To Whom it may Concern:
My Interviewee has decided to drop out of this assignment at the last minute due to time restraints within the institution.
I will need to have notification of participation no later than 9/28/21, and Initial Interviews conducted by 10/05/21, with follow-ups throughout October.
My name is Samantha Wilkinson, I am reaching out to you today to inquire about possible interest from your institution in participating in my Managing Digital Information in Museums and Archives Data Interview course assignment through Johns Hopkins University. I am a Museum Studies Graduate student, dually enrolled in the Digital Curation Certificate program. I would greatly appreciate the insight and the opportunity to learn from a professional in the field. I am happy to send over my resume and experience, a professor contact, or a letter of recommendation if you wish.
The following is a description of the assignment requirements:
Directions:
Conduct an information interview with the contact you have made in a museum. Preferably, this will be a person working with collections information and objects, and producing digital information. We are trying to reach beyond the comparatively well-controlled documentation of a well-run collections management department. You should expect these interviews to be lengthy and detailed. Interviewees should be forewarned that this is a fairly significant commitment of time, anywhere from 3 to 6 hours over a few weeks. Our assignments and exercises are directed toward the creation of a mock but applicable digital curation plan.
The Interview will cover these topics:
- The organizational structure and specifically the responsibilities within the organization for data management
- Description of the Collection.
- Relevant Characteristics of Digital Objects.
- Current Practices and Obligations..
- Human Resources.
- Organizational readiness.
- Financial Constraints and Technical Constraints.
To recap: preferably this will be a person working with collections information and objects, and producing digital information.
1. The organizational structure and specifically the responsibilities within the organization for data management.
2. Description of the Collection. Given you will be interviewing just one person, or at best a small number, the description of the collection will be constrained by the perspective of your interviewee(s).
3. Relevant Characteristics of Digital Objects. This is where your informant/interviewee will be most knowledgeable. What is most important in the digital information they produce? What is not important about the digital information (e.g. format). This is where we begin identifying the "essential elements" of digital objects that are to be preserved.
4. Current Practices and Obligations. How are digital assets handled currently? What is recognized as a digital asset, and who does the recognizing? Are all similar types of assets handled in the same way, or does it vary by department or by person? In your interviews, you're looking for evidence of how things actually get done. Later on, this information will inform your development of policy.
5. Human Resources. This is the counterpoint to Current Practices and Obligations. Who does what?
6. Organizational readiness. This is a qualitative assessment of where an organization is at, both in terms of preservation and in terms of general information management. Who decides what gets "preserved?" Who is responsible for tracking things like research notes, reports, correspondence (how is email dealt with?), images, and other types of unstructured information pertaining to different business processes in the museum?
7. Financial Constraints. This will not be a major concern of ours in this course, and for our purposes should be considered as a related aspect of Technical Constraints.
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Samantha Wilkinson
Education Programming Assistant
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit
Detroit MI
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