![Structure of the Course
● 10 Students (IN PERSON!)
● 5 classes (≈ 7 hours) [lost one day]
● Given a pre-existing template of a Wordpress site to work with
● Students volunteered to be in one of three groups: Metadata; Documentation;
Digitization; and free-floating group working on Wordpress design
● Students given free range to create standards and approaches to digital content
creation and management
● Students had to communicate their work/choices to Dr. Waters throughout](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/wagneropensourcebridgetalk-170621215752/85/Wagner-Open-Source-Bridge-2017-31-320.jpg)
Wagner Open Source Bridge 2017
- 1. Making MLIS Classrooms Open Source: Activism, Service Learning, and Building Digital Community Archives Travis L. Wagner and Elise Lewis; The University of South Carolina Twitter: @trlwagner
- 2. Objectives ● Reflect up how the ‘traditional’ MLIS classroom looks/operates ○ Consider challenge of skill-building for MLIS students ● Examine rhetorics of ‘best practices’ as to theories of digital archiving ● Focus on relationship between technology and job training for traditional archival work ○ Highlight reliance on antiquated for content management and anxieties of digital preservation ● Analyze the emergence of community archives ○ Consider the responses to community archives from traditional archives ● Rethink idea of ‘failure’ within these contexts ● Look towards the MLIS classroom as a place to learn through praxis (ie. Service Learning) ○ Focus on shifts in pedagogy from theory to actuality ● Discuss an ongoing project titled “Archiving SC Woman” as a digital community archive ○ Emphasize the classroom experience ● Identify the role open source technologies and practices play within this project and the project’s future
- 8. More like Father Knows Best Practices...
- 10. Best Practices are always not intersectional
- 21. Community Archives read as… ● Disorganized ● Lacking in provenance ● Working on a shoestring budgets ● Open to security threats ● Lacking in ‘up-to-date’ technology ● Staffed by non-information professionals ● Too niche to be useful ● Challenging to use for potential patrons/researchers ● FAKE ● Bound for failure
- 24. “Service-learning courses emphasize hands-on tasks that address real-world concerns as a venue for educational growth. The service experience provides a context for testing, observing, or trying out discipline-specific and theory-based theories, concepts, and skills. Through reciprocal learning and community engagement, service-learning helps prepare students to be full and responsible participants in both their profession and their communities.” (About Service Learning, 2016)
- 26. Test Limits of Theory Actually Practice Archiving Skills
- 28. Other Women Heard About this Collection ● Barbara Moxen, former Chair of Women on Boards and Commissions ● Becky Bailey, former President of American Association of University Women ● Julie Lumpkin, former Director of Women’s Health at DHEC ● Phyllis Miller Mayes, former Director of Human Resources for SC ● Ann Humphries, former author and public speaker ● Promised: Janice Trawick, former advisor to Governor Carroll Campbell
- 31. Structure of the Course ● 10 Students (IN PERSON!) ● 5 classes (≈ 7 hours) [lost one day] ● Given a pre-existing template of a Wordpress site to work with ● Students volunteered to be in one of three groups: Metadata; Documentation; Digitization; and free-floating group working on Wordpress design ● Students given free range to create standards and approaches to digital content creation and management ● Students had to communicate their work/choices to Dr. Waters throughout
- 32. Best Reality Practices What would be helpful to know planning a project ● Use personalities as a strength ● Communicate with all stakeholders ● Leaving behind best practices will hurt ● Bring in practitioners ● Flexibility is essential ● Benefits of practical experiences ● Facilitate reflection ● Know there will be conflicts ● Realize the pervasive nature of privilege and oppression
- 36. ● Literally: No, but also yes ● Figuratively: Absolutely ● Pushing students and community archives to think about content management and collection building digitally ● Rethinking archival standards to be more inclusive and accessible (via free blogging platforms; app-based digitization, documentation via shareable platforms, etc.) ● Makes the class project approach one that must be translatable beyond a single project ● Opens up lines of communication for what works for practitioners and non-practitioners alike ● Emphasis on scalability ● Welcomes failure as useful and generative But is this Open Source?
- 37. Practical and Ethical Issues Encountered by Students ● Benefits of an in-person course in a predominately distance-learning program ● Community archives ○ Working outside of traditional repositories ○ Doing the best you can with what you have ● Helped alleviate the feeling of partaking in “amatuer hour” ● Implications of existing standards on an openly feminist project
- 38. Conclusion ● Work in Progress ● The community collections are not currently intersectional ● Has been incorporated into two classroom settings: SLIS 777: Design and Management of Digital Image Collections; SLIS 450: Information Issues in Cultural Heritage Institutions ● Other ideal courses for the project: SLIS 735: Metadata; SLIS 766: Collection Development and Acquisition and SLIS 725: Digital Libraries ● Also potentially applicable for internship projects for both SLIS and WGST courses ● Will explore this service learning approach in an entirely online course this fall ● Model already being replicated with the Queer Cola Oral History and Digital Archive Project (QCOHDAP) ● At the very least the project reimagines the classroom in radical ways