Transcription
Hello and thank you for joining this presentation. And thanks to the organizers. My name is Cristela Garcia Spitz, and I'm the curator of the Tucson Archive for Melanesian Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego.
Today, I will speak about a grant to digitize the bulk of the audio recordings in the archive. In the first part, and for the second part, I'll be joined by Tome Iso of the Quina Ec Cultural Center and anthropologist David Aiken to discuss the collaboration that we've had over the years and the process we took of returning the recordings to the community. Tomei and David spoke in an earlier session about the Quaiyo community archive. So, working on this presentation has shaped this idea of field recordings as a part of a feedback loop that, when digitized, can transfer the output into the input for future interactions.
This thinking is reflected in the photographs displayed here. The first photograph was taken by anthropologist Roger Kiesing in the context of his field research with the Quaiyo people of Malaita, Solomon Islands, from 1962 to 1992. This photo, in particular, is from 1964, and it's of a Sango skull house ritual. And the rest of the photos were taken by anthropologist David Aiken, who for many years has worked with the Quaiyo. His photos include the two in the middle, taken in 1996, another Sango performance. And the last photo is from 2017, in their computer immersion classes at the Quaiyo community archive. So, these photographs reflect the types of interactions and documentation that exist and how creating and working with archival materials has become more participatory over the years.
So, the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Recordings at British Grant was awarded to the UC San Diego Library in May of 2019. CLIR is an independent nonprofit organization. The link to their website is there, as well as it also links to our grant proposal. The project objective was to preserve 804 reel-to-reel and audio cassette field recordings from eight collections, which is roughly about 1200 hours, or equivalent to 50 days. Several of the recordings contain valuable linguistic as well as cultural knowledge, access to which was previously limited to scholars that were able to physically visit the archive and could afford to have reproductions made. This project unlocks this content and makes it more broadly available to scholars and native speakers.
The UC San Diego Library prioritized reformatting these recordings because of their uniqueness and importance to Melanesian studies and the cultural heritage of Pacific Island communities, as well as to safeguard against the deterioration of the physical materials and format obsolescence. The project took about a year and a half and utilized the library's existing workflows to build digital collections. It mostly consisted of logistics: inventorying, shipping items to the vendor, doing quality control on the audio files, and getting them into our management system. The grant funding covered the cost of digitization, including shipping supplies and the work of our vendor, Media Preserve.
Information about the recordings, or the item-level metadata, was gathered from the finding aids and notes written on the box. It was then enhanced by the technical metadata provided by the vendor to adhere to digital object standards and the data requirements of the library's digital asset management system, or as we affectionately call it, our DAMs. Images shown here, um, the veritable metadata that range from very little detail to rich detail. Sometimes we only had a number and a date range for the item. Other times, there was more written on the box, and we were able to transcribe that and add it as a description.
There was an opportunity to send the audio files from the Roger Keysight sound recordings to the Solomon Islands with anthropologist David Aiken in October 2019. He shared the files with the Quaiyo archive, and they provided the project team with more accurate metadata. David then worked with me to improve the description, correct names, and provide more context with recordings that date back to 1963. This type of information provided during the grant is invaluable, and that the knowledge and rich detail might be lost as further time passes. So, this is what I'm calling value-added expertise, and it's something that I would like to explore doing with the other collections. It will require consulting with donors, scholars, and communities to determine how to follow appropriate cultural protocols, and it also probably take another grant. I will certainly be following the methodology and lessons learned from the True Echoes project in hopes that they may be able to help shape a way forward.
So, in terms of access to the recordings, the UC San Diego Library has been building a virtual reading room for the past few years to facilitate access to content that may be granted upon registration and agreement to terms of use, but should not be served widely on the web. So, this is what we wanted for these recordings. Due to the culturally sensitive and confidential information contained in ethnographic field recordings, the solution integrates two systems already in use: our local DAMs and Aeon, a request and workflow management software used by the library's special collections and archives. The virtual reading room provides remote, mediated access to digital objects that is time-bound, requires registration, agreement to the terms of use, and authentication. Access is granted for 30 days. Audio files are streamed, and the download feature is disabled.
Development of this function required a highly collaborative effort between library staff, a regional consultant called Notch 8, and the Aeon developers from Atlas Systems. I'm happy to chat further about how it functions, or I can put you in touch with our staff if you're interested in more technical information. But the basic process is captured here. And there were 77 of the 804 recordings in the grant that are restricted from access for privacy and confidentiality concerns, which are preserved in the DAMs but only accessible to library staff through login.
