Visiting Lectures
Friday, March 31
10:00 a.m.
IS Building, 3rd Floor Theatre
Coffee with the speaker will be at 11:00 a.m.
Stacy Wood, PhD Candidate; Teaching Assistant, Department of Information Studies, University of California
“Archives, Data, and Evidence: Information in and of Socio-technical systems”
In this talk, I will discuss research findings from a project entitled, Making Secret(s): The Infrastructure of Classified Information in which I employed infrastructure studies and critical multi-modal discourse analysis to interrogate the systems, standards and technologies that create and maintain official secrecy within the United States Department of Defense. This work hinges on central concepts within the archival field concerning accountability, transparency and preservation while examining the challenges presented by both new and ongoing partnerships between government entities and private corporations that are now implicated in the production, circulation and preservation of public data. Then I address the ways in which the results of this study led to the development of both current and future projects examining records within socio-technical systems in policing, specifically looking at police body-worn cameras, open data initiatives and emergent surveillance technologies such as the “Stingray.” Each of these projects lays the groundwork for future data scientists, digital stewards and data librarians to engage with ethical archival work.
Thursday, March 30
10:00 a.m.
IS Building, 3rd Floor Theatre
Coffee with the speaker will be at 11:00 a.m.
Jennifer Stevenson, Adjunct Instructor, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin
“Big Archival Data”
Archival science is quickly evolving. No longer do archivists have a span of time before information is entering the archive on new media. Digital information is being lost at a very quick rate, and if archivists are unable to adopt new practices that integrate data monitoring and storage, an entire generation of electronic material could be lost. Understanding the data around us allows us to engage with the world in new ways. My research identifies problems that can be solved and the process made more efficient by using data analytics and visualizations. Identified problems are solved by gathering data sets and organizing those points in a way that information can be extrapolated, which ultimately leads to a better understanding of the problem at hand.
Tuesday, March 28
10:00 a.m.
IS Building, 3rd Floor Theatre
Coffee with the speaker will be at 11:00 a.m.
Marika Cifor, PhD Candidate; Teaching Associate, Department of Information Studies, University of California
“Archives, Affect, and Activism: Advancing Critical Information and Computing Scholarship and Practice”
Through archives, records, and data produced within digital cultures individuals and communities marginalized by sexuality, race, class, gender, and HIV status enact and give substance to their identities, collective memories, and social movements. In her talk Marika Cifor will discuss her project, “‘Your Nostalgia is Killing Me’: Activism, Affect, and the Archives of HIV/AIDS.” This archival ethnography examines the critical potential of the emotions and memories recorded and produced by archives documenting 1980s and 1990s HIV/AIDS activism in the United States. Cifor will also consider the use and reuse of activist archives through digital humanities scholarship, and in the work of contemporary activists and artists. These projects contribute to the critical development of the skills and knowledge that students and professionals require to ethically and critically advance information science and computing research and to design information and computing systems, technologies, practices, and policies.
Thursday, March 23
10:00 a.m.
IS Building, 3rd Floor Theatre
Coffee with the speaker will be at 11:00 a.m.
Brian Real, PhD, Information Studies, University of Maryland
“Archives, Communities, and Communities of Practice”
This presentation provides an overview of my research interests in Information Studies, a primary focus of which is demonstrating the practical value of archival studies to communities and communities of practice. Beginning with my dissertation project on the impact of federal public policy on the historical development of motion picture archives and preservation, I will discuss my plans to turn this into a book project. My knowledge of nontheatrical filmmaking, as developed through my dissertation, has expanded into plans for digital humanities projects on connections between filmmakers, as well as the understanding needed to guide these content creators in the personal digital archiving of their own work.
Teaching personal archiving is also connected to my other research interest in rural public libraries. Using my background in this field as both practitioner and researcher, I am developing a project to train rural librarians in community archiving, allowing them to document the history and development of their service areas during times of significant change.
This overview of my research concludes with the discussion how my background in outreach and advocacy makes me well suited for these efforts and why the School of Information and Computing at the University of Pittsburgh is the right place to pursue these projects.
