Beyond the Shelf

By Gabryelle Iaconetti

On November 26, 2018, I had the pleasure of attending a conference at Pointe-à-Callière Museum in old Montreal entitled “La conservation du patrimoine culturel: Archeologie et monuments anciens”, translating to “The conservation of cultural heritage: Archaeology and ancient monuments.” This conference was organized in honour of 2018’s European Year of Cultural Heritage in partnership with multiple cultural institutions across Canada and Europe. The speakers present were Massimo Osanna from Italy, Jean-Marc Mignon from France, Pilar Fatas from Spain, Franziska Fecher from Germany, Gerda Koch from Austria, Hendrik Van Gijseghem and Louise Pothier from the hosting museum, and James Woollett and Julien Riel-Salavatore from Canada. The aforementioned presenters come from different cultural heritage institutions with research interests in a variety of archaeological sites worldwide.

As a future information professional with an educational background in classics, I had always wondered how I could incorporate my interest and passion for the ancient world with that of archives and the preservation of information. That question was easily answered by the professionals and academics who spoke about their work in the field at this conference. In fact, several of the presentations incorporated many aspects of archives, data management, digital preservation and information dissemination. For the purposes of remaining succinct, I will only recount the findings from the presentations which I believe are the most applicable to the information field.

Massimo Osanna kicked off the event with his case study on conservation and preservation efforts at Pompeii. Pompeii is one of the most famous and important cities of the ancient world. Excavations began in 1748, and conservation and preservation efforts are ongoing. However, a major issue that is currently being tackled by academics studying Pompeii is the lack of record-keeping and archiving of previous excavations. Without the maintenance of archives and records, it is difficult for excavators and scholars to understand the use of materials for restoration efforts at Pompeii. With the use of photogrammetry and laser scans of the site, there has been a new informatic archive implementated, as well as better documentation. Additionally, there have been efforts put towards the digitization of the Pompeii photographic archives. These new emphases on documentation and record-keeping of excavation activities will certainly aid in the preservation of knowledge within the archaeological community.

It was obvious from the reports of the presenters that there are tremendous steps being made in the areas of digital archaeology, and how it pertains to the preservation of cultural heritage. This was emphasised by James Woollet’s penultimate presentation about the risks to archaeological sites due to climate change. Ultimately, we have limited time before a number of sites are destroyed by rising sea levels and lost for good. Archaeological sites are of extreme value to those studying history, classics, and other humanities disciplines, which makes it all the more urgent to preserve their existence, even in digital form. Franziska Fecher’s presentation was heavily focused on digital archaeology practices at sites in the Honduras, namely Copan and Guadalupe. Much like Pompeii, the archaeologists working at the Honduran sites make sure of photogrammetry and laser scans to document current states of the sites, and to be able to later digitally reconstruct them for analysis and preservation. This is incredibly important as these digital scans allow researchers to analyze and manipulate these models in order to gain better understanding of archaeological structures and artifacts.

Gerda Koch’s presentation on Europeana proved to be a big hit with me personally, as it focused on many of the concepts of preservation and information dissemination that I have learned thus far in the MISt program. Europeana is a digital initiative that ensures online access to digital information collected from libraries, archives and museums across Europe. One can access millions of records through Europeana. Some of its great qualities include searchability by metadata, curated collections of content, growth of thematic collections, and online exhibitions. There are over 2 million archaeological objects on Europeana, which goes to show how crucial preservation of these cultural heritage materials are. There is an incredible amount of things I can say about Europeana, but it would be more beneficial for anyone interested in European heritage to check out their website for themselves and discover what their collection has to offer.

Attending this conference was an incredibly enriching experience and has strengthened my resolve to continue my own research in information science with regard to archaeological heritage. It is undeniable that the two fields intersect at crucial points, and it is relieving to see that consideration for the proper preservation of archaeological heritage is being taken seriously. As the field continues to evolve, and more information is being collected, so too should our methods for adequate preservation and record-keeping of these very important cultural heritage materials.

Student presenters, professional panel, and AMIA exec.

The student chapter of the Association of Moving Image Archivists held their annual symposium this past Friday. It featured presentations of current and recent projects by SIS students, as well as a panel discussion with several information professionals working in the audiovisual archival field.

