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Tensions Between Archivists and 'Occupy' Protesters Over Preserving the Movement

Posted by samzenpus on from the high-water-mark dept.

An anonymous reader writes "At one point an NYU librarian literally got into a shouting match with a protester at an Occupy protest, trying to make the case for why a digital record should be kept of photos, videos, audio recordings, posters, and other materials, so future scholars and activists can recount what happened. Academics are taking unusual steps to preserve the protesters' stuff, including 'distributing postcards promoting archiving at protests, developing automated systems to download photos posted online, and asking participants to vote on which images are most important for the historic record.'"

2 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Tons of ephmemeria by Animats · · Score: 4, Informative

    Organizing that stuff is hard work. Work continues getting 1960s protest info cataloged. Stanford had a group trying to organize Martin Luther King's stuff. That took years. Then they got the archives of the Black Panther Party, and are now grinding through that. The archives of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) are at Kent State.

    Much of the plder stuff is too variable for fast scanning. Somebody has to put posters, handouts, and brochures through a flatbed, slowly. The fast book scanners need more structure.

  2. Re:There is already enough material by anonicon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Technically, you're correct. However, the coverage the protests received from Big Media are also copyrighted to Big Media, which puts it outside the financial range of individuals who want to use that coverage without paying for very expensive per-item licensing fees.

    For example, I'm personally aware that the University of Kentucky archives contacted CBS to get a 6 minute video clip of their basketball team in action from 1998 to include within a larger documentary about UK's sports history. CBS said it would cost about $10,000 for that one clip. The story's the same for other copyrighted history like the 1979 Who tragedy in Cincinnati, Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, and countless other historical events.

    The NYU archivists know this, and it's why they can't count on Big Media - they have to do it themselves.