Former Dean of the Jackson School of Geosciences Dr. Sharon Mosher announced in December the creation of a new endowment fund honoring longtime Geology Librarian Dennis Trombatore.
The Dennis Trombatore Excellence Fund for the Walter Geology Library was established with the support of alumnus Dr. Carlotta Chernoff (’92 BS, ’95 MA) in honor of Trombatore as additional funding for urgent needs at the discretion of the Jackson School of Geosciences (JSG) Dean with input from the librarian at the Walter Geology Library.
The endowment recognizes Trombatore’s
career at The University of Texas at Austin in building one of the great
geosciences collections in the nation, as well as his work supporting the
research, teaching and learning of those in pursuit of understanding of the
earth sciences at the university.
“He has carefully amassed invaluable
collections, developed state-of-the art services and built a sense of community
for the Jackson School family,” said Mosher. “Dennis Trombatore’s tireless
efforts have touched the lives of every student, research scientist, faculty,
and staff member who has had the pleasure of knowing him. The Jackson School
wouldn’t be what it is without Dennis’s commendable efforts, for which I am
profoundly thankful.”
Trombatore received his B.A. (’75) and MLS (’77) from Louisiana State University, and joined the University of Texas Libraries in 1985 after working in librarian positions at Loyola University and The University of Georgia at Athens. He has served as head librarian at the Walter Geology Library for over three decades, and has participated on numerous committees and at conferences in a variety of capacities. Trombatore has also been recognized for his ongoing contributions to the university, including with the Distinguished Service Award from the Department of Geological Sciences (1997), the University of Texas Staff Excellence Award (2001), the Jackson School of Geosciences Staff Excellence Award (2006), the William B. Heroy Award for Distinguished Service to the American Geosciences Institute (AGI, 2012) and the Jackson School of Geosciences Joseph C. Walter Jr. Excellence Award (2018). He is a member of GSA and the Geoscience Information Society, and is past president of the Austin Geological Society.
On a trajectory for greatness from a young age. A proud Dennis Trombatore with his rock collection, circa 1966.
“Illuminating Explorations” – This series of digital exhibits is designed to promote and celebrate UT Libraries collections in small-scale form. The exhibits will highlight unique materials to elevate awareness of a broad range of content. “Illuminating Explorations” will be created and released over time, with the intent of encouraging use of featured and related items, both digital and analog, in support of new inquiries, discoveries, enjoyment and further exploration.
I’m proud to wrap up the UT Libraries triptych of zine exhibits with Weird and Wonderful Little Books: An Abbreviated History of Chapbooks Published in Austin. My colleagues Daniel Arbino and Sydney Kilgore released their exhibits earlier this year, featuring selections from the zine collections from the Fine Arts Library and the Benson Latin American Collection. Zines have a reputation for being edgy and subversive and are associated with punk and anarchist politics. That reputation at first blush doesn’t seem to align with poetry, but poetry chapbooks and zines have an intertwined history. (See our blog post “Have You Zine It?” for further discussion of these intersections between chapbooks and zines.)
Chapbooks have a curious history. Some scholars argue that the term is a combination of “cheap books” and “chapmen.” (Chapmen were traveling salesmen who wandered England and Scotland with thin, paper-bound books throughout the early Modern era, circa 1500-1800.)[1] The current iteration of the American poetry chapbook is a distinctly 20th century phenomenon, linked to the technological advances of photocopying, desktop publication, and the internet. The UT Poetry Center in the Perry-Castañeda Library includes local poetry chapbooks from the last 40 years. My new online exhibit presents features this collection, with chapbooks from different small presses operating in Austin.
Cover of the poetry chapbook Night Diner: A Report to Edward Hopper by Albert Huffstickler. Cover art by Rob Lewis.
