#archival science

[hurglewurm]

lil comics i made for a poster project last term about improper records retention ! bonus under the cut just because it requires a bit more explanation

also there were some schools in the uk using facial recognition technology to identify children at lunch and automatically take money from an account (and they were keeping the facial information data for like. suspiciously long. also this is just weird. don't do that)

[goblossum]

I've never fallen in love with a subject so fast like I did with Archival Studies.

I love you, archives, I love you archival bonds, I love you laws and rules about formation, management and preservations of documents. I love you, I love you, I love you.

[rainedragon]

Hi, you are amazing for archiving so much of Lolita history! I’ve been wanting to archive some images as well but I just can’t find the right software. I tried notion but that didn’t work. I was thinking of maybe OneDrive, but I like adding captions and knowing where the images come from. Do you have any recommendations?

Unfortunately, I don't really. My day job is web development, not anything in the archival sciences, so I'm not super familiar with software designed for that purpose. I've used tumblr, but that does reduce image quality and is limited in search ability. Lolita History uses Piwigo, which is just image gallery software that I installed on my web hosting. Piwigo does allow you to tag things and add descriptions, but it's mot really designed for archival use. You might consider looking into something like archivematica, or try searching for things similar to that? I'm sure I have some librarians and archivists in my followers though! Can any of you all sugget something better for archiving image content related to Japanese street fashion?

[agenderhyde]

work from home buddies!!

[archivyrep]

Knowledge, Classification, and Ledo's Record-Informed Epiphany in "Gargantia" [Part 1]

In the first episode, Ledo, along with other recruits, is subjected to a propagandistic presentation about the Hideauze, with the Vitruvian Man front and center, symbolic of the workings of the universe.

In the past, I've briefly mentioned Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, a mecha science fantasy anime currently available on various streaming platforms, [1] noting how Nathan's grandfather in Stretch Armstrong was like Doctor Oldham, the sage in Gargantia, or a fan fiction written by my friend which focuses on characters within Gargantia and other series, with scenes set in archives, and featuring archivists. However, I had forgotten how much records are a central part of the series! They are even more of a uniting theme in the show than any of the brief library scenes, which I've written about on my sister blog. [2] In this post, I'll examine those moments in the series, while connecting them archives and records management concepts.

Reprinted from my Wading Through the Cultural Stacks WordPress blog, where it was published on June 14, 2023.

The series begins with an explanation of the war between humans, fashioning themselves as Galactic Alliance of Humankind and the Hideauze, with the latter squid-like features said to be the enemies of human beings. Ledo (voiced by Kaito Ishikawa), the show's protagonist, is an ensign within a mechanized machine also known as "Chamber", believes this narrative and is a loyal footsoldier who is about to end his tour of duty. After a hasty battle with the Hideauze, which ends in defeat, a retreat, and much loss of life, he is thrown through a wormhole. He finds himself on a salvage ship in Earth, awaking six months later. The rest of the series follows his attempts to get in contact with the Galactic Alliance Fleet while learning more about Earth and why it ended up the way it did.

In this way, records are a central part of the story. Ledo relies on Chamber to translate human language into something he can understand. Colored by his own perceptions informed by Galactic Alliance propaganda, he looks critically at the society which has clustered around a floating city of sorts composed by inter-locking fleets. He even wonders why the "weak" in Gargantia are helped, when they would be culled as "unnecessary" in his society. This comes to a head in "The Flute of Recollection" when Amy (voiced by Hisako Kanemoto), the girl who Ledo temporarily kidnapped in the first episode, brings him to visit the so-called "Sage" of Gargantia: Oldham (voiced by Hideyuki Umezu). He has a library atop a tower on one of the ships, with books of different kinds. Ledo asks about supposed "inefficiencies" in Gargantian society and hopes for information about how to get into space. Oldham tells him that very little history has been kept, with only limited information remaining about space travel. This leaves Ledo dispirited, but he continues his quest.

He learns that the squid in the ocean, known as whalesquid, are just like the Hideauze, becoming a pariah for killing one. While his mindset, informed by Galactic Alliance propaganda, he remains committed to wiping out these squid. That is until the episode "Deep Sea Secret". In the episode, after going through the squid nest, decimating all in his wake, he comes across a structure with data disks. When he asks Chambers to show him the record, he is informed it is classified by the Galactic Alliance. He commands Chambers to declassify it, saying he is the ranking officer, and that classification, in this case doesn't matter.