Student Presentations

Our first presenter was Sarah Lake, with “Transitioning to the Cloud: Giving Access to Oral Histories”. Sarah spoke about her experiences working at Concordia’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling; in particular, about the challenges of migrating a large project from hard drive to cloud storage. Sarah spoke about the workflow involved in this process, as well as best practices for future maintenance of the collection and long-term preservation planning.

Next, Kat Barrette spoke on “Mapping Past and Present: Special Collections and Public Outreach”, an overview of engaging the public with material from special collections, in this case maps and photographs. She worked on creating a series of workshops for high school students at LaurenHill Academy using History Pin, an open source web program that lets users pin JPEGs to maps, showing photographs from the past overlaid on current locations. She shared the steps involved in organizing a project like this, as well as recommendations drawn from her experience to make the process go as smoothly as possible.

Albe Guiral then presented “From a Mouldy Box to Internet Sensation: The Photographs of the Fonds de l’Aqueduc at the Archives of the City of Montreal”. While working at the archive Albe was involved in digitizing and sharing with the public a collection of glass-plate photographs, and took us through the whole archival process, with a focus on preservation and outreach. She She spoke of the challenges involved in cleaning and scanning such delicate photographs, as well as best practices for dealing with contaminated materials. She also explained the process of digitally restoring them and sharing with the public on social media.

Finally, Rachel Black presented “Preserving Memory: Personal Archive Creation and Management”. Rachel has been working on creating a family archive of photographs, documents, and physical objects, and shared with us some of the lessons learned from this experience. She explained the process from beginning to end, focusing on the importance of planning the workflow of a project like this. she also spoke about the importance of preservation planning and records management in maintaining a personal archive.

Student presenters

Panel Discussion

Our panel opened by telling us about themselves and their current jobs. They took us through a typical day of work, the consensus being that there is really no such thing as an information professional. We then discussed the challenges of working with both analog and digital archival materials, and some of the current projects our professional panel members are working on.

Opening the floor to questions from the audience, our panel spoke about their educational backgrounds and gave advice to current students, speaking about useful skills and knowledge to acquire during the program. The most common advice was to try and take a bit of everything in order to have a well-rounded skillset – and you never know what might turn out to be an area of interest!

Finally, our panel gave us the names some free resources for audiovisual archiving. There are may free webinars available and a lot of conferences are livestreamed online. Specific resources recommended include the Digital Library Federation, where students can get involved in online work groups, the Access Tech Conference (which is livestreamed), and large libraries such as Library of Congress and BANQ. Other resources include Bay Area Video Collection, which includes a compendium of common video errors one might run across, and IASA TC-04, which provides a how-to on audio preservation. Finally, Project Naming, which works with identifying indigenous peoples in photographs and then restores those photographs to the communities in which they were taken.

Panel discussion

Professional Panel Members
Bios provided by Kat Barrette, AMIA-McGill Co-President

Sarah Severson, Digital Library Services Coordinator, Digital Initiatives, McGill University Libraries
Sarah is in charge of the McGill digilab, overseeing the digitization of rare books and documents, as well as the creation of digital exhibits of images and 3D objects.

Melissa Pipe, Documentation Technician (Audiovisual Archive), Marvin Duchow Music Library at McGill University
Melissa is responsible for the sound and audiovisual collections at the Marvin Duchow Music Library. This includes accession, preservation, and digitization of various materials.

Louis Rastelli, Administrator and Founder of Archive Montreal
Louis founded Archive Montreal, which houses sound, audiovisual, and various ephemeral materials, mostly dating back to the 1960s. They perform digitization of images, graphic material, sound and moving image in-house in an effort to preserve Montreal’s underground culture.

Molly Bower, recent graduate
Molly co-founded the multimedia archive of the Maagdenhuis occupation, now housed in the Amsterdam City Archive (Amsterdam Stadsarcheif). She also organized Westmount Library’s first Home Movie Day.

Gordon Burr, former Senior Archivist, McGill University Archives
Gordie is the former senior archivist at McGill. He still teaches courses at SIS, and is the AMIA Faculty Rep.

Guest post by Nicole Gauvreau

Photos by Felicia Pulo and Audrée-Ann Ramacieri-Tremblay

At SIS it can feel like different events are only for people interested in one of libraries, archives, KM, or ICT, be it a 5 à 7, a tour, a workshop, or a webinar. InfoNexus, is the event that has something for SIS students of every interest. It is also a great way to hear about skills you need but may not learn at SIS and offers a chance to network.