These little books play a profound role in poetry communities because they allow authors to share their work with their readers and fellow writers cheaply and easily. Writers can bypass the elitism and bureaucracy of boutique presses and mainstream publishing companies by self-publishing chapbooks or working with small local presses. These books, then, come with small price tags. Writers often only recoup their production costs, and some give their chapbooks away for free.[2]
This version
of a literary gift economy has been alive in Austin since the 1970s. Many
outsiders might assume that Austin’s art and culture begins and ends with live
music, but Central Texas has a vibrant literary culture, built by dedicated
writers and small press editors. This exhibit features chapbooks from the late
70s and early 80s that showcase Austin’s counter-culture and feminist voices,
while contemporary examples represent the diversity of writers in this growing
city, especially those from marginalized backgrounds.
By
highlighting the presses, their editors, and, of course, the writers, I hope to
bring to life and document Austin’s literary community. Emmalea Russo and
Michael Newton, poets and small press editors, argue that chapbooks create “a
space for makers to come together and look at each other’s work. So much of the
value of poetry is the community that comes out of it—both in terms of
relationships and as a way to discover new ideas. It means everything.” I hope
that you will find these selections by Austin writers represent a community
where poetry does, indeed, mean everything.[3]
Cover of the poetry chapbook The Queen’s Glory and the Pussy’s Box by Ebony Stewart. Cover art by RaShae L.A. Bell.
[1] Woodcock,
Diana Gwen. “The Poetry Chapbook: Blessing or Curse?” International Journal of the Book 8, no. 3 (2011): 27.
[3] “Emmalea
Russo and Michael Newton on Ugly Duckling Presse.” Poetry Society of America, n.d.
https://poetrysociety.org/features/q-a-chapbook-publishers/emmalea-russo-and-michael-newton-on-ugly-duckling-presse.
Vea abajo para versión en español / Veja em baixo para versão em português
In honor of World Digital Preservation Day, members of the University of Texas Libraries’ Digital Preservation team have written a series of blog posts to highlight preservation activities at UT Austin, and to explain why the stakes are so high in our ever-changing digital and technological landscape. This post is part two in a series of five.Read part one.
By KATIE PIERCE MEYER, PhD, Head of Architectural Collections, Alexander Architectural Archives | @kpiercemeyer @UT_APL
Architectural archives are confronting
challenges associated with collecting born-digital records, as computer-aided
design and building information modeling has become standard in architecture,
design, planning, and historic preservation. The resulting digital design
records complicate long-term preservation in archival repositories, as many of
these are created using a variety of (often proprietary) software programs.
A sample CD from the Volz & Associates, Inc. collection. Born-digital archiving requires preservation two ways: retention of the original media and capture of the data for long-term storage.
Over the past few years, the Alexander Architectural Archives took its first steps toward processing born-digital media from a collection donated by a historic preservation architecture firm. The Alexander Archives has approached this effort as a learning opportunity – for students and staff – to develop digital preservation knowledge. Graduate research assistants have learned about digital archives and preservation at the UT School of Information and apply their new skills, working with staff at the Alexander Architectural Archives and UT Libraries’ Digital Stewardship unit to develop preservation plans, recover data from legacy media, create preservation images to be vaulted to tape, and draft public access workflows.
Abbie Norris, digital archives Graduate Research Assistant at the Alexander Architectural Archives, processes 813 floppy disks, CDs, zip disks, and flash drives, imaging the disks, capturing metadata like disk size and file types, and recording everything for documentation in the finding aid.
Read more about these efforts and the learning process from the perspective of one of the GRAs at the Alexander Architectural Archives.
Archivos de Arquitectura Alexander
Traducido por Jennifer Isasi
Para el Día Mundial de la Preservación Digital, los miembros del equipo de Preservación Digital de las Bibliotecas de la Universidad de Texas han escrito una serie de entradas de blog que hacen destacar las actividades de preservación en la universidad, y para enfatizar la importancia de la preservación en un presente de cambio tecnológico constante. Este texto es el segundo en una serie de cinco.Lea el primer texto.
Los nuevos
registros digitales están representan un desafío para su recopilación por parte
de los archivos de arquitectura al haberse convertido el diseño y modelado de
construcción por computadora en el estándar en arquitectura, diseño,
planificación y preservación histórica. Los registros de diseño digital
complican la preservación a largo plazo en los repositorios del archivo puesto
que son creados con diferentes programas informáticos, muchas veces patentado.
