Pre-Conference Workshops

Wednesday, May 17, 2017
at JUMP (Jack's Urban Meeting Place) 
See registration details with each workshop description

Arrangement and Description of Audiovisual Materials (SAA)

Instructor: Megan McShea
Wed. May 17 - 9:00 am - 5:00 pm  (lunch break noon - 1:00) at JUMP
This course is open to the public and requires registration and payment through SAA. 
Minimum enrollment is 18. Limited to 35 participants.

In this full day SAA course you will learn how to arrange and describe archival sound, video, and film materials found in mixed-media archival collections. In the morning you'll focus on understanding archival audiovisual media with sections on format identification, evaluating content, and assessing institutional capacity for providing access for researchers. In the afternoon, you'll examine processing procedures in depth, including pre-processing assessment of archival audiovisual materials, intellectual and physical arrangement, describing audiovisual materials in EAD according to DACS, and strategies for processing audiovisual materials at minimal, intermediate, and full levels of processing. Information and registration for this workshop are here. 

The Basics of Digital Preservation

Instructor: Erin Baucom, The University of Montana
9:00 am - 12:00 pm at JUMP
This workshop is free, but you must reserve a spot when you register for the conference.
Limited to 25 participants.

Participants will learn about the basics of digital preservation and how to disseminate this information to colleagues, volunteers and donors. This half-day workshop will center on practical steps that can be taken to start the process of digital preservation, which do not require a high level of technical knowledge. Gain hands-on experience with file management (standardized file/folder naming, preservation level file types, embedded metadata), transfer of digital resources (retrieving files from storage media, moving files from legacy systems to new storage, moving files safely within the current storage environment) and digital preservation planning (creating a plan, documenting resources used for digital preservation, keeping track of usernames and passwords, creating a preservation workflow). At the end of the workshop, you will be able to understand, perform and teach the basic steps of file management and storage that are the first steps toward digital preservation.

Preserving Western Voices on the Web

Instructor: Lori Donovan, Internet Archive
1:00 pm - 5:00 pm at JUMP
This workshop is free, but you must reserve a spot when you register for the conference.
Limited to 25 participants.

With the advent of the internet, content that archivists once preserved in physical formats is now web-based, and new avenues for information sharing, interaction and record-keeping are fundamentally changing how the history of the 21st century will be studied. Due to the transient nature of web content, much of this information is at risk. This half-day workshop will cover the basics of web archiving, help attendees identify content of interest to them and their communities, and give them an opportunity to interact with tools that assist with the capture and preservation of web content. Attendees will gain hands-on web archiving skills, insights into selection and collecting policies for web archives and how to apply what they've learned in the workshop to their own organizations.

Photo credit: Idaho State Historical Society, P62-20-0072s, R. Harold Sigler