(Author's note: Alex, can you post some of the links to the original announcements re: this collection and its funding donation? See the comments to my previous post on this subject for the reason why).
User populations and policing of content are always of paramount importance to an archive, because if only for the most simplistic of purposes, your users and your content are why you exist, and why you will continue to exist. If you don't support your user's needs or appropriately manage your content, your archive will cease to function, and soon cease to exist. But getting to the point where we can focus on user populations and the policing of user-updated content skips over a few key steps in the process of digitizing any cultural artifact, whether for preservation or access (or ideally both!).
I'm curious if the questions that guide the first analysis of the Grateful Dead funding and digitization project should be focused more on ... well, the digitization!
The problem with this kind of simplified approach is that it is at risk of cutting out the sexy social component, which is pretty much the buzz word (or phrase?) in the profession right now. But I wonder, with approximately 1.25 million dollars available and backing a name like the Grateful Dead, to what extent should this particular user group have an increased social component, particularly when discussed within the context of the rest of UCSC’s holdings? For example, I was curious what kind of audio preservation resources are available at UCSC already; operating under the assumption that the facilities must in some way exist for this material to be properly and best handled at this specific institution (else, why wouldn’t this material have gone to Stanford?) I did a basic Google search using the words “audio”, “preservation” and “UCSC.” Not only is there no facility that comes up within the first three pages of Google’s produced results (which is farther than your normal Google search-user will look), but the first link that shows up was this article: "UCSC receives gift of rare audio interviews and photos of late '60s jazz and rock icons".
Considering that both collections are liable to house un-published information on a variety of overlapping themes, issues, concepts, people and events (to name a few!), my immediate reaction to this is: Why shouldn’t some of this funding include bolstering access for both collections? Wouldn’t this constitute a social component? When we look at the “social component” and we skip right to our users as a primary source of key information, I argue that we are not only taking the professional responsibilities out of our own hands, but we are de-valuing those professional responsibilities we have on a broadly reaching scale.
I say “kudos!” to UCSC for getting an un-thinkable amount of funding to handle one collection; but you now want me to agree that a critical part of this funding must be dedicated to an un-controlled, un-known, un-attached “social component” that will in no way directly link to any of the rest of the institution’s mandated responsibilities? Good luck with that.
My searches so far have yielded very little information on the actual facilities available for audio preservation of original recordings into digital format. I am aware the UCSB has some formidable audio preservation resources, but I am also aware that these resources are largely dedicated to wax cylinders and vinyl discs, and I doubt that many of the Grateful Dead recordings were ever done on wax; though a large portion was likely recorded to vinyl. If you're outside the business, then you'd assume that the two UC campuses would work together on this - lending the resources of one lab to the collection resources of another archive. You would assume wrongly, for two important reasons: 1) Academic environments in the public sphere are always under-funded and over-worked - if the money isn't going to UCSB, then UCSB isn't about to take on the risk of wear and tear on their machines for records that they will not be owning; 2) archival material does not travel off-site! EVER!
This means that the entire collection will arrive to UCSC and sit there, awaiting the proper machines to not only digitize, but to playback the original records. The field of audio recordings is arguably more complex than that of moving images (ok, I mostly just make this statement to piss off the film buffs out there that are paying attention. Kudos, you're paying attention. Now accept that audio records are just as if not more unique than your own precious film holdings.). Take for example the Harvard Audio Preservation Studio. Their listing of equipment is nice to see, but its far from extensive. The University of Toronto's Media Archive boasts a similar listing of equipment on their site; again it is far from complete. Part of the budget for each of these institutions must include continual efforts to purchase playback machines which will properly play audio recordings (failure to use proper playback equipment of any audio-visual record will result in the destruction of the content and/or physical record, which is counter-productive in the most primitive of situations).
Throughout all of this, the point I’m trying to make is: how do we look at this “social component” realistically? Do we apply the concerns for a social component only to one collection? Now that the collection is officially an acquisition, I want to know that its existence will be in harmony with the rest of the institution’s holdings, instead of its existence being paramount to all of the holdings (and the resources dedicated to them) that came before it. To be sure, if it weren’t for the institution’s pre-existing collections and their collection mandate, then this new acquisition for UCSC would have had no archival social component that would have brought it under their management in the first place.
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