Disquetes 3.5” de la colección Volz & Associates, Inc.
En los últimos años, los Archivos de Arquitectura Alexander (Alexander Architectural Archives) dieron sus primeros pasos hacia el procesamiento de medios de origen digital de una colección donada por una firma de arquitectura de conservación del patrimonio histórico. Los Archivos Alexander han abordado este esfuerzo como una oportunidad de aprendizaje para el desarrollo de conocimiento de preservación digital, tanto para estudiantes como para su personal. Los asistentes de investigación graduados que han aprendido sobre archivos digitales y preservación en la Escuela de Información de UT aplican sus nuevas habilidades trabajando con el personal de la unidad de Administración Digital de Archivos de Arquitectura Alexander y las Bibliotecas de UT para desarrollar planes de preservación, recuperar datos de medios analógicos y crear imágenes de preservación para ser guardadas en cinta.
Lea más (en inglés) sobre estos esfuerzos y el proceso de aprendizaje desde la perspectiva de uno de los estudiantes graduados de los Archivos de Arquitectura Alexander.
Arquivos Arquitectônicos Alexander
Traduzido por Tereza Braga
Para o Dia Mundial da Preservação Digital, os membros do equipe de Preservação Digital das Bibliotecas da Universidade de Texas escreveram uma serie de entradas de blog que enfatizam as atividades de preservação na nossa universidad, para explicar a importancia da preservação no contexto de um presente de tecnología em fluxo constante. Este texto é o primeiro numa série de cinco.Ler o primer texto.
A área de
arquivística arquitetônica vem enfrentando diversos desafios ao congregar
registros criados em mídia digital (“born-digital records”) nesta era em que o
design por computador e a modelagem de dados para construção já se tornaram
padrões nos setores de arquitetura, projeto, planejamento e preservação
histórica. Os registros digitais resultantes desses processos complicam a
preservação a longo prazo em repositórios arquivísticos, pois muitos desses
registros são criados por programas de software diferenciados que
frequentemente são proprietários.
Battle Hall é o sede da Escola de Arquitectura e dos Arquivos Alexander. Foi desenhado por Cass Gilbert no estilo Beaux Arts.
Há alguns
anos, o Alexander Architectural Archives tomou os primeiros passos para o
processamento de mídias criadas digitalmente, utilizando uma coleção doada por
uma firma de arquitetura de preservação histórica. A abordagem escolhida foi
encarar esse trabalho como uma oportunidade valiosa, oferecida não só a alunos
mas também a equipes profissionais, de desenvolver conhecimentos sobre
preservação digital. Foi criada uma equipe de GRAs (assistentes de pesquisa de
pós-graduação), que aprenderam tudo sobre arquivística e preservação digital na
Escola de Informação da UT e agora aplicam suas novas competências trabalhando
com os profissionais do Alexander Architectural Archives e da unidade de Gestão
Digital da UT Libraries para criar planos de preservação, recuperar dados
contidos em mídias antigas, criar imagens de preservação para depósito
eletrônico em fita, e elaborar fluxogramas para o acesso pelo público.
Aprenda mais (em inglês) sobre esse trabalho e
veja como foi o processo de aprendizado da equipe, ouvindo a perspectiva de um
dos GRAs atuando no Alexander Architectural Archives.
“Illuminating
Explorations” – This series of digital
exhibits is designed to promote and celebrate UT Libraries collections in
small-scale form. The exhibits will highlight unique materials to elevate
awareness of a broad range of content. “Illuminating Explorations” will be
created and released over time, with the intent of encouraging use of featured
and related items, both digital and analog, in support of new inquiries,
discoveries, enjoyment and further exploration.
