Blog Post 3

Research Question: What and how are New York Indigenous groups and institutions doing, as it pertains to preserving and creating a digital presence, when it comes to disseminating their culture?

Research Paragraph: My topic that I want to explore is what are Indigenous groups in New York doing to maintain a digital presence? I really want to look at how smaller and much less budget heavy institutions, keep up in the digital landscape. When I talk about the digital landscape I'm talking about both preservation, conservation, and protection of their cultural objects, alongside how they keep their voices loud and heard on the internet as that is where our society is drifting towards, online. I really want to explore not only the evolution of some of these tactics but also where the trends point to as a next step or where the digital goals are actually leading to. I also want to explore the idea of how these cultures in particular view digital preservation as it has many benefits but a lot of what we view as solutions in the modern museum do not align with their beliefs and they face different challenges than some of our more familiar cultures but also have some similarities that should be highlighted.

Narrowing down a Topic

Hello again,

As I have mentioned before, and as many of you that know me know, that I love the meshing of technology and Museums. Most notably in the preservation and archival field. Yet I'm also finding that the cultural aspect of preservation is a topic that I really want to explore.

I've basically narrowed down my topics to two possible ones.

One possible topic would be one that focuses on how the Museum and Archival field are handling the digitization of dying cultures. This would focus on the interaction that academics and cultural leaders of these remote or indigenous peoples have. How each other interacts and how they come to as a happy medium as to preserving and recordings of their precious knowledge and experiences can be preserved. I am really curious how this topic is being approached and how it occurs regionally as we have an emphasis in the area on native peoples and their cultures and how it does impact the local history.

 Another topic that I was considering was one that looked at how smaller Museums are being dealt with when it came to their plans and means of having a digital presence, but also how they are digitizing if at all any of their often special collections. I know that a lot of academic institutions have placed a lot of funding and resources to open access of collections and I wanted to delve into how the partnership and  private smaller museums tackle or approach this growing field.

If anyone has any preference to either topic please let me know I would certainly liked to hear some opinions on which is more interesting to people and also what are some areas people would like me to cover in each idea.

First Blog Post

Hello,

My name is John Valentine, I'm a 4th year Museum Studies student. I transferred into the Museum Studies Program at the end of my 1st year, and have become very passionate about the field as the semesters have passed by. I'm mostly interested in Digitization efforts. mostly in how we can bring the great historical objects and information to the public in unique ways and how it can be used as both a preservation means but also a means of creative ways to educate.

I most recently had my Co-Op at the RIT Digitization Lab. I've had a job there since the beginning of my 2nd year. I mostly aided in some large scale and scope projects and scanned documents. The Co-op was an opportunity to expand my role and take on more of a macro scope for digitization efforts. I found that I loved taking on more of a managerial role and curation of digitization processes. I really enjoy teaching others how to do things, sitting in on meeting discussing with professionals best practices, and most of all digitizing. Bellow is a picture of a the digitizing set up most similar to the one that I worked with and got to know over the summer

Im really hoping that I can use this class as an opportunity to explore more of my interests as well as to explore how the rest of the field is dealing with certain issues and how technology can be used to help in these efforts. While I do not know where the future will take me, I now know that RIT has provided me with plenty of opportunities and helped me gain a better understanding of what I want to do as a career.

What I'm Learning From My Thesis Research

The vanguard field of Digitization is one that is broad yet specialized. Most of my research consists of descriptions of procedures and technology such as the article "Digital Three-Dimensional Modelling of Donatello's David by Frequency-Modulated Laser Radar." On the other hand, some authors focus on the implications surrounding the accessibility and variety of the World Wide Web as defined by the paper “The Future of Museums in the Digital Age: New Models for Access to and Use of Digital Collections." Most researchers are worried about what laser, scanner or camera to use while others focus on how to monetize their digital collection. Along with this focus on the feasibility technology, authors such as Francoise Benhamou and Victor Ginsburgh of the paper “Is There a Market for Copies?” look in to whether reproductions can be used to deceive the art world as forgeries and if preservation through this method is detrimental becasue of it. Overall, on the technological side, I have learned what I should look for when scanning an object to make sure it is an accurate reproduction and how to 3D print. On the theory side, I learned how to organize and upload this information on the internet in a way to preserve its authenticity and increase its accessibility.

I have a handful of things I wish to know other than the feasibility of 3D scanning and printing archival objects as replacements which is the basis for my thesis. Some questions I still have include, can I 3D scan a book and upload it to an archive's website without the author's knowledge? If I need permission and the author is deceased, when does the content become public domain? The answers to these questions ensure that I would not run into any legal trouble while pursuing my thesis. I also would like to find out what is the best practice to scanning pages in a book. When a book is bound, a camera is unable to capture a flat surface as it might have it if the object was a singular piece of paper. The only way to solve these questions is through continued research and that is what I aim to do.