Volume 43, Issue 1-2

In June 2011, the University of Michigan School of Information in Ann Arbor hosted a symposium on preservation education. This special double issue of Preservation, Digital Technology, & Culture presents the four plenary addresses and the associated formal commentaries from the invitational symposium that brought together full-time academic faculty who have a significant research and teaching commitment to preservation and doctoral students who are developing dissertations related to preservation issues. The symposium explored how to teach preservation in ways that acknowledge the heritage of analog preservation techniques and perspectives while pointing toward research and development initiatives in the digital sphere. The four plenary sessions explored debates over the definition of the preservation field (Michele Cloonan); challenges and opportunities of education for audiovisual preservation (Caroline Frick); concrete mechanisms to integrate research and teaching into digital preservation (Elizabeth Yakel); and the agenda for high-impact research in the university (Anne Gilliland).

Preservation education was the focus of the first plenary session. The plenary address was on the history of preservation education and the evolution of the definitions of “preservation” and its associated conceptual terms. The speaker related definitional debates to the convergence of formal and informal educational programs and raised a number of questions designed to provoke conversations during the symposium. Two commentators, Kathleen Fear and Priscilla Caplan, responded to the ideas presented.

This response paper posits that the crafting of definitions must reflect the concerns of the preservation field and of other related fields as well. Preservation educators must present their work to show their students how to demonstrate the importance of preservation to the wider network of professionals with whom they will collaborate.

This response paper makes two assertions: that definitions have an impact on practice, and that preservation education must be theoretical as well as practical. Regarding the first point, the author illustrates that while terminology may not always be used consistently, the preservation field benefits from consensus. The second point relates to the first: the theory and practice of preservation is best understood when there is a clear vocabulary.

In the plenary address for the second session, Caroline Frick presents a brief historical overview of the field and offers a “snapshot” of the current state of affairs. The introduction posits that the key players in the audiovisual preservation field are facing new threats to their traditional expertise including decreased funding for film-to-film preservation, professional convergence, and the looming demise of celluloid. Media preservation professionals need to get out of their “comfort zone” of focusing on twentieth-century analog techniques and shake off the quasi-nostalgic view of the preservation heyday of the 1990s in which monies from major funders and the general public fueled high-profile programs in moving-image archives. New approaches to educating those interested in joining the field, as well as those already in its ranks, are critical to insure that the profession remains relevant in the twenty-first century.

The central focus of this response paper is on how preservation programs can position themselves to prepare moving image archivists. Most institutions, aside from larger university-based or museum-based archives, have little interest in sustaining analog moving image or sound formats and are primarily focused on transferring that material to digital formats to provide access. Given this scenario, the author considers whether stand-alone moving image archives programs can survive, or if interdisciplinary preservation programs will be a better alternative.

The emerging field of digital preservation can learn from the twentieth-century experiences of audiovisual preservation. Unlike preservation of art, artifacts, and paper, audiovisual preservation has faced rapid cycles of format obsolescence that have required significant effort to refresh, migrate, and emulate. Besser shows how the NYU Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program prepares students to work in this dynamic field. Students in the program are introduced to all aspects of preservation through classroom learning and in internship- and volunteer opportunities. His paper presents a blueprint for preservation education.

The preservation of audiovisual materials is important to cultural heritage institutions and to a broad community that includes such constituencies as law enforcement agencies and the public. Yet there is not a general awareness of preservation issues. Outreach can begin in the classroom and the author describes the importance of educating students about preservation in a variety of academic disciplines, such as Public History, rather than only in audiovisual programs. Finally, preservation specialists and archivists should create public education opportunities for organizations and individuals who create AV materials. Home Movie Day is one venue for such outreach.

The third plenary address focuses on the relationship of preservation research to classroom pedagogy. The address reports on the findings at the University of Michigan of the Preservation and Access Virtual Education Laboratory, including a survey of students who used the technology teaching tool. The address raises three research topics for further discussion and research, including evaluation of student learning styles, evaluation of pedagogical approaches, and evaluation of actual student learning in the context of preservation education. Three commentators explored the implications of student learning in a tool-based classroom setting.

This response paper suggests new ways in which faculty can incorporate the teaching of various aspects of preserving scientific digital data in the classroom. Kowalczyk provides three perspectives: research, research data, and researchers. Of the three, bringing researchers to the classroom was the most logistically challenging, but perhaps most rewarding-based on student evaluations. A digital artist and a computer scientist offered contrasting examples of uses of digital data in the arts and sciences.

Elizabeth Yakel’s paper reports on experiences and findings from the Preservation and Access Virtual Education Laboratory (PAVEL) project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. My comments are based on a reading of her paper and my own teaching experiences. This includes development and implementation of courses at the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, development of a digital curation curriculum framework as part of the DigCCurr (Digital Curation Curriculum) project funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), development and administration of continuing professional education institutes as part of the DigCCurr II project (also funded by the IMLS), establishment of a hands-on educational offering as part of the Digital Acquisition Learning Laboratory (DALL) project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and curation and dissemination of a set of realistic data sets to support digital forensics education through a grant funded by the National Science Foundation. In comparing Yakel’s paper with my own experiences, I have identified several points of convergence and one main area of difference. I conclude with some comments based on Yakel’s claim that “the digital preservation process is nebulous.”

Beth Yakel’s essay focused on how technology can be used to enhance learning about digital archiving and preservation (focused on the PAVEL project). She specifically addressed the effects of teaching on research and research on teaching, reflecting on three areas in which teaching digital preservation has fed back into research. I will comment on each of these briefly below and then offer some additional points for discussion. Much of my analysis has developed out of my specific recent engagement with the writing of three papers, all inspired by my teaching (Galloway, “Educating”; Galloway, “Personal”; Galloway, “Retrocomputing”).

The fourth plenary session of the symposium takes a close look at research priorities in the preservation field that should be addressed in an academic setting that has many disciplinary perspectives. As the final session, the plenary address, and especially the commentary, built upon the first three plenary session papers. The session steered partially clear of setting yet another grand research agenda; rather it focused on research with impact, defined variously and debated vigorously.

In reaction to the plenary paper delivered by Anne Gilliland, the opening remarks for the symposium, and the other papers and reactions delivered, two major themes warrant deeper discussion and reflection: What does “high-impact” mean when referring to research? How do we fund such research? For research in the field of digital preservation to qualify as high impact, it must-through the use of rigorous, scientifically based methodologies-result in a positive near-term effect on the actual preservation of digital heritage objects. Whether they are traditional records, moving images, emails, the latest file format, or other cultural objects, the research must bring some positive movement toward effective, efficient, comprehensive preservation of the object of study. The goal of such research should be the development of practical and implementable solutions. The author posits that with the current state of archives, intellectual exercises will be of little benefit to those “in the trenches” who are struggling with adapting to the twenty-first-century technologies used to produce records. While the development of high-level theory is important to keep the field of archival science moving forward, such abstract theory does not meet the definition of “high impact.”

The field of preservation has been transdisciplinary long before the digital age. One issue is that library schools do not prepare their graduates for this transdisciplinarity. This response to Anne Gilliland’s paper rehearses the state of the profession with respect to its current and future issues, including such things as various methods of preservation (even automated preservation in the creation of materials), “[i]ntegrating access across time, systems, and communities,” developing standards for best practices, developing economic models for optimum preservation, and much more. One aim is to make all of these efforts uniform worldwide, if possible, which means that international cooperation in formulating strategies is necessary. Working on an international level, however, has its challenges.