Zines, those do-it-yourself publications that
have found renewed popularity in the last decade, provide a medium for
different groups to cultivate their own forms of expression. And this
expression can vary depending on the zine creator. Broadly speaking, recurring
themes tend to interrogate identity (gender, sexuality, race), place (home,
gentrification, nation), and time (childhood, adolescence, adulthood). For
their part, audiences continue to flock to this form of cultural production
because zines are affordable, rare, and allow unfettered access to the
creator’s perspectives. Such access is significant as many zinesters come from
historically marginalized groups that publishing companies have traditionally
overlooked. Their perspectives tend to subvert or resist mainstream American
ideas.
A new exhibit, “You Are What You (Do Not) Eat: Decolonial Resistance in U.S. Latinx Zines,” aims to underscore this resistance by examining Latinx zines that interrogate food and its impact in shaping cultural identity. Zinesters draw on memoirs and artwork to promote plant-based diets and condemn colonial impositions regarding food, “healthy” bodies, and medicine. As an offshoot of food, the exhibit also highlights zines that discuss traditional healing, speciesism, and body positivity.
Viewers
will find a nice array of zines, with contributors from as nearby as San
Antonio and as far as Washington D.C. Some examples will be more text heavy
while others will use mixed media to articulate their points.
This collection
will be of interest to anyone who is interested in zine culture, food studies,
decolonial studies, and Latinx cultural production. My hope is that scholars
will develop similar projects using zines. The print versions of these zines and
others are available in the Rare Books and
Manuscripts Room at the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection.
Daniel Arbino is the Librarian
for U.S. Latina/o Studies.
Curated by Carla Alvarez, US Latina/o Archivist, Benson Latin American Collection
On Thursday, February 13, the Benson Latin American Collection and Latino Studies celebrated the opening of the archive of the Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS) with a reception, exhibition, and a staged reading of some of the archive’s contents. The reading told the emotional and powerful story of the Center’s birth, in the voices of those who fought—sometimes at their own professional peril—for an institutional commitment to Mexican American Studies by the University of Texas.
The room was full, and emotions were palpable and visible. Audience and participants ranged from students to faculty to individuals whose history with CMAS extends back decades. Read an account of the event in the Daily Texan.
Portrait of Dr. Américo Paredes, beloved professor, folklorist, and CMAS director
Founded in 1970, the Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS) at The University of Texas at Austin benefited from Chicano student activism of the 1960s. Members of the Mexican American Student Organization (MASO) and later the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) demanded equitable representation and resources be devoted to Mexican American studies on the UT campus. After years of activism, the Center was established. It stands as an institutional recognition of the importance of Mexican Americans and Latinos in the history, culture, and the politics of the United States.
Information about Dr. Américo Paredes from the CMAS 35th anniversary publication. “35 Years: The Center for Mexican American Studies” was compiled in 2005 by a group of J349T Oral History as Journalism students.
Since its founding, the Center has fostered Mexican American studies and Latino studies on campus and nationally through partnerships. A founding member of the Inter-UniversityProgram for Latino Research (IUPLR), CMAS has worked toward shaping Latino scholarship and to support the next generation of Latino studies scholars.
Entrance to the Center during the time when it was housed in the Gebauer Building, then known as the Speech Building. This is one of the earliest photographs of the Center, from the late 1970s.
For nearly thirty years, the Center operated an in-house publishing unit, CMAS Books, which began as a publisher of academic monographs, providing a means for affiliated faculty to share their research with other scholars, but blossomed into an imprint with a broader cultural and scholarly reach. CMAS Books published a series of monographs and several periodicals including journals and newsletters for the Center and sponsored entities like IUPLR.
“Noticias de CMAS” publicized the Center’s special events.
In addition to supporting Mexican American studies on campus and nationally, CMAS had another goal from the beginning—to establish a presence and engage with the larger community. This community engagement has evolved over the years and included partnerships with the Américo Paredes Middle School;La Peña, a community-based arts organization, the Serie Project and Sam Coronado Studio; and a Latino radio project, proudly launched in the early 1990s. That initial radio project eventually developed into the nationally syndicatedLatino USA. The Center has thus firmly established a legacy of expanding and enhancing knowledge of Mexican Americans’ and Latinos’ contributions to the history and culture of the United States.
