The Espy Project

Enabling New Access to Archival Materials

Gregory Wiedeman

University Archivist

University at Albany, SUNY

@gregwiedeman

National Death Penalty Archives at UAlbany

Computational Analysis and the Death Penalty

• Furman v. Georgia (1972)
• Gregg v. Georgia, etc. (1976)
• Marvin Wolfgang and Marc Riedel Study (1973) and Maxwell v. Bishop
• David Baldus-led Georgia Study
• McCleskey v. Kemp (1987)
  • Found “racially disproportionate impact”
  • invalidated statistical analysis for 14th amendment
• Batson v. Kentucky (1986)
• Miller-El v. Dretke (2005)

Executions in the U.S. 1608-2002: The Espy File

• University of Alabama project funded by NSF (1984)
• Found over 15,000 executions by the state since Colonial Jamestown
  • Espy not confident in coding practices
  • Blackman and McLaughlin, “The Espy File on American Executions: User Beware” Homicide Studies 15(3) (2011)
• Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
  • They are nice

Larger Problems

• Archives typically do not provide this level of access
  • Don’t have systems to support
• Collecting problems for University Archives
  • State retention schedule
  • “Decentralized” (mostly non-existent) records management
  • 18,000 student, 1,200+ faculty university
  • Need to demonstrate value to university offices

Establishing a Collecting Program

Establishing a Collecting Program

Establishing a Collecting Program

Establishing a Collecting Program

Maintenance

• Scripts break over time
  • No more ad-hoc approaches
  • No more XML data stores
• Network of well-maintained interoperable tools

API Access Allows Maintainable Workflows

Espy Metadata Creation Tool

• Samvera and Hyrax is Rails application
• “Ramp up” plan for repository implementation and maintenance
• Developed Espy Metadata Creation Tool
• Makes connections between 4 difference sources
  • Small Index Cards
  • Large Index Cards
  • Reference Material
  • Espy File data from ICPSR
• Create new Espy Records backed by Data Model
• Make the computer do the boring work
• Focus on intellectual process of metadata creation

Metadata Matters

• “Crime Committed” changed to “Crime Convicted”
• Race does not conform to an established standard
• General Data Improvements
  • Added Date of Conviction to Date of Execution
  • ISO dates
  • First and last name in individual fields
  • Altered Place of Execution and Jurisdiction
  • Sex to become Gender
  • Feedback welcome!

Linked Data Problems

• Hard to find vocabularies with sufficient precision
• Create one?
  • Access to expertise, School of Criminal Justice, Advisory Board
• Issues with digital archival objects as well
• Archives have a fundamental mission conflict with linked data
  • Archives is a system to manage objects with minimal metadata
  • Archives offer information in context, not objective/verifiable data

Access is Important

No More Finding Aids

• Need to demonstrate value to university offices
• Archives access is esoteric
  • Crypic signposts
  • “What Does Scope and Content MEAN???!” (Scheir, 2005, p.72)
• Archives have always been a compromise between usability and scale

An Interoperable Repository with APIs

The Espy Project

Enabling New Access to Archival Materials

Gregory Wiedeman

University Archivist

University at Albany, SUNY

@gregwiedeman