Presentations

2024

WARC your Email: How Web Archives Works for Email Preservation

2024 January 26 Society of American Archivists Web Archives Section Coffee Chat (remote)

Preserving email is a challenge. Not only are there proprietary and loosely structured formats, but CSS or image content within email might be hosted on external servers. PDFs are useful for access, but the lack...

2023

About Archives & Special Collections

2023 September 27 IST 601 The Information Environment

Guest class on archives and special collections for UAlbany's IST 601 The Information Environment.

Unsustainability and Retrenchment in American University Web Archives Programs

2023 May 12 International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC) 2023, Hilversum, Netherlands

This presentation, co-authoed with Amanda Greenwood, overviewed the expansion and later retrenchment of UAlbany’s web archives program due to a lack of permanently funded staff. We found that web archives can be really wasteful and...

2022

Hands-On Email Preservation with Mailbag

2022 October 12 NDSA Digipres 2022

This workshop will walked participants though installing and running the Mailbagit tool to package email into a mailbag while automatically generating derivatives formats that are compatible with existing tools and workflows. Participants were encouraged to...

Technology Strategy for Archives (TS4A) Launch Meeting

2022 October 11 Digital Library Federation (DLF) Forum 2022

The Technical Strategy for Archives Working Group (TS4A) is a new community supporting archives and technology workers, management and leadership originating in the Lighting the Way Project. In this meeting, invited interested DLF attendees to...

2021

The Mailbag Project and Building Digital Preservation Tools Around Filesystems

2021 December 6 Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) Fall Meeting (remote)

CNI project update on the Mailbag project and how specifications and filesystems can bridge artificial divides in digital preservation labor

Mailbag: A Stable Package for Email in Multiple Formats

2021 October 22 iPres 2021 (remote)

Mailbag project update at the 17th International Conference on Digital Preservation (iPres), Beijing, China

Functional Specifications for Mailbag and DigiPres

2021 October 14 BitCurator Users Forum (remote)

Talk at the 2021 BitCurator Users Forum on the Mailbag project and how functional specifications can bridge artificial divides in digital preservation labor

Web Archives and Maintenance Inflation

2021 September 29 Archive-It Annual Partner meeting (remote)

Talk I gave with Amanda Greenwood at the Archive-It Partner Meeting on maintaining web archives.

Preserving Email in Multiple Formats: An Overview of the Mailbag Project

2021 September 21 CoSA SERI webinar (remote)

Hour-long webinar for Council of State Archivists (CoSA) State Electronic Records Initiative (SERI) webinar series

Mailbag: A Stable Package for Email in Multiple Formats

2021 July 26 SAA 2021 (remote)

Mailbag project update at Society of American Archivists (SAA) 2021 Annual Meeting.

Systems for Digital Archives

2021 June 10 Milli Sessions 2021 (remote)

Overview of systems for digital archvies I gave at Milli Sessions 2021 International Archives Week, Milli Consortium (India)

From EAD to a Common Data Model

2021 June 4 Quo vadis, EAD? (remote)

I talk I gave at the Society American Archivists (SAA) Technical Subcommittee on Encoded Archival Standards (TS-EAS) event, “Quo vadis, EAD?”

How to Use Github to Engage with DACS

2021 May 18 SAA 2021 TS-DACS Annual Business Meeting (remote)

Overview of how TS-DACS uses Github for the Technical Subcommittee on Describing Archives: A Content Standard (TS-DACS) Annual Business Meeting at the Society of American Archivists (SAA) 2021 Annual Meeting.

Mailbag: A Stable Package for Email in Multiple Formats

2021 May 18 Best Practices Exchange (remote)

Mailbag project update at Best Practices Exchange Annual Unconference

Mailbag: A Stable Package for Email with Multiple Masters

2021 March 15 Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) Spring Meeting (remote)

Overview of of the Mailbag Project which aims to draft a specification and create an open source tool for preserving email archives using multiple formats, such as MBOX, PDF, and WARC.

2020

Didn’t we do this already? Better ways of thinking and doing "finding aid" aggregation

2020 June 12 NYAC 2020

This was my talk on archival description aggregation for NYAC 2020 which became virtual due to the COVID-19 crisis. I briefly overview some current archival aggregation efforts and show how archivists have been attempting to...