Flyer promoting the CMAS 35th anniversary exhibit in the Office of the President.
The Center for Mexican American Studies will celebrate its 50th anniversary during the 2020–2021 academic year.The Center now exists as one of three units under Latino Studies at UT, a powerhouse of Latino thought and advocacy that also includes the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies and the Latino Research Institute. Visit liberalarts.utexas.edu/latinostudies for updates on all anniversary festivities, including special events, public conversations, digital retrospectives, and interactive campus installations.
The Survival Guide for new African American and Mexican American students, published in 1993, was a collaboration between CMAS and the Center for African and African American Studies (CAAS), now the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies. The Guide was distributed on the UT campus and included articles by students, faculty profiles, information about CAAS and CMAS, a list of Mexican American/Latino and Black student organizations, as well as a directory of minority faculty and staff. Cover art by California artist Malaquías Montoya.
CMAS at 50 is on view through July 2, 2020, in the second-floor gallery of the Benson Latin American Collection, SRH Unit 1. To view the list of archival materials online, visit the Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO) CMAS.
Vea abajo para versión en español / Veja em baixo para versão em português
In honor of World Digital Preservation Day, members of the University of Texas Libraries’ Digital Preservation team have written a series of blog posts to highlight preservation activities at UT Austin, and to explain why the stakes are so high in our ever-changing digital and technological landscape. This post is part one in a series of five.
Introduction to Digital Preservation
BY DAVID BLISS, Digital Processing Archivist, LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections; ASHLEY ADAIR, Head of Preservation and Digital Stewardship University of Texas Libraries
In recent decades, the archival field has been transformed by the rise of digital historical records. As computers of all kinds have worked their way into many areas of our professional and personal lives, collections of documents donated to archives in order to preserve individual and institutional histories have come to comprise both traditional paper records and those created using these computers. Digital records can be scans of paper or other objects, born-digital files comparable to paper records, such as Word or text documents, or entirely new kinds of objects, such as video games. Archivists are committed to preserving digital records, just like physical ones, for future generations to use and study. Digital preservation refers to the full range of work involved in ensuring digital files remain accessible and readable in the face of changing hardware and software.
A box of floppy disks, part of an archival collection held by UT Libraries
Unlike traditional physical media like paper,
which can typically be kept readable for decades or centuries with proper
housing and ambient conditions, digital files can be lost without periodic,
active intervention on the part of archivists: legacy file formats can become
unreadable on modern computers; hard drives and optical media can break or
degrade over time; and power outages can cause network storage to fail. Digital
archivists take steps to prevent and prepare for these contingencies.
There is no one perfect or even correct solution to the challenge of preserving digital files, so each institution may use different tools, standards, and hardware to carry out the work. Typically, however, digital preservation involves choosing suitable file formats, maintaining storage media and infrastructure, and organizing and describing digital objects in a standardized way that ensures future archivists and users can understand and access what has been preserved.
Cassette tapes to be digitized, containing recordings relevant to indigenous languages
Digital preservation represents a significant effort that cannot be carried out by a single person or group. At the University of Texas Libraries, dissemination of digital preservation knowledge and skills is a crucial part of digital preservation practice. Training and pedagogy spread digital preservation expertise within the organization and out to researchers and partners, allowing the Libraries to preserve an ever-growing amount of valuable data.
Introducción a la
preservación digital
Para el Día Mundial de la Preservación Digital, los miembros del equipo de Preservación Digital de las Bibliotecas de la Universidad de Texas han escrito una serie de entradas de blog que hacen destacar las actividades de preservación en la universidad, y para enfatizar la importancia de la preservación en un presente de cambio tecnológico constante. Este texto es el primero en una serie de cinco.
