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Capturing Caribbean Life & Culture. Jeff Barry Director, Digital Library Programs & Technology University of Miami. …another perspective…. Experiencing Caribbean life & culture through digital media. Overview. Miami and the Caribbean University of Miami’s Digital Library
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Capturing Caribbean Life & Culture Jeff Barry Director, Digital Library Programs & Technology University of Miami
…another perspective… Experiencing Caribbean life & culture through digital media.
Overview • Miami and the Caribbean • University of Miami’s Digital Library • Caribbean Literary Studies • Faculty Collaborations
Miami & the Caribbean • Commonalities & differences • Diaspora • Relationship to Latin America
University of Miami’sDigital Library • Cuban Heritage Collection Digital • Digital Media Lab • Caribbean initiatives • Imagebase • Faculty Fellows
Caribbean Digital Initiatives • CHC Digital • Caribbean Literary Studies • Archivo Teatral Cubano • Moderate Cuban Politics, 1952-65 • Balseros: Cuban Rafting Crisis
Digital Media Lab A centralized facility in the library for exploring the potential to enhance instruction and research through digital audio and video. Staffing: full-time lab manager, student assistants Equipment: 4 digital audio/video editing workstations & 4 digital imaging workstations
Streaming media • The library (quietly) manages streaming media services for the University. • 2001: Streaming media server donated to library by School of Communication. • 2004: Support RealNetworks & Windows streaming media, exploring QuickTime support.
It’s about CONTENT! • Enormous potential for universities to capture intellectually vibrant events on campus via digital media. • What role can/do/should libraries play in acquiring and managing this content? • Relationship to university archives? To institutional repositories?
Collaboration with Caribbean Literary Studies • Caribbean Writers’ Summer Institute • Video Archives • Electronic Journal
Caribbean Writers’ Summer Institute • 1991-1996 • Initially funded by James Michener • Directed by Sandra Paquet • Video recording by School of Communication
Caribbean Writers • Kamau Brathwaite & George Lamming, co-directors of first Caribbean writers institute. • Over 400 video files online featuring notable writers, scholars as well as emerging authors.
Caribbean Literary Video Archives • Expand content beyond writers’ institute (91-96) • Continuing series of readings, conferences. • Oonya Kempadoo, fall 2003
Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal • Peer reviewed, bi-annual • First issue: fall 2003 • Second issue: April 2004 • Library provides server space, technological assistance, and guidance on e-publishing
Dealing with Pagination in Anthurium • Citations in literary criticisms refer to a specific page number. • How to deal with this issue in an electronic only publication that has no “pages”. • Followed example of paragraph numbering in Postmodern Culture
But are they paragraphs or endnotes? Where’s the article! • Paragraph numbering is not common and can lead to confusion among readers. • Anthurium’s 2nd issue adopts a different display scheme for paragraph numbering.
“Namsetoura & the Companion Stranger” • Original work by Kamau Brathwaite prepared specifically for Anthurium. • Brathwaite utilizes a textual style that he developed, “video sycorax”. • Despite wanting all pages of Anthurium to be in HTML, we opted to display “Namsetoura” in PDF (84 pages).
Multi-layer Framework Interpretive: Repurposing of content by scholars into works of new scholarship exhibit documentary narrative Access: Search & retrieval Repository: digital objects (item/metadata in filesystem)
Primary lesson learned The collaboration with the Caribbean Literary Studies group has worked well due to the vision of a professor who championed the projects and the tireless commitment of grad students.
Digital Library Fellows • Three faculty projects selected a year. • Provide extensive technological support, work space in library, and $15,000 (could be used for stipend, grad assistants, research travel, etc).
Conclusion • Find inspiring faculty & give them resources. …foster & nurture…