Stephanie Schlitz's Blog

among the many things i’m behind on is responding to a comment made in response to this great little MBDA summary published on EdLab. Here’s the comment; below it (apologies for the delay and hoping to get an Africa pardon) my response:

While the collection was at risk of physical deterioration, there seems to be no mention of whether there were additional preservation efforts beyond digitization.

I was also kind of surprised that they really didn’t discuss the imaging process at all, especially given that they were using student employees and fragile documents. I feel like they almost left out half of the process in their discussion.

Thanks for taking time to read about MBDA and to comment on the related Code4Lib project sketch! While the Code4Lib piece was intentionally written as a brief overview of our work in-progress, I appreciate your comment about document preservation. For me at least, underlying it are two essential aspects of Digital Humanities project development that demand further discussion: collaboration & the importance of recognizing digital representations as just that, representations.

While Garrick (the programmer) and I have been responsible for designing and developing MBDA’s technical infrastructure, we have worked closely with the Berry College Archivist and Library Director in considering issues of long-term preservation and access. And it’s especially interesting and important to me (a linguist who works primarily with historical manuscripts) to engage in dialogue and research about preservation with others whose expertise complements and extends my own.

MBDA has benefited from the expertise of a programmer, a historian, an archivist, a museum director and a museum curator, another linguist, and a librarian (and we’ve spent time dialoguing and working directly with the IT and networking staff from both Bloomsburg University and Berry College, since the project entails issues like hosting, data storage, and data migration). The diversity of perspectives and aims represented in our inter- and extra- disciplinary conversations and research is rich, but, more importantly, inflected in project-level decision making.

The Martha Berry Digital Archive (MBDA) is a digital archive, but it was borne of an urgent need to preserve the Martha Berry Collection (the material original), for which no other backup exists. While discussion of MBDA necessarily centers on our digital methodology (where we have something new to offer), in practice, our work – because it involves interaction with and representation of a material collection – also encompasses aspects of primary source preservation (where I’m not so sure we really have anything new to offer).

Thankfully, the Martha Berry Collection adheres to existing preservation standards for archival materials (e.g. acid free storage boxes, lignin free flat boxes, file folders) and is carefully maintained by experienced archive and museum staff. Unfortunately, even within the folders maintained within the many file boxes which comprise the collection, all of which are stored in a temperature-controlled archive environment, documents continue to deteriorate.

Some of this degeneration results from the care and condition of the documents (many of which exist on tissuepaper-thin leaves) prior to their careful preservation by the archivists at the Berry College Archives; many were simply stacked in boxes; some were housed in attics or basements (in the heat and humidity and bugginess of Georgia); and some even needed to be retrieved from the public after having been (yikes!) mistakenly discarded. To some documents had been fastened metal or plastic paper clips, resulting in lacunae and tears. And each time an original document is accessed and handled, it is placed at risk of further decline.

During the MBDA imaging process, not only have we had an opportunity to create high quality .tiff scans to serve as a collection backup (in addition to and separate from the digital archive), we’ve had an opportunity to remove clips from documents and to ensure that papers are laid flat within folders. But, because the Martha Berry Collection already complies with international preservation standards, there is little if anything further (within reason) beyond digitization (which reduces the frequency of document handling and thus reduces decline accelerated by handling) that we can do to extend the life of the physical collection.

As to the critical importance of distinguishing between a material (in this instance documentary) artefact and a digital representation of that artefact (a topic I’ve written a bit about here), MBDA is designed to provide a one-to-one correspondence between documents in the digital archive and their material exemplars precisely because we recognize that digitization achieves but a copy of, i.e. a version of (albeit an exceptionally good one) the original. And we want to ensure that even while leveraging a resource such as MBDA to access a document, we can return to the physical object itself any time doing so proves crucial to literary, linguistic, historical, cultural, or any other type of study. In other words, we haven’t fallen prey to the mimetic fallacy ;)

Even still, if those using the collection can access the digital archive in place of the original documents (and in doing so explore connections between documents, search scores of documents quickly and efficiently in ways never achievable via the material collection) and if MBDA can increase and enhance access to the collection [1] while minimizing the kinds of physical handling which result in deterioration, we maintain that we are supporting preservation.

Though the Code4Lib piece isn’t so much written to address the topic of imaging, I’d be glad to answer questions or to share more about our imaging process. We dedicated significant time to researching, discussing and selecting a scanner, identifying the acceptable image type (.tiff) for document backup and preservation (a preservation method we adopted in addition to and separate from the digital archive) and also derivative type (.jpeg) for web-based digital archive use. Designing the imaging workflow was demanding since it entailed modeling transfer of image files from Berry (where the documents are held) to Bloomsburg (where the digital archive is being developed), as well as composing the step-by-step imaging guide for students, testing the guide with students, and training students. but I think we mentioned all those general comments already, so I’ll add –

We also seriously considered concerns related to the unintentional, unwitting introduction of new artefacts during the imaging process (e.g. hair, shadows, creases) and this too is a topic of worth discussing further.

For what it’s worth (I’m not sure whether or not this point is implied in your comment, but I find it worth noting): I think the digital editing community would benefit from much more discussion of imaging. It’s foundational stuff, and if we get it wrong or even just a little off, we may just be building a house of cards…

[1] MBDA design and implementation is consistent with international preservation and metadata standards as well as those maintained by the Digital Library of Georgia (DLG), as collaborative project planning early on identified DLG inclusion as a deliverable.