Traducido por Jennifer Isasi, Postdoctoral Fellow in Data Curation in Latin American and Latina/o Studies
En décadas
recientes, el ámbito de los archivo se ha visto transformado con el aumento de
los registros históricos digitales. A medida que las computadoras de todo tipo
han pasado a formar parte de muchas áreas de nuestra vida profesional y
personal, las colecciones de documentos donados a los archivos para preservar
historias individuales e institucionales ahora presentan tanto los registros en
papel tradicionales como los creados con computadoras. Los registros digitales
pueden ser copias escaneadas de papel u otros objetos, archivos digitales
nativos similares a los registros en papel, como documentos de Word o texto, o
tipos de objetos completamente nuevos, como los videojuegos. Los archivistas
están comprometidos a preservar los registros digitales, al igual que los
físicos, para que las generaciones futuras los utilicen y estudien. Así, la
preservación digital se refiere a la gama completa de trabajo involucrado en
garantizar que los archivos digitales permanezcan accesibles y legibles ante el
cambio de hardware y software.
Una caja de disquetes, parte de una colección de archivos de las bibliotecas de la Universidad de Texas
A
diferencia de los medios físicos tradicionales como el papel, que por lo
general pueden ser preservados por décadas o siglos en condiciones de guardado
adecuadas, los archivos digitales pueden perderse sin la intervención periódica
y activa por parte de los archivistas: las computadoras modernas no pueden leer
algunos de los formatos de archivo más antiguos, los discos duros o los medios
ópticos se pueden romper o degradar con el tiempo y los cortes de luz pueden
causar fallos en el almacenamiento en la red. Los archivistas digitales toman
medidas para prevenir o prepararse para este tipo de imprevistos.
No hay una
solución perfecta ni correcta para el desafío de preservar archivos digitales,
por lo que cada institución puede utilizar diferentes herramientas, estándares
y equipos para este trabajo. Por lo general, no obstante, la preservación
digital implica elegir formatos de archivo adecuados, mantener medios de
almacenaje y su infraestructura así como asegurar la organización y la
descripción de los objetos digitales de una manera estandarizada que garantice
que los futuros archivistas y usuarios puedan comprender y acceder al material
preservado.
Fitas cassette que contienen grabaciones relacionadas con los lenguajes indígenas, y que serán digitalizadas
El trabajo y esfuerzo necesarios para la preservación digital no puede ser realizado por una sola persona o grupo. En el conjunto de bibliotecas de la Universidad de Texas, la difusión del conocimiento sobre preservación digital es una parte crucial de la práctica de preservación. Mediante esfuerzos de capacitación y pedagógicos tanto dentro de la organización como entre investigadores y colaboradores, estas bibliotecas están logrando preservar una cantidad cada vez mayor de datos relevantes.
Introdução à preservação digital
Traduzido por Tereza Braga
Para o Dia Mundial da Preservação Digital, os membros do equipe de Preservação Digital das Bibliotecas da Universidade de Texas escreveram uma serie de entradas de blog que enfatizam as atividades de preservação na nossa universidad, para explicar a importancia da preservação no contexto de um presente de tecnología em fluxo constante. Este texto é o primeiro numa série de cinco.
O advento dos registros históricos digitais causou uma completa transformação do setor arquivístico nas últimas décadas. Computadores de todos os tipos estão cada vez mais presentes em cada vez mais aspectos da vida profissional e pessoal. Essa mudança também afeta as coleções de documentos que são doadas a instituições arquivísticas com o intuito de preservar histórias individuais e institucionais. Hoje em dia, uma coleção pode reunir tanto registros tradicionais em papel quanto registros criados por esses diversos computadores. O que chamamos de registro digital pode ser uma simples página ou objeto que tenha sido escaneado ou qualquer arquivo que já tenha nascido em forma digital e que seja comparável com um registro em papel como, por exemplo, um texto regidido em Word. Registro digital pode também significar uma coisa inteiramente nova como um videogame, por exemplo. Arquivistas são profissionais que se dedicam a preservar registros digitais para utilização e estudo por futuras gerações, como já é feito com os registros físicos. A preservação digital pode incluir uma ampla variedade de tarefas, todas com o objetivo comum de fazer com que um arquivo digital se mantenha acessível e legível mesmo com as frequentes mudanças na área de hardware e software.
