The University of Virginia library staff is archiving materials related to the recent events that forced Teresa A. Sullivan to resign as president of the institution. This is the first time the libraries have tried to preserve materials from a large-scale, continuing event, said Bradley Daigle, director of digital-curation services. The staff did not begin collecting materials on the subject until a rally on June 18. As of June 22, the team has archived nearly 20,000 tweets, 61 blog posts, over 200 media posts, and about 100 physical objects, such as signs from protests. About a dozen full-time staff members are working on the project, Mr. Daigle said. The archivists are focusing on preserving third-party materials, such as newspaper articles, because internal communication records already belong to the university, covered under existing record-management policies…Full story at http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/author/achen
via uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com
This is the future of archivists everywhere. And its going to just get worse. Can you imagine, for example, trying to archive the Arab Spring?
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