© 2022-2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

Notes

[1] Hulu has all of the episodes except the last two OVAs, while Crunchyroll has all of the episodes available. The series, I believe, was formerly available on Funimation. Simply, the series proper was 13 episodes, but there were four OVAs: "Abandoned Fleet" (OVA1), "The Oracle's Altar" (OVA2), "Far Beyond the Voyage Part 1" (OVA3), and "Far Beyond the Voyage Part 2" (OVA4),

[2] Specifically, I've noted that Oldham is an information provider by serving as a medical doctor and librarian, "working out of his own library atop a spire, equivalent to an ivory tower" and noted an OVA episode where another library is shown. I had even said that he had the appearance of "an elderly White man" but later realized he is a Japanese man, as is clear from his voice actor, along with inferences from the show. I also noted that he does fulfill his library duties while serving a patron, "although not in the way we usually envision" and said that his depiction goes beyond stereotypes.

[rizzrustbolt]

They have a livestream of them scanning microfiche now too.

server towers at the internet archive, each blue light signifies an article being accessed or edited (in real time!)

[indielinguist]

This caught my attention. Gonna drop it here for safe-keeping to explore later.

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Here's an interview with the creator of POP Archives from ArchivesAware

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While I'm on a roll with this rabbit-hole...

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This looks intriguing!

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This is a neat and cozy podcast where the co-hosts interview archivists from a variety of backgrounds.

[wurenjieting]

She speaks of the "nature" of archives as a fixed and immutable reality from which true archival theory derives. The nature of archives, however, is a human postulate, based on human assumptions and logically derived from those assumptions. These postulates, however, may vary between individuals and societies and connot be considered an observed fact or a testable hypothesis.

—— Frank Boles & Mark A. Greene, "Et tu Schellenber? Thoughts on the Dagger of American Appraisal Theory"

[reasonsforhope]

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.

--

I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

[mydirtyvalentine]

pretty normal podcast listening experience i think,

[jstor]

In a very Shelleyan twist of fate, a manuscript has been brought back to life–not in a lab, but in a library. 🕯️

At Drew University, librarians and students used JSTOR Digital Stewardship Services to catalog and share the unfinished Mary Shelley biography and research notes of Dr. Betty T. Bennett.

“To me, it was kind of giving her work a second life, which is very Frankenstein. Very Shelley.” – Candace Reilly, manager of Special Collections

Alongside Bennett’s archive, a selection of the Byron Society's realia was also made digital. These items include portraits, busts, Staffordshire pottery, and more, all connected to Lord Byron’s myth and memory. The material came in many forms, and Drew’s Special Collections team used JSTOR’s structured tools to catalog it all.

Now, students are getting hands-on experience in digital humanities through two new courses at Drew. One curates articles on social change from The Drew Acorn (the campus newspaper), and the other rescues deteriorating 19th-century pamphlets.

It’s preservation, it’s participation, and it’s a bit poetic, too. Full case study below!

[goblossum]

passed my archival studies exam!

The professor is officially my thesis supervisor, yippeeeee

[amnhnyc]

Get a leg up on the weekend with these colossal limbs! Snapped circa 1899, this archival photo from the Museum’s digital collections depicts a Museum preparator standing beside the fossilized limbs of dinosaurs discovered in Wyoming. The larger bones belong to sauropods, while the smaller bones belong to a theropod—likely Allosaurus.

Photo: Image no. 46523 / © AMNH Library

[agenderhyde]

i love finding things that are misfiled and having no idea where they belong!

[archivyrep]

Arrogant curators, a pine-cone shaped vault, and a magical scroll in "Tangled" [Part 2]

Continued from part 1

Inside of the Spire shown in "Keeper of the Spire"

As for the Spire, it is an ancient museum atop a winding mountain. It contains many artifacts and is a "massive pine-cone-shaped structure covered with light blue and medium blue rocks", with a spiraling staircase inside, with various artifacts decorating the walls. Calliope, for her part, is not a professional with "expertise in the management of records of enduring value", the first definition of an archivist in the aforementioned dictionary. But, she is "an individual responsible for records of enduring value", i.e. the artifacts in the Spire.