Uma caixa de disquetes, parte de uma coleção de arquivos mantida pelas bibliotecas da Universidade de Texas
Um arquivo digital é diferente do arquivo em papel ou outros meios físicos tradicionais, que geralmente pode ser mantido legível por muitas décadas ou mesmo séculos, se armazenado em invólucro adequado e sob as devidas condições ambientais. Um arquivo digital pode se perder para sempre se não houver uma intervenção periódica e ativa por parte de um arquivista. Certos arquivos em formatos mais antigos podem se tornar ilegíveis em computadores modernos. Discos rígidos e mídia ótica podem quebrar ou estragar com o tempo. Cortes de energia podem causar panes em sistemas de armazenagem em rede. O arquivista digital é o profissional que sabe tomar medidas tanto de prevenção quanto de preparação para essas e outras contingências.
Não existe solução perfeita, ou sequer correta, para o desafio que é preservar um arquivo digital. Diferentes instituições utilizam diferentes ferramentas, normas e hardware. De maneira geral, no entanto, as seguintes tarefas devem ser realizadas: escolher o formato de arquivo adequado; providenciar e manter uma mídia e infra-estrutura de armazenagem; e organizar e descrever os objetos digitais de uma maneira que seja padronizada e que permita a futuros arquivistas e usuários entender e acessar o que foi preservado.
Fitas cassette com conteúdo relacionado às idiomas indígenas, que serão digitalizadas
A preservação digital é um empreendimento importante que não pode ser executado por apenas um indivíduo ou grupo. Na UT Libraries, a disseminação de conhecimentos e competências de preservação digital é uma parte essencial dessa prática. Temos cursos de capacitação e pedagogia para disseminar essa especialização em preservação digital para toda a organização e também para pesquisadores e parceiros externos. É esse trabalho que capacita a Libraries a preservar um grande volume de dados valiosos que não pára de crescer.
Read, hot & digitized: Librarians and the digital scholarship they love — In this series, librarians from the Libraries’ Arts, Humanities and Global Studies Engagement Team briefly present, explore and critique existing examples of digital scholarship to encourage and inspire critical reflection of and future creative contributions to the growing fields of digital scholarship.
The Quantitative Criticism Lab (QCL) was formed in 2014 as a collaboration between humanists, computer scientists and computational biologists. The project’s unique combination of expertise informs its innovative approach to the computational analysis of Latin literature. And I’m not just saying that as a research assistant for the project!
The lab
is led by Pramit Chaudhuri, an Associate Professor of Classics at the
University of Texas at Austin, and Joseph Dexter, a computational biologist and
Neukom Fellow at Dartmouth. They recruited me before I knew what digital
humanities was, though I was certain that I wanted to do something more with my
Classics undergraduate degree other than teaching fifth graders “Heads,
Shoulders, Knees and Toes” in Latin (“Caput, umeri, genua and pedes”, if you
were wondering).
This digital Classics project uses machine learning, natural language processing and systems biology to study Latin literature and its influence. QCL uses a computational approach to explore the traditional study of “philology”, or the development and history of language in text. The lab’s first development was its tool, Fīlum (Latin for the thread of a web), an apt name given the tool’s purpose to reveal relationships amongst Latin texts by identifying intertextual references in Latin literature.
For an
example of intertextuality, in the epic poem the Aeneid, Vergil uses the
phrase “immane nefas”, meaning “huge wrongdoing” to refer to the
unspeakable horrors of the underworld. Years later, the author Lucan, in his
epic, the Pharsalia, references and adapts that phrase to “commune
nefas”, or “collective wrongdoing”, to blame an entire community for the
horrors of civil war. Fīlum aids scholars in discovering, tracking, and
discussing such connections.
The Fīlum tool’s search interface
So, what makes Fīlum better than a ctrl+f approach? In the example above, a scholar would have to search many texts to even possibly discover Lucan’s reference; with Fīlum, they can search many texts simultaneously. Furthermore, Fīlum can even detect phrasing similar to the search query.
