Characteristics of Archivists and Subdivisions

Hi Chelsea,

This is a very interesting topic and I really enjoyed reading your Wiki and look forward to reading the Case Studies. Forgive me if I repeat some of the comments that have been made below. I think that the section on "Characteristics of Performing Arts Archivists" is interesting, but like Lisa points out, it could offer a stereotype. If you decide to remove this section (as discussed below), I think that the observations from the study could be worked into other sections elsewhere. I think the 5 categories of issues/characteristics that are common to the archivists also reflect characteristics/issues of performing arts archives and could be discussed in this context instead. (Am I making sense?).

I agree that the sections could be further subdivided to make it easier for the reader to focus in on a particular topic or just have a better overview of what is discussed under a particular section. For example, "Unique Materials" could be further subdivided according to broad types of materials. "Challenges" could also be further subdivided according to the type of challenge faced.

And, I think that videos and images are a great idea.

Cristen

Hi, Cristen.

Yes, absolutely, your idea of incorporating the characteristics of the performing arts archivists stuff into other sections makes perfect sense and seems a good way to include what is very interesting information, but a little odd as a stand alone section. Thanks for the suggestion!

And definitely, breaking up the big sections is on my list!

I do want to include more media, though (speaking to your topic a bit) I am always a little spooked about copyright issues. I will have to look at how other folks in the class have handled attribution and look at what the wiki wizards say about incorporating copyrighted materials into a class wiki. Falls under fair dealing with proper attribution, yeah?

Hi Chelsea,

Copyright on the wiki is a tricky issue that I haven't figured out yet. Here is what the upload wizard for the UBC Wiki has to say: http://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php/Special:UploadWizard

There is no mention of fair dealing, and my guess is because this is a public site, so that might affect what we can include even if it is for research purposes. I don't think that fair dealing applies, but I could be wrong.

I checked this out for some clarification: http://copyright.ubc.ca/requirements/fair-dealing/ It's difficult to say, I think, because if we use an image we are using the entire image.

What do you think? Maybe Greg can weigh in?

Yeah, I looked at that upload wizard thing, too, and it kind of put me off of the idea of adding any media.

I was able to find some theatre and dance related archival images on Flickr Commons, but, while they will provide visual interest, they don't actually relate directly to any of the institutions I talk about, and just grabbing something from the website of one of the archives I am discussing seems to be a no-no.

So, what say you Groupies? Add non-copyright restricted visual content for the heck of it, even if it's only tangentially relevant?