Pleased to share that the Library of Congress has published, “On a Collections as Data Imperative“. The paper seeks to provide three conceptual frames that help guide thinking through how libraries can participate in collections as data work.
A snippet:
Libraries support individuals working through the many facets of complexity that constitute the human condition. The collections as data conversation is an extension of this tradition – provision of the means for meaning making. Disposition toward the work is unadorned, grounded by engagement with community need and vested in the challenges and opportunities latent in the traces of human action gathered, described, preserved, and provided access to. Typically, these traces are called collections. What might be gained by thinking of the digital objects that comprise them as data? Within this question lies the potential of a collections as data imperative.
This paper was only one of many excellent works produced by the Collections as Data symposium – including but not limited to some beautiful art by Oliver Baez Bendorf and a Digital Scholars Pilot project report by Dan Chudnov and Michelle Gallinger.