Info Nexus began with a presentation from the new archivist for Bell Canada and gave a look into being the lone archivist for one of Canada’s largest companies. From cataloguing documents, photos, and items and putting all the information from the paper master cards created until 1980 into the digital catalogue to helping researchers and gathering items and information for exhibitions, displays, and publication, Janie Théorêt does it all. Théoret also showed how far we still have to go in the world of digital curation, as Bell does not save it’s digital advertisements, only the print ones.

Presenter and SIS PhD student Vera Granikov detailed what it is to be a research-embedded health information specialist, a path she said she likely wouldn’t have found herself on were it not for her practicum. Granikov says her job, and the jobs many SIS students may have in the future, doesn’t fit neatly into one category of librarian, archivist, or knowledge manager. For example, while she conducts searches and literature reviews, Granikov is also part of the research team from the moment an idea is found through applying for funding to publication.

Melissa Rivosecchi was the first librarian of the day, and brought lessons for aspiring academic librarians (or soon to be graduates in general). Rivosecchi emphasised the need to get experience outside classes, both to build your CV and gain skills needed to the do the job. Rivosecchi was also another testament to applying to jobs outside your academic background: she’s a business librarian with no business background, but worked as a Concordia Student librarian and answered questions from just about every field imaginable while doing so. Rivosecchi also gave a healthy dose of reality as she’s on contract, rather than tenure track.

Cat Henderson, who graduated from SIS only last year, focused on the importance of networking and experience outside of class. She got her job because of a person she met at a conference and has discovered the odd skills and facts you know, from reading music to technical knowledge and even customer service, can make all the difference. Henderson also emphasized that you will learn on the job, and you’ll need to stay involved in associations and reading publications so you are both aware of evolving trends and, if you are the only information professional in your organization, don’t feel alone.

Ted Strauss brought in perspective from outside those with a degree in library or information studies but who holds a similar job function. Strauss was also the speaker for the ICT-interested. As a data resources manager he in involved in the entire lifecycle of data storage, evaluates open source software to find what may work best, and supports researching in using that software.

Adrienne Smith works in Ubisoft’s KM group as a taxonomist, and holds the dream job for anyone frustrated by websites and their search functions. For Smith “translating” what different stakeholders say so everyone understands each other in incredibly important; it makes sure everyone knows what is wanted and what has already been done. Smith also emphasized that sometimes you just have to do something if no one else is to get it done and that the user experience is most important.

Finally, Tomasz Neugebauer bridged the worlds of archives, libraries, and ICT with his presentation on open source resources, the need for digital preservation, and aggregating services to make things better. For Neugebauer, having some computer science background is a great asset, if not essential in finding a job and, in his job, effectively doing that job.

Overall, all presenters stressed skills you simply won’t gain at SIS and the need to find out what are considered the essentials to know for what you want to do by looking at job postings and attending conferences, then going out and gaining those proficiencies.

by Ben Wrubel and Annelise Dowd

On February 12th, students and faculty gathered at the School of Information Studies for the Association of Canadian Archivists’ McGill Student Chapter’s 9th Annual Winter Colloquium. The audience heard from a host of local archivists and librarians contending with the preservation of textual records, rare books, digital records, graphic materials, and sound recordings,and learned about the unique challenges that different formats and institutional settings bring to the field.

The first speaker was Shannon Hodge, Director of Archives at the Jewish Public Library Archives. Her presentation discussed the challenges of storing archival collections in a mixed use building. Stemming from her experiences of facing issues of mold and flooding at the JPL, she stressed the importance of communicating preservation concerns with facilities management and forming a comprehensive disaster plan before any of these “worst case scenarios” develop.

Ann Marie Holland, History of Printing Collections and Canadiana Collections/Liaison Librarian at McGill’s Rare Books and Special Collections, provided an overview of rare books preservation issues. Examples ranged from outsourcing material conservation to donor outreach for funding conservation projects. She left the audience with several websites to visit for more information regarding rare books conservation: http://www.nedcc.org, http://www.cool.conservation-us.org, http://www.cci-icc.gc.ca, http://www.rbms.info, and http://www.ifla.org/preservation-and-conservation.