I spent most of May and June in West Africa with an extraordinary group of study abroad students on a five week journey through Cameroon and Ethiopia led by my friend, colleague, and Cameroon native S. Ekema Agbaw. Leaving my family, my home, and a host of research and teaching obligations for five weeks was painful. Returning exposed me to unanticipated grief (departing from a landscape I love, leaving behind children who remain in orphanages where conditions are far worse than questionable, setting aside an inchoate study which requires additional field research…).

It’s taken weeks to recover from the gastrointestinal challenge of Cameroon, and I’m still behind on reading, writing, teaching, administrative stuff (not to mention mundane house chores). Some of the more intensely emotional facets of the journey – witnessing extreme poverty, illness, lack of hygiene, absence of running water, hunger, violence, discrimination – will long remain with me, as will our encounter with the Baka (‘pygmy’) tribe living in the forest along the Lobe River.

(in progress…. and really difficult to finish, but more to come as I find time to sift through and assimilate my photos and journal entries)

Here’s what was on my mind and here’s the whole, happy DH smorgasbord!

loving the most recent blog posts written by undergrads working for the Martha Berry Digital Archive Project: Hot Toast and Augustus O. Bacon, two superb reads which illustrate the rich, fun, and important work of digital editors and the impressive philological and literary finesse of our students.

examination of stigmatized language varieties is complex stuff, especially in the context of dominant language ideologies, minority oppression, and the well justified – if sometimes too theoretical – debate about standard English. it’s not my practice to introduce highly controversial topics here, in a class, or in my research without representing more than one perspective. and i don’t find contrastive analysis and codeswitching, on the one hand, and interrogation of deeply entrenched dominant language ideologies, on the other hand, to be mutually exclusive topics. in my field, they’re intimately linked, and this means cross-examination of writings by rebecca wheeler with writings by sonja lanehart, for example, is not only necessary but essential to study of the past, present, and future of language ‘standards’, language variation, and institutionalized linguistic prejudice, perhaps most especially when these are examined in the context of educator responsibilities.

lanehart, after all, writing in 2002, summons Sledd (1969) to aid in her dismantling of the ideologies of opportunity, progress, and emancipation and to remind readers that even

“compassionate, liberal educators, knowing the ways of society, will change the color of a student’s vowels because they cannot change the color of their students’ skins” (p. 325).”

even now, a decade later (…over four decades later) — haunting words.

but perhaps cross-examination conveys the wrong intention, because i would argue that the two are allied. questioning what’s standard and why is commensurate with developing methods to address linguistic prejudice in the classroom. and the goal of each? a shared one: systemic change.

as i think ahead toward spending a month in post-colonial Cameroon or toward my History of English mid-term which will ask students to examine parallels between Jamaican Creole and AAVE in the context of debate about translation of the bible into the former, it’s impossible to escape how global and pressing these issues are.

this is the fastest and easiest (and briefest) speaker intro i’ve ever drafted. wheeler’s work and its importance make it easy, and brevity is essential (after all, the heavy lifting is in her talk).

It’s my honor and privilege to welcome Prof Rebecca Wheeler to Bloomsburg University and to introduce you to her this evening. Prof. Wheeler’s work as an educator, her numerous – canonical – books and articles, and her longstanding commitment to linguistically diverse learners underpin the teaching of standard English in many, many classrooms across the nation. But –  I would argue – there is considerably more work to do, and that’s why I’ve invited her to speak with us this evening —

Dr. Wheeler joins us tonight following a talk at Harvard, where she participated in the Annual Alumni of Color Conference dedicated this year to “Disrupting the Discourse” and to “Discussing the Undiscussable” – In every way, her talk this evening is designed precisely to ‘disrupt’ the discourse and to engage us in dialogue about the ‘undiscussable’. Why? So that educators at ALL levels:

• Recognize our responsibility to understand the facts about language variation
• Recognize our responsibilities to dialectally diverse learners

and so that we

• Recognize who and what we sacrifice when we fail to do these things

Please join me in welcoming Prof. Wheeler.

Monday, March 5 @ 7 pm – “Power, Prestige, Prejudice: Dialect as Elephant in the School Room”

have the pleasure today of working with nearly 40 future teachers (and some amazing experienced teachers and colleagues) as part of a workshop for English/Language Arts Education majors at Bloomsburg University. one-word summary of session one with freshmen and sophomore (and junior and senior) preservice teachers: inspiring.

listening to a small group of future educators describe their passion for teaching and learning, their commitment to shaping the lives of their future students through exposure to language and literature, and the amazing stories which explain how they chose the path to teaching – a very good morning!

possibly the most marked part of any classroom based discussion on language variation, perhaps especially ethnically-based dialectal variation, is the pronounced use of the pronoun forms they  and them (wish i could do a frequency count in class and measure the percentage of they/them). but that’s okay. i can see how it’s difficult not to focus on difference, difficult not to assume that “we’re not the ones who are speaking a different variety: they are.” refining our understanding of stigmatized dialects takes study, maybe even practice, and very often the first discussions are the most challenging, entailing radical re-evaluation of perspective. but even with difference as a point of departure, okay,  there are enough common threads eventually to weave a richly textured, more unified understanding. but when i hear future teachers disparaging vernacular/stigmatized varieties after a linguistics class themed around dialectal diversity: a difficult, disappointing day.