AHA Session 89
Friday, January 5, 2024: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM
Franciscan B (Hilton Union Square, Ballroom)
Chair:
Michelle Kelley, American Archive of Public Broadcasting
Panel:
Vera Burrows, University of Texas at Austin
Michael Christel, Carnegie Mellon University and The HistoryMakers
Roger Macdonald, Internet Archive
Session Abstract
The past few years of the pandemic have produced challenges for researchers and scholars in accessing and utilizing traditional archival materials and resources. As a result of increased digitization of analog holdings, more and more material, especially audiovisual, is being made available online. This marks a transformative shift that enables archives to fulfill their public missions better: crossing geographical boundaries, using new channels for content distribution, and developing new technologies to allow for new access points to collections, especially in the social sciences and humanities. What are some of the ways in which archives can better serve researchers and teachers who use these audiovisual materials? How can archivists and scholars work together to break down barriers and silos? Which standards and practices do digital archives need to promote in order to make archive patrons’ routine tasks easier? And how can researchers aid archives and archivists in increasing scholarly and public awareness of archival resources and collections?
In this roundtable discussion, the panel and participants will explore these questions in addition to discussing how to improve public, non-specialist access to digital archives, how the panelists’ personal and professional experiences as archivists and scholars have informed their management and utilization of digital archival materials, identifying the challenges of curation and online presentation of digital media archives, using emerging methods and tools that can enhance digital scholarship in audiovisual collections, and how archives and academics both can foster an interest in public history by putting historical materials back in the hands of the public through online access.
This roundtable’s panel will include representatives from the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, The HistoryMakers, the Internet Archive, and a researcher working with archived broadcasts from Radio Venceremos. These panelists will speak on specific challenges and opportunities from their own professional experiences of working with both digital media and oral history archives.
