Digital Discussions

When digitizing photographic negatives, there is always “more image information than meets the eye”. Subtle shades of grey often lurk within the shadows [and in the highlights] of photographic negatives. Conventional scanning systems have a limited range of tones that they can effectively capture and render. Sadly, this produces images that are often lacking in depth, complexity and vibrancy. The staff of the Digital Production Center has been using a special digitization technique and associated software to greatly expand and enhance the tonal range that is available for capture. The resulting images contain a tonal range from dark to light that more accurately expresses what the eye can see. This technique was extensively used during the production of a traveling exhibit of photographs by Hugh Morton, one of North Carolina’s most notable photographers.

Digital technologies are having a profound impact on humanities research methods and products. The “humanities computing” field of the 1990s has grown into the current “digital humanities,” but these methods are still evolving quickly in 2013. This presentation will provide an introduction to digital humanities terminology and concepts, discuss how both the academy and libraries are engaging with digital humanities practices, and introduce some digital humanities tools and resources for learning more and participating in the digital humanities community.

In an effort distinct from Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the library has begun to add coordinate information to digital objects. Discovery of these objects is supported through GeoBrowse (www.lib.unc.edu/dc/geobrowse) and GeoSearch (dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/geosearch/collection/ncmaps/collection/ncmaps). Tim will discuss the genesis of these new efforts, the decisions and technology behind them, and some ideas for the future.

Digital forensics tools and methods can support a variety of important archival tasks. There are two needs that are not addressed by software designed for the digital forensics industry: incorporation into the workflow of archives/library ingest and collection management environments, and provision of public access to the data. The BitCurator project is an effort to develop a system specifically for collecting professionals that incorporates the functionality of many open source digital forensics tools. We have developed the BitCurator environment, which is freely available and can be run directly in Linux or as a virtual machine on other platforms (Windows and Mac). Kam Woods and Cal Lee will cover the basic functionality of the BitCurator environment and several features that are currently under development.

The fair use exception is both one of the most-used and also one of the most-misunderstood parts of copyright law. In this session, Anne Gilliland will examine the importance of fair use when digitizing material for preservation and access as well as its limitations and common misconceptions about the doctrine. Questions and discussion welcome.

Come hear about digital preservation activities at the UNC Chapel Hill Libraries. Andy Hart, Jill Sexton, and Meg Tuomala will talk about why digital preservation is important, present key issues in the field, and demonstrate some tools of the trade.

The Wikimedia Foundation has been devoting a lot of resources to its “GLAM” (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) initiative, with the goal of building more concrete partnerships between Wikipedia and cultural heritage organizations. The initiative is presented as a mutually beneficial collaboration between Wikipedians and GLAM professionals, but what is the real value of dedicating staff time to a Wikipedia project? The Digital Heritage Center and the North Carolina Collection will discuss this question in light of their recent Wikipedia explorations. This will be a conversation, rather than a lecture, but topics of discussion might include: What has changed in the way librarians approach and understand Wikipedia? Aside from creating and editing Wikipedia articles, what might a Wikipedia project entail? What kind of return on investment might a cultural heritage organization achieve with any of those projects? Why might some kinds of GLAMs find working with Wikipedia more worthwhile than others? How do questions about copyright and licensing play into a Wikipedia project? Is there a culture clash between Wikipedians and GLAM professionals? If so, can it be overcome to the benefit of both sides?

Curious about data visualization and don’t know how or where to start? This talk will provide an introduction to data visualizations as a communication tool and will help you to learn about choosing an appropriate visualization style, when not to visualize data, and how to avoid common visualization pitfalls. Presentation slides and more information may be found at http://digitaldiscussions.web.unc.edu/session-november-2012-dive-into-data-visualization/.

“Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina” (http://docsouth.unc.edu/commland), a digital humanities project, documents the state’s history through a spatially based presentation of sites of memory, including commemorative monuments, shrines, and public art. The site enables users to visualize and analyze the historical memory of the state by accessing a variety of resources – historic maps, postcards, photographs, printed publications, newspaper clippings, and manuscript materials – that reveal when, how, and where North Carolinians have commemorated their past. It encourages users to reflect on what parts of history North Carolinians have elected to and not to commemorate as well as how commemoration has changed over time. Presentation slides and more information may be found at http://digitaldiscussions.web.unc.edu/session-october-2012-commemorative-landscapes-of-north-carolina/. Commemorative Landscapes is the result of close collaboration between the Library, the Scholarly Advisor Prof. Fitz Brundage, and the project’s Advisory Board. It brings together talents and expertise in digital libraries and digital humanities, programming, historical memory, Indian history, African American history, architectural history, and public history. At our session, we will talk about technologies employed to present the collection and its many fascinating features; logic behind our decision of using a specific technology or tool, and the role the content played in making such decisions.

Before about 1995, preserving websites was a simple matter; you just copied the pages and saved them. The site could then be easily reproduced or moved forward even as the software and hardware that supported it evolved. Collections of pages were never obsolete (although some links may have broken). As scripted, CGI enabled, and database driven websites became dominant, page-scraping showed itself for the Rube Goldberg solution that it is. Not only are these page-scraped collections a pale representation of the original, but they rarely represent the context, the interactivity or the totality of advanced sites. Presentation slides and more information may be found at http://digitaldiscussions.web.unc.edu/session-september-2012-when-good-sites-go-bad/. To make matters worse, advances in software and hardware often completely break these websites. Each server upgrade is a time of endangerment and loss. What’s an archivist to do? Continue to scrape pages with Archive-IT or Heritrix? Break sites into highly described atoms that we can preserve but in the process lose context and interactivity? There is a better solution at hand. I will explain.

Linked Data and RDA: Looking at Next-Generation Cataloging will discuss how the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and Linked Data, two hot topics in the field of information modeling, have the potential to change how library cataloging is done and how discovery systems operate. The new Resource Description and Access (RDA) standard that has been the subject of much discussion in the library cataloging community in the last few years will be used as an example of modeling, sharing, and consuming information as Linked Data. Presentation slides and more information may be found at http://digitaldiscussions.web.unc.edu/session-august-2012-linked-data-and-rda-looking-at-next-generation-cataloging/.