Integrating ArchivesSpace and ArcLight

2020 May 12 Integrations with ArchivesSpace Webinars

For ArchivesSpace’s intergrations webinar series I talk about UAlbany’s integration of ArchivesSpace and ArcLight. UAlbany implemented ArcLight in March 2019 to provide access to archival description. This instance relies on integrations with ArchivesSpace for creating...

How do we do that? Implementing Web Systems in Archives

2020 February 24 CAA Unconference 2020

(With Mark Wolfe) Over the past few years, UAlbany has implemented ArchivesSpace, ArcLight, Hyrax, and a number of other smaller systems. We do a quick demo of how these systems work and overview the choices...

2019

Description and Acquisitions in the University Archives

2019 November 11 IST 656 Archives & Manuscripts

Guest class for UAlbany’s graduate Archives and Manuscript course, which is part of the MSIS curriculum.

Introduction to Python and ArchviesSnake for Archivists

2019 August 2 METRO and ArchivesSpace User Forum

Introduction to Python and ArchivesSnake for Archivists Workshop METRO Library Council, 2019 May 30 ArchivesSpace User Forum, 2019 August 2 Setup instructions for Python 3 and ArchivesSnake Part 1: Introduction [Slides] Part 2: Syntax [Slides]...

Did You Know About the Archives?

2019 April 6 UAlbany BIG Event Short Takes

Overview of archives for a UAlbany community building event.

Теам компромат: Websites of the Former Soviet Union & Eastern Europe

2019 March 22 Archives Unleashed Washington, DC

Team Project for Archives Unleashed Datathon at George Washington University. We looked at how the national webs of former Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries linked to each other and to other national domains....

Providing Computational Access to Records of American Capital Punishment

2019 February 20 Code4Lib 2019

Code4Lib 2019 talk on the challenges of providing computational access to the Espy Papers, including presenting the material in context and the metadata empathetically.

2018

Description and Access in the University Archives

2018 October 9 IST 656 Archives & Manuscripts

Guest class for UAlbany’s MSIS Archives and Manuscript course

Challenges and Conflicts of Linked Data in Archives

2018 August 16 SAA 2018 Washington DC

Talk that askes if publishing Linked Data conflicts with the mission of archives. Part of SAA 2018 Session 303: Progress (and Pitfalls) of Linked Data Projects.

Describing Web Archives with the Partner Data API

2018 August 14 2018 Archive-It Partner Meeting

Talk at the Archive-It Partner Meeting on using DACS and archvial practices to describe web archives using the Partner Data API.

Processing Born-Digital Images at Scale

2018 August 1 NDSA Content Interest Group

Remote talk for the NDSA Content Interest Group looking back on processing born-digital images at scale, maintenance issues, and building infrastructure.

The Espy Project: Enabling New Access to Archival Materials

2018 April 12 Coalition for Networked Information (CNI)

CNI project report on providing API access to data from a digitization project and using that technology to rework our university records collecting system.

The Espy Project: Building Digital Infrastructure

2018 March 1 University Libraries PAC

Talk I gave on the Espy Project and how its helping us build technology for collecting university records for our library’s Professional Activities Committee.

2017

Git and Github for Archives

2017 November 9 NYLA 2017

Short workshop on Git and Github that Mark Wolfe and I gave at the New York Library Association (NYLA) Annual Conference

Documenting the Macabre: The Espy Project

2017 October 28 MARAC Fall 2017

My part of our 2017 MARAC panel on the National Death Penalty Archives, “Documenting the Macabre.”

Challenges of Digital Archives at UAlbany

2017 October 23 Capital Area Archivists

A talk I gave to a Capital Area Archives (CAA) event on UAlbany’s Downtown Campus about born-digital archives

Data Analytics Approaches for Web Archives

2017 October 11 UAlbany Advanced Data Analytics Lightning Talks Series

Talk on potential research uses of web archives for UAlbany’s Data Analytics Lightning Talks series

University Archives in Practice at UAlbany

2017 October 10 IST 656 Archives & Manuscripts

Guest class for UAlbany’s MSIS Archives and Manuscript course

Beyond Finding Aids: New Approaches to Archival Description

2017 July 28 SAA 2017 Portland

Our SAA 2017 panel on rethinking finding aids for presenting archival description on the web

Describing Web Archives: Automating Access with APIs and ArchivesSpace

2017 June 15 International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC) 2017 London

Talk about using DACS to describe web archives, and authomating the process with APIs

