once” is that important.

To be perfectly honest, I haven’t spent any time actually using Alouette or any of its subsets. Everything in this post is based on the presentation alone. This is certainly a topic I’d like to return to at a later date.