On a cloudy Monday morning, art librarians from across North America gathered at SFMOMA to discuss stewardship practices of historically valuable arts material.
The catch? This valuable material is not published in heavy tomes or nestled within special collections, but instead accessed via the web.
The National Forum on Advancing Art Libraries and Curated Web Archives took place on February 11-12 with the purpose of encouraging collaboration among art librarians that are ready to take action as more of their collections migrate online. The event was hosted by the New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC) and the Internet Archive’s Archive-It group, and generously funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
I had the opportunity to represent Penn Libraries during the panel discussion of curating web archives at various scales. I presented alongside Ivy Plus Libraries’ Samantha Abrams and the Clark Art Institute’s Andrea Puccio on the web archiving programs at our respective institutions.
During the panel, I answered questions pertaining to the Fisher Fine Arts Library web archive. Fisher’s program was the brainchild of our Assistant University Librarian for Humanities & Fine Arts Libraries, Hannah Bennett, who recognized the need for “acquiring” fugitive and ephemeral online material--a crucial step for 21st century collection building.
I'm so thankful to be at this convening of great Web Archiving thinkers and practitioners. Pictured: excellent discussion between @artlibrariannyc, @smbrms, Andrea Puccio, & @boriarchivista #webarchiving #artlibrarians pic.twitter.com/M26nVy4XHy
— J.E. Molly Seegers (@archivalgold) February 12, 2019
Our pilot program is focused on archiving the websites of small galleries and other independent, and therefore vulnerable, sites that tell the story of the rich arts and historic preservation scene in Philadelphia. However, we recognize the importance of eventually scaling our program to preserve more arts resources published online, such as the extended web version of zines in our library. As our collections exist beyond our stacks and move to the digital sphere, we need to maintain constant vigilance in order to adequately serve our present and future patrons.
One component that made Fisher’s web archiving program stand out from the others is that it has a pedagogical approach. Through the “Websites at Risk” series and by teaching guest lectures at Penn, I’m able to critically engage our students, staff, and faculty about the ephemerality of the web and what it means to have so much of our historical record on a rapidly changing digital medium prone to obsolescence and that is for the most part proprietary.
Our program is in its first year, and as with any nascent project, technological and ethical challenges arise. However, I was very honored to participate at the National Forum on Advancing Art Libraries and Curated Web Archives. It was very illuminating talking and sharing strategies with other art librarians tackling similar issues in the same space. Even though my work entails the digital, nothing beats meeting others with innovative ideas face to face.
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