 Tim Walsh, Archivist in the Digital Archives at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, detailed the legal, cultural, and technological challenges of born-digital bit preservation. Walsh spoke of how the CCA’s digital archival holdings often consist of proprietary 3-D modeling file formats, making software preservation, emulation, and user access major concerns.

Greg Houston, Digitization and New Media Administrator at McGill Library Digital Initiatives, walked the audience through the criteria for digitization and outlined the process of facilitating user access to digitized items via McGill Library’s catalog, the Internet Archive, and HathiTrust. Greg also shared a link to a Google Maps photosphere view of Digital Initiatives, which can be viewed here: https://goo.gl/maps/VcAs2UdFcxr.

Offering a user’s perspective, Catherine Nygren, Research Assistant at the Burney Centre at McGill University, discussed the value of accurate and comprehensive metadata for facilitating researchers’ access to archives. In particular, she emphasized the financial and time limitations that many researchers face, and thus the high importance of digitized resources to be made accessible online.

The final speaker was Melissa Pipe, Documentation Technician at the Audiovisual Archives at McGill’s Marvin Duchow Music Library. Her presentation addressed the collaborative efforts of her department and McGill’s Sound Recording Program to preserve a collection of 78 rpm jazz records. From physical preservation and storage, to digitization and metadata creation, Melissa described the numerous informed decisions required of archivists for the preservation of sound recordings.

The students who were among those in the full School of Information Studies ballroom were privileged to hear the illuminating and diverse experiences of professionals in the archival field. The 2016 Winter Colloquium could not have been such a success without the professionals who took the time to present and the McGill ACA chapter’s tireless work organizing the event. Until next year!

On Friday, February 6^th, we held the 2015 edition of the annual student-organized InfoNexus conference, formerly known as Web 2.U. The event was held in the Thomson House ballroom, and over the course of the day we had seven presentations from a diverse and truly fascinating group of speakers. This year’s conference did not have a formal theme, but the aim of the day was to bring students and information professionals together to share ideas and discover a range of topics from all over the information science world. In light of that, the speakers each brought their unique and varied backgrounds to their presentations.

• Nancy Naluz, Community Manager for the Montreal Chapter of Ladies Learning Code, spoke about how and why we can learn to code, and shared with us some tips for learning.

• Olivier Jarda, a McGill University law student, explored some of the issues and difficulties surrounding the searching, finding, and using of information in environmental law.

• Patrick Brian Smith and Jesse David Dinneen, both PhD students, discussed their work in applying bibliometric techniques to film theory, and the challenges this work entails.

• David Heti, a stand-up comedian, spoke about the ways in which comedians manipulate information, as well as the audience’s expectations and values, while performing.

• Herman Tumurcuoglu, founder of Mamma.com and professor at Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business, gave us some strategies and ideas for applying reverse SEO techniques to deal with issues in online reputation.

• Nathalie de Preux, Knowledge Management Advisor at Bombardier Aerospace, gave a presentation on the process of adopting a collaboration platform within a large organization in order to share information and expertise more effectively.

• Alexandra Carruthers, a Digital Public Spaces Librarian at the Edmonton Public Library, shared her experiences in setting up a digital space for the Edmonton local music scene at her library (Capitol City Records).

I’d like to extend a big thank you to our attendees, our speakers, and our organizing team, for helping to make InfoNexus 2015 happen. If you have any thoughts, feedback, or ideas to share for next year’s conference, please feel free to contact us at infonexus-inform@gmail.com.

By Anastasia Prozorova

On Friday February 7, 2014, many information professionals, students and enthusiasts gathered at Thomson House for the annual student-organized conference, Web 2.U. The insightful speakers, who were invited to this day-long event, had a chance to share their thoughts on a variety of cool, but challenging media and on the role of information professionals in the changing world. Let me share with you some of the highlights from this year’s event:

• Connie Crosby, a Toronto-based consultant, shared her experience in customer outreach and customer relationship management.
• AJ West, a second-year student graduating from McGill’s MLIS program, dazzled the audience with his knowledge of one of the hottest trends in information technology: wearable devices.
• Mark Blevis, Ottawa-based Digital Public Affairs Strategist, thrilled the audience with some amazing interactive media and demonstrated how books and libraries can immerse readers into a more engaging and participatory environment.
• David Weigl, PhD candidate at SIS, carefully guided the audience through the intricacies of relevance in music search.
• Guillermo Galdamez, a first-year student of McGill’s MLIS program and Knowledge Continuity Officer for MLISSA, talked about the challenges of maintaining and promoting SIS Wikis.
• Michael Groenendyk, the newly hired business librarian for Concordia University Libraries, made some incredible revelations about the opportunities and challenges of 3D printing and 3D scanning.
• Laurie Devine, Social Media Manager at McGill’s Media Relations Office, demonstrated some terrific features of her new social media tool, Flipboard, and compelled the audience to stay alert to emerging social media technologies.
• David Lee King, Digital Services Director at Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, flew to Montreal all the way from Kansas. He shared some of his invaluable experiences in social media marketing for libraries.
• Edward Bilodeau, McGill’s Web Services Librarian, skilfully animated the round table discussion at the end of the day.

I would like to thank everyone who took an interest in Web 2.U 2014 and those who generously helped make it happen. If you have some ideas to share for next year’s conference, feel free to contact me: anastasia.prozorova@mail.mcgill.ca.

By Nathalie De Preux

On November 1-2, 2013, the 9^th edition of the ICKM took place for the first time here in Montreal, chaired by SIS Director, Professor France Bouthillier. The conference, in which 37 papers were presented, focused on KM metrics, performance measurement, capacity building, and certification.

Why is ICKM special? You have probably come across ads about different conferences on “Knowledge Management in action”, or similar titles. Many of these KM conferences target private sector executives and host thousands of participants (not to mention the extravagant registration fees). ICKM, on the other hand, brings together a more collegial group of both researchers and practitioners in the KM field. These participants come from all around the world to discuss the latest studies and practical applications of KM. The smaller nature of this conference allows for deeper interaction and more opportunities to meet the speakers personally.

Key takeaways

• We will witness an ever-stronger tie with big data, and initiatives to use data for decision-making purposes.
• Collaboration, social networking, and Communities of Practice, in particular, will continue to play an important role as enablers of knowledge sharing.
• Outcome metrics and systems will be key in measuring the impact of KM on an organization.
• KM will be particularly important in niche markets such as healthcare, nuclear energy, and emergency management.
• Synergies between KM and Intelligence Systems, as well as knowledge discovery techniques will continue to grow.

Practitioners of KM at Golder Associates and Infosys provided us with insights on their experience in putting KM initiatives in place in the private sector (e.g. linking people within the organization). They pointed out key factors that make a community successful, barriers that might impede these efforts, and offered practical recommendations to get real value out of expertise locator systems.

SIS’s new faculty member, Professor Max Evans, gave a presentation on trust as one of the major social cognitive factors that influence knowledge sharing. He also shared the findings of his research in a law firm on this particular topic.

Other key questions that were answered were:

How can iSchools capitalize on branding, and create products and services that truly position them as key players in the knowledge economy?

By collecting stories about how graduates have contributed to business.

What makes a library school an iSchool?

The variety of disciplines offered, the size of the faculty, the number of alumni, and the inclusion of faculty from different backgrounds, not only from Library Science.

The topic of Competitive Intelligence was also present at ICKM. Presentations included a study conducted in the public sector in South Africa, which showed the importance of CI as a process that is used to gather actionable information and predict the future. CI allows the public sector to better leverage its competing forces to improve the quality of its services as if it were a business with external competitors.

The above is just a brief summary of the variety of interesting topics presented at ICKM, and it gives you an idea of the richness of this unique conference. We look forward to next year’s ICKM edition in Paris and hope that SIS students will have the opportunity to participate!

List of topics discussed at the conference

• –  Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice
• –  Communication, Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing
• –  KM Implementation and Strategy
• –  Knowledge Management in the Public Sector
• –  Knowledge Organization
• –  Knowledge Management Tools
• –  Knowledge Discovery
• –  Project and Knowledge Management
• –  Knowledge Metrics and Measurement
• –  iSchools in the Context of the Knowledge Economy
• –  Knowledge Management in Libraries
• –  Competitive Intelligence
• –  Access to Information and Knowledge
• –  Knowledge Management and Healthcare
• –  Intellectual Capital and Scientific Collaboration