Resending to the list.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Samuel Klein <meta.sj@...>
Date: Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 10:12 PM
Subject: Re: [archivists] blog launch: 'digital stewardship now'
To: David R Curry <david.r.curry@...>
Cc: archivists@yahoogroups.com


David,

It sounds as though you are saying stewardship of "all human output
for all time" not limited to the examples you list below.  I feel the
discussion would be more fruitful with clearly restricted scope.

We have thousands of years of library-building and book writing.  Yet
without a great deal more experience in how to observe, capture, name
and organize, isolate and merge, correlate, contextualize, preserve
and share [human output], we will not be able to capture an omniscient
view of every part the world at every moment in time.

My question about timescale was asking for a scale... shall we join
with the Long Library discussions and think in terms of a 10,000 year
repository?  Is that too short-sighted?  Is one generation enough time
for now?

As for a normative role - does this happen today?
Should major repositories be the founders of billion-person recording
and archiving efforts, or is it best for large-scale knowledge capture
to be handled primarily by technology mavens, companies, and sites
founded on social networking?  Perhaps repositories of the future
should be physical social networking sites as well.  [how else to
breed the race of super-archivists needed for your omniscient
repository?]

If stewards give only limited advice and exercise caution and sensible
guidelines, who are the guides or communities developing those
guidelines?

SJ



On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 1:15 PM, David R Curry
<david.r.curry@...> wrote:
> SJ:
> Responding to your email below:
> Yes, culture...and more as implied in the Charter language.
> So yes: knowledge, tools, installation art, performance, governance et al.
> And yes, stewardship across timescale...and yes, there is implied a
> normative and advisory role...
>
> From the practice index page at
> http://www.drcurryassociates.net/digitalstewardship
> "We see digital stewardship as assuring that cultural heritage (in
> all in forms) and knowledge assets are effectively preserved and accessible
> in original contexts, while managing those assets toward appropriate,
> sustainable digital environments.
>
> "We believe responsible digital stewardship also involves creatively
> leveraging those assets to help achieve institutional vision, to
> enhance learning, enable scholarly investigation and empower artistic
> expression. We also believe that creative leverage can stimulate
> higher levels of contribution at societal and civilizational levels."
>
> Obviously, continuing refinement indicated...
>
> Thanks for your response...
>
> David Curry
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Samuel Klein [mailto:meta.sj@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 12:57 PM
> To: David R. Curry
> Cc: archivists@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [archivists] blog launch: 'digital stewardship now'
>
> Stewardship of what?
> culture?  [implying capturing and honoring things currently nowhere
> preserved] knowledge?  [implying capturing and distilling ideas and
> knowledge from noise] art?  tools?
> all human output?
> superimposed on some of these:
>  views of the past?  projections of the future?
>  a progression of news of the present, captured at each point in history?
>
> Stewardship over what timeframe? "now" is a helpful conceit, but only
> reflects a beginning, not a timescale for maturation or a timescale for
> winding up / moving on to the next.
>
> There is a strong normative and advisory role implied by Stewardship, beyond
> providing repository services and researching ways to capture/index/archive
> new types of things.
>
> SJ
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 9:54 PM, David R. Curry
> <david.r.curry@...> wrote:
>>
>> digital stewardship now <http://digitalstewardshipnow.wordpress.com>
>> will regularly post about milestones, issues, challenges and solutions
>> emerging across the global digital stewardship landscape. We will
>> endeavor to frame activity across disciplines and geographies, and
>> provide visualizations of this rapidly evolving field to improve
>> coherence and understanding.
>>
>> We take as our perspective the following language:
>>
>> UNESCO Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage Article 9 –
>> Preserving cultural heritage
>> - The digital heritage is inherently unlimited by time, geography,
>> culture or format. It is culture specific, but potentially accessible
>> to every person in the world. Minorities may speak to majorities, the
>> individual to a global audience.
>> - The digital heritage of all regions, countries and communities
>> should be preserved and made accessible, so as to assure over time
>> representation of all peoples, nations, cultures and languages.
>>
>> We do not suggest this is (or can be) exhaustive in any sense, but
>> hope it makes an increasingly useful contribution to awareness and
>> thinking, and, ideally, helps inform action.
>>
>> Your comments are very welcome. If you have topics, issues, milestones
>> or other ideas that warrant coverage, please let me know.
>>
>> David R. Curry
>>
>> Managing Principal
>>
>> davidrcurryAssociates
>>
>> david.r.curry@...
>>
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>
>>
>
>