Link Ranking in Web Archives

2017 June 14 Archives Unleashed 4.0 London

Our group’s winning project for Archives Unleashed 4.0 datathon at the British Library

Providing Basic Access to Web Archives Provenance Data

2017 June 12 Archives Unleashed 4.0 London

Lightning Talk at Archives Unleashed 4.0 at the British Library

Pragmatic Processing: Diverse Approaches to Different Collections

2017 June 8 NYAC 2017

Into to a panel I chaired on pragmatic/extensible processing for the 2017 New York Archives Conference in Utica, NY

Born-Digital Records in Practice at UAlbany

2017 April 24 IST 547 Electronic Records Management

Guest class for Electronic Records Management graduate course.

What's a Digital Archivist?

2017 April 21 MARAC Spring 2017

Talk at MARAC Newark on the differences between “Digital Archivists” and IT Professionals

Automating Web Archives Records in ASpace

2017 February 21 National Symposium on Web Archiving Interoperability

Short talk at National Symposium on Web Archiving Interoperability (WASAPI) Symposium at the Internet Archive

2016

No More Finding Aids: A New Frontend for Special Collections & Archives at UAlbany

2016 December 5 New England Code4Lib

Presentation at New England Code4Lib in Amherst, MA that argues the finding aid as a concept is no longer useful.

APIs, WARCS, and NPL: How Technology has Created New Opportunities for Historical Research

2016 November 17 Researching New York 2016

Presentation at Researching New York/Conference on New York State History in Albany, NY

Updating Web Archives Extents/Dates Using the ASpace API and Archive-It CDX

2016 October 17 Beyond the Basics ArchivesSpace Skill Share

Talk and hands-on workshop at Beyond the Basics ArchivesSpace Skill Share, Philadelphia, PA

SIP Your Pics: an almost-OAIS workflow for 180,000 images

2016 August 4 SAA 2016 Atlanta

Part of a panel on processing born-digital photographs for the SAA Annual Meeting 2016 in Atlanta.

A Sustainable, Large-Scale, Minimal Approach to Accessing Web Archives

2016 August 2 2016 Archive-It Partner Meeting

Talk for the Archive-It Partner’s meeting on automating access to Web Archives in finding aids using Archive-It’s CDX API

Marcia Brown at the State College for Teachers (1936-1940)

2016 April 8 Celebrating the Life of an Artist

Talk I gave on the college experience of Marcia Brown. A renowned author and illustrator of children’s books, Marcia Brown attended UAlbany’s predecessor–the State College for Teachers–in the late 1930s. Here she earned a teaching...

How to Metadata

2016 March 24 IST 653 Digital Libraries

Guest lecture for graduate Digital Libraries class on metadata in practice. I focus on serialized metadata outside of systems and stress the importance of metadata standards–and particularly–metadata controls. Students got hands-on experience with some basic...

Transferring Records to the Archives with ANTS

2016 March 9 Code4Lib 2016

Lightning talk that presents ANTS: Archives Network Transfer System, discusses the need for transfer tools, and problems that will be needed to overcome.

Auto Upload and On-Demand Digitization

2016 January 21 METRO 2016

Discusses AutoUpload, a python script that employs semantic identifiers in EAD files and strict rule-based validation to enable archives to sustainably upload digital objects for scanning requests.

2015

Managing Descriptive Metadata with Open XML... For Now

2015 August 15 SAA Collection Managment Roundtable

I talked about standardizing descriptive metadata before the move to ArchivesSpace, using custom tools for consistant creation, strict rule-based validation, and on-demand digitization.

Effective Metadata Systems for Archives: EAD and Unified Collection Management Systems

2015 June 4 NYAC 2015

At NYAC I talked about some ideas that were floating around in my head about Archives metadata and how I started cleaning up our inconsistant finding aids.

Using XML Data with XQuery

2015 April 9 IST 538 Fundamentals of XML

Guest lesson I've given twice in Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 for a graduate XML class in the UAlbany Information Science program. Here I tried to get the class to understand how to make use...

2013

Lowell Thomas and American Cultural Knowledge of Palestine and Arabia

2013 March 16 Northeastern University Graduate History Conference

This was a talk I gave while writing my MA thesis. There's a lot of good observations and details here, as well as things that make me cringe. The description of this knowledge-structure-building as merely...