Mobile Archives Collaboratory (MAC)

Classroom sessions in the Mobile Archives Collaboratory are flexible. They can be tailored to fit the needs of your course or event. No matter material your group is digitizing, there are four concrete learning objectives that library instructors will include. These standard learning outcomes for classroom session are:

• Identify and explain how physical materials become part of a digital archive, recognizing all aspects of the digital object lifecycle including capture, description, storage, migration, and discovery;
• Compose descriptive metadata records for digitized items based on industry best practice while recognizing and accounting for cultural differences;
• Analyze and reflect on a digitized item as a primary source and research item;
• Demonstrate digital stewardship best practices in a research environment

These learning objectives are designed to help students and researchers understand the practice, possibilities, and limitations of digitization so that they may enter the academic landscape as informed researchers.

Community Archiving Workshops are exciting learning opportunities for classes and groups interested in using the MAC without a specific research project in mind. During Community Archiving Workshops, participants bring in an item of personal or familial significance that they will digitize during the session. Examples of these items include: family photos or negatives, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, worn items (like hats or jewelry), or diaries. The possibilities are endless! Participants will learn to create digital surrogates of their items according to archival best practice. Once participants have digitized their materials, they will learn to describe them according to digital archives standards (see the video on the left for an example). They will also learn to interrogate the systematic injustices that have long plagued the field of library and archival science through improper description. Finally, students will have the option to include their archival item in Broome Library's growing Community Archive.

Broome Library has a variety of rich archival collections, not all of which are digitized. If your course or group would like to utilize a particular collection for a research project, the MAC can be used to assist while participants build skills with learning objectives listed above. During these sessions, students will digitize materials that they can then use for research later in their coursework. Research sessions like these also include further information about performing archival research efficiently at other research libraries and archives.

If you are looking for a way to incorporate service learning into your course or group activity, using the MAC holds endless possibilities. With a variety of library collections that need digitization, students and groups can work collaboratively to digitize collection materials during a single class period or over an full semester. Digitization service learning projects not only teach the basic learning objectives listed above, but provide greater access and accessibility to collections house at Broome Library.