Our Marathon: The Boston Bombing Digital Archive

DH Data Curation Workshop

May 1, 2014

facebook.com/OurMarathon www.northeastern.edu/marathon@OurMarathon

TELL A WIDE RANGE OF STORIES

“NO STORY IS TOO SMALL”

BUILD A LASTING COMMUNITY MEMORIAL

PRESERVE THE HISTORICAL RECORD

AUDIENCES

• Regional: Boston, MA residents directly and indirectly affected by these events

• More broadly, a “general” audience of anyone interested in these events

• Researchers and Scholars: interest in preserving items / files and creating / preserving metadata

BUILDING OUR MARATHON

4,700+ items

Boston City Archives material

289 stories from the Globe Lab

307 memes (image macros)

40 oral histories (WBUR)

raw news footage (WCVB-TV)

WBUR ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

BOSTON CITY ARCHIVES COLLECTION

OMEKA (“WORDPRESS FOR MUSEUMS”)

HOW WE’RE USING OMEKA

• Dublin Core Metadata (currently Simple; transitioning to Extended Dublin Core imminently)

• Modified Contribution Plugin: Crowdsourced contributions submit Item Type Metadata

• Geotagging Items

• Tagging Items (Search Functionality / Organization)

KINDS OF ITEMS IN THE ARCHIVE

• “Born Digital” Material (photos, text, memes, screencaps)

• Scanned / Digitized Items (BCA Items, Boston Medical Center Items)

• Modified Items (redacted files, edited audio files)

SOME ITEMS / FILE TYPES IN THE ARCHIVE

• BCA Items (Hi-Res Scans: TIF files; JPEG Copies)

• Web Sites (Archive-It / The Internet Archive)

• Oral History Audio Files: .wav and .mp3

• Crowdsourced contributions: variety

• Social media files: screencaps

Crowdsourcing

Challenges of “Born Digital” Content

• Perceived Value By Contributor• Copyright Issues and Social Media• Preservation Challenges• Metadata Challenges

DUBLIN CORE METADATA FIELDS

• Title

• Description

• Source

• Date

• Rights

• Language

GEOTAGGING

TAGS

LONG-TERM PRESERVATION PLANS

• Northeastern’s Libraries (Archives & Special Collection) is final home of Our Marathon items

• Items Public Now Will Be Public In The Future

• “Planned Obsolescence” (Home Page / Site)

• Five year position (Basic Monitoring of Archive)

• Oral History Audio Files: .wav and .mp3

• Crowdsourced contributions: variety

• Social media files: screencaps

SHORT-TERM CHALLENGES

• What Metadata Cleanup to Do Now (BCA Items, Public Submissions)

• How To Make Content More Accessible (Tags, Maps)

• Social Media Content (Tweets)

SOME LONG-TERM CHALLENGES

• Institutional Memory of Project (Documentation of Methodologies, Meta-Archive)

• When to phase out web site / “Share Your Story” Plugin

• When to make sensitive material public

• Approval Process for Researchers / Scholars

Thanks!

mcgrath.ja@husky.neu.edu

Twitter: @JimMc_Grath