QCL’s computational approach tabulates similarity, using the concept of “edit distance”, or the number of character changes through additions, deletions or substitutions in two words or phrases. For example, the edit distance of “kitten” and “sitting” has an edit distance of 3. You substitute “k” with “s”, “e” with “i”, and add a “g” – three changes in total.
What if
you have a feeling the phrase you want to use in Fīlum, might be in a
different word order? With “Order-Free” searching, the tool searches for any
arrangement of the words in a phrase. This is an especially valuable feature
since Latin often refuses to follow a regulated pattern of word order.
With its search phrase, edit distance and order free option, Fīlum searches through a selected text or a user-selected corpora of Latin literature from the site. With a free account, users can create a search corpus from a library of texts or upload their own.
Fīlum’s clean and clear results page.
The output cleanly displays results distinguished by each text’s author, work, and highlights the relevant words in each result. For added context, when selected, each result displays the previous and following lines from the text for context.
I have
enjoyed both working on Fīlum and using the tool for my research. As QCL
continues to improve the tool, I hope other classicists will appreciate not
only its value but the interdisciplinary method that built it.
If you
are interested in the project and its study, please stay tuned to information
about an upcoming QCL sponsored conference in April, here on the UT Austin
Campus:
Digital
Humanities Beyond Modern English: Computational Analysis of Premodern and
Non-Western Literature https://qcrit.github.io/DHBME/
For
further reading on topics like digital classics and text analysis, please see
below:
“Illuminating Explorations” – This series of digital exhibits is designed to promote and celebrate UT Libraries collections in small-scale form. The exhibits will highlight unique materials to elevate awareness of a broad range of content. “Illuminating Explorations” will be created and released over time, with the intent of encouraging use of featured and related items, both digital and analog, in support of new inquiries, discoveries, enjoyment and further exploration.
Zines are
do-it-yourself publications used by different cultural groups to share ideas
and information. The zine name and format emerged in the 1930s from fanzines
for the science fiction community. This same zine format – small circulation,
handmade, often photocopied– was used by activists to disseminate social and
political views in the 1960s. From the 1970s-1990s punk rockers and feminist
groups often adopted the zine format as a way to express their views within
their communities. During subsequent decades the appeal of zines has only grown
for makers and viewers alike. These light-to-hold pages of images and
text are cheap to produce and to purchase, even fun to trade. They have
never been more popular.
The Fine Arts Library began collecting zines in earnest in 2010 under the stewardship
of former Fine Arts Head Librarian Laura Schwartz. The reasonable cost of
zines made collecting possible and the FAL emphasis was given to zines that
related to art and music, as well as to local and regional zines. Schwartz also
cultivated relationships with local zine dealers, including Russell Etchen, the
owner of the former Austin bookstore Domy Books. When he moved from Austin,
Etchen generously gave a collection of 302 zines to the FAL.
Among the zines in the Russell Etchen Collection are many created by artists. These zine artists were
looking for a method to share work outside of traditional art world channels.
Their artwork expresses every stage of the artistic process from preliminary
sketches to carefully completed works of art. Although there are many themes
that could be explored in the diverse, still-to-be cataloged, Etchen
Collection, the exhibit, Art Zines From
the Russell Etchen Collection,
focuses on the contrasting ways in which six of these zine artists use the
compositional devices of page layout, collage, and color to create and communicate.
The exhibit will be of interest to any zine enthusiasts interested in
do-it-yourself culture, as well as to scholars, artists, designers and art
historians who can resource this distinctive zine collection for teaching and
creative inquiry.
This is the first of three Omeka
exhibits to focus on zines held in UT Collections. The zines for this exhibit
were chosen by former Humanities Liaison Librarian for Fine Arts, Rebecca Pad. Print
versions of these art zines from the Russell Etchen Collection are house in the
Fine Arts Library. Digitized copies of pages from
these art zines, as well as more of the Etchen art zines, are to be found on
Artstor under University of Texas – Art and Art History Visual
Resources Collection
Sydney Kilgore is Media Coordinator for the Visual Resources Collection, Fine Arts Library.