So, this provides an overview of the different collections with the current discovery layers. Our existing infrastructures are built on archival terms and traditions, which may not be the most intuitive way for accessing materials, especially for indigenous scholars and communities. The finding aid describes the materials in relation to the creators of the collection, and this structure is mimicked in our digital complexions website. So, in order to provide access that centers indigenous communities, and the just the discovery points should be enhanced to include more details about the people, the places, and the languages. I don't think we need to do away with our existing infrastructures, but I do think we need to create new layers with Pacific Island communities in mind. I'm very excited about the work of digitalpacific.org, an aggregate good site that brings together digitized Pacific cultural heritage, and we'll be gathering the content from the Tsun archive in the coming year or so. So, it takes many hands to build and maintain these types of digital resources, and they are the culmination of the work of many, many different people and different skill sets. So, I want to thank and acknowledge all those who contributed. And now, we'll move on to part two. Thanks.
Digitizing these recordings has facilitated content sharing and new possibilities for partnership moving forward. We're hoping that the digital collections can be used to engage with communities as a way of promoting storytelling and documenting current narratives. I'm joined now by David Aiken and Tome Iso. So, Tomei, can we start with you by having you share some of your reactions to the recordings?
Thank you, Cristela. Um, you know, at first, I was a bit, um, sensitive about it. I have some questions about why, why do we, you know, um, why do they get this recording and what's the purpose of getting it? And so, I have a lot of these questions flooding in my mind. And I think because of the, though the environment that we live in, and also the history, and also the idea of colonization. But then, when I start listening to it and going through the recording, I began to realize that these, um, uh, all wealth of knowledge and history that has been recorded in the past, and I began to appreciate it. And not only me, but, um, a lot of people who have access to this recording have also seen that this is a great idea because when they see their, um, their grandfathers talking and see their photos, they were really, really happy because they were not able to see them in the past, especially the young generation. And so, to us, it is a great privilege that we can have this recording, and also it connects us back to the past. And to us, this is truly a wealth of knowledge. Thank you.
And David, I wondered if you could talk a little bit more about, uh, what I've been calling the metadata enhancement process and your observations. Uh, one of the, like, you know, I could talk about a lot of things that I learned about how archives can handle the sort of novel material better. But since we don't have much time, I thought I'd talk about what really struck me the most as a researcher. Is while I was working through all these things, I thought, this is just such a lucky coincidence that I'm here to do this for Roger's papers. Like, he trained me in Clio for a time, and, um, I knew almost all the people, all of the ones that were still alive, and knew about the people before, knew the language, knew what's taboo and what's not, um, all sorts of things that an archivist would never know. And so, it made me realize that a lot of my own field materials were not so prepared either. You know, if I should die suddenly, there wouldn't be a me to come along behind. And very few researchers have someone else who can come along behind who has the knowledge to do it and has is willing to put in the time. You know, it takes a lot of time to do this. And so, the message of that is, is that people need to plan for far in the future while they're collecting the material. That's one aspect. So, you know, write down if anything's confidential, write "confidential," "not for archiving," or whatever terms you want to put on it, because nobody else is going to know. The second thing it's up to you as a researcher to do is to talk to the community about what they want done with the things you're collecting. Um, with me, it was easy because, um, I was working there at with the cultural center, as we talked about yesterday, and I was collecting an archive for the Quaiyo community. Yeah.
And I, I want to pick up on that and discuss a little bit more of the, the strengths and the challenges of having this ongoing collaboration between the Quaiyo archive and the Tucson archive. I know I personally have been benefited quite a bit from the long-standing relationships that were built before I was in the position. My predecessor, Kathy Creely, worked with you, David, all the way back into the '90s, talking about the recordings and the materials when they were first brought to the archive. And as you mentioned, you had your long-standing relationship with the Quaiyo community and were able to negotiate some of those conversations. Um, are there other, um, sort of thoughts that you want to contribute about about just the, the sort of challenges to, to the archive, to this process and this collaboration?
Yes, interesting. I think, um, for, for us, um, I think the strength, I would say, um, to us, is, um, the opportunity that, um, that we can be able to access this information because, um, usually the idea about the archive usually is is about, um, uh, government and like university institutions where they, they keep all these, like. But, but to us, I think, um, the local people should be the custodian of this information, and it should be made available to them. And so, for us, your people, I think that's that's the strength that we we have. I think one of the the challenge for us is building on this, this archive and this work. This idea is a great idea. I think we need the training of how do we do the continue with this archival work. And so, this is another challenge that need to be addressed, like especially for local people, how do we build on this, this, this great idea? And so, the training is very, very important for us. And also, um, like continuous support, um, for local local experts to continue doing on this work, and like a collaboration with the international partners that that we can continue this work forever. And so, that's that's some of the challenges and the strength that I see. It's important to, you know, address. Yeah.
And I, I, I think about a lot the, the possibilities that are opening up with within with new technologies and sort of this digital era that we're living in. And I've been, you know, very excited to be able to have these sorts of conversations with both of you, even though we're all in very different locations and different time zones, but that we've been able to collaborate. So, so thank you so much for for doing this and for being a part of the work that this grant enabled for us. Um, and with that, I think I'll say thank you.
Well, thank you, Cristela. It's been great. Thank you so much. Thanks.