Reprinted from my Wading Through the Cultural Stacks WordPress blog. Originally published on May 17, 2023.

Furthermore, she is not a records manager, records analyst, or records officer. She also is not what the aforementioned dictionary defines as a librarian: "an individual responsible for acquiring, providing access to, and managing collections of published materials." On the other hand, she fulfills common characteristics of an archivist. The recent A*Census II stated that 66% of those surveyed are working as archivists or memory workers, and noted that commonly those surveyed work with textual archival records such as documents, manuscripts, photographs, and objects. [1] The survey further said that almost half of White people felt included in the profession, compared to 25% of BIPOC (Black, indigenous, (and) people of color). In terms of Calliope, she is in line with 71% of archivists who are women and 84% who are White. She likely is straight or heterosexual as well, just like 69% of archivists who identified as such in the survey.

A few fan fiction writers have mentioned Calliope. In various chapters of LokoteiBex's "Sunshine", she is described as knowledgeable, charming, and noted as a street musician, and cursed by Gothel so she doesn't sense Rapunzel. In Chapter 5: "The Keeper of the Spire", the fifth chapter of green_tea_and_honey's 14-chapter work, "Beyond the Corona Walls", she describes herself as the Keeper of the Spire, saying she was "entrusted wardship over the Spire’s artifacts", with a sworn duty to "prevent these items from falling into the wrong hands...[or] protect the outside world from them". She also adds:

"The Spire’s Vault holds some of the rarest, most abstruse artifacts from all over the world...Oh no, silly! It’s at the top of the mountain in a vault called the Spire...Kirlock, Protector of the Spire! It is I, Calliope! The, uh, Apprentice of the Keeper of the Spire!” [3]

In others, it is noted that Calliope has an annoying voice, is caught by Raps after almost being hurt, gives a message to Raps about Cass trying to seize a magical artifact. She remains cocky, is shown as a guise for Cass to get the key she needs, has magical powers, and helps translate a scroll. Then there are those when she is noted as egocentric or good at examining artifacts. [2]

Examining fanfiction depictions of archivists or characters who act like archivists is important. As Sam Cross put it in August 2019, websites like AO3 (where these works were published) are "becoming the norm and the archival community needs to look to them as part of the future of our profession", and argues that fan-created community archives, like AO3, are "worthy of out attention and investment." Unfortunately, apart from the aforementioned chapter by green_tea_and_honey, she doesn't get as much character depth as she should. Most writers seem to pass her off as annoying, precocious, and arrogant. While that falls in line with the show's canon, it doesn't tell as much about her as a person, her motivations, or anything like that. Instead, her role is more like the video game, Mass Effect 3, when characters use an ID to access the archives and fight within the archives itself.

Calliope's character is annoying, unlikable, and aligned with stereotypes, but this ends up being a cover in order to impress others. Her real personality is different, at least from what I have gathered. Her voice actor, Natalie Palamides, has sometimes had bit roles, apart from voicing an exaggerated masculine character named Nate in a 2020 TV special, Nate – A One Man Show. She is also a comedian and a writer, but I'm not sure that came through with her character. It doesn't seem that she posted about it on her official Twitter account, her official website, or her Instagram. Despite that, and the fact that fans of Tangled may not like her character (personally, I'm not totally sure about her), she still is worth writing about and examining, especially when it comes to her connection to archival concepts. After all, the two episodes she appears in are written by the same people. [3]

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

© 2022 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

[linnytheseagull]

Here's how to spot a Mad Scientist:

Is very smart in a specific field

Probably hasn't slept in the past 4 days

Depressed

Slowly decends into madness/spirals/gets obsessed over something to the point where they destroy their lives over it

Here are other minor signs you might want to look out for (doesn't apply to all Mad Scientist):

Very pathetic. A loser, if you will

Is gay

Wears glasses

Has a best friend who is extremely friendly and also a poet

Graying hair despite their relatively youthful appearance

Can be a little bit silly (as a treat)

Note that not all Mad Scientists are actual scientists. The Mad Scientist can be disguised as something else and may try to trick you; do not be fooled. Look for these traits to identify a real wild Mad Scientist.

Now you are ready to go out into the wild and find your very own Mad Scientists to hyperfixate on for the next month! Hope this helped❤️