Ensuring long term access to digital information sounds like a technical problem. It seems like digital preservation should be a computer science problem. Far from it. In this lecture Trevor Owens, a digital archivist at the Library of Congress argues that digital preservation is in fact a core problem and issue at the heart of the future of the digital humanities. Bringing together perspectives from the history of technology, new media studies, public history, and archival theory, he suggests the critical role that humanities scholars and practitioners should play in framing and shaping the collection, organization, description, and modes of access to the historically contingent digital material records of contemporary society.
Trevor Owens, Digital Archivist, Library of Congress
Tuesday, March 18
11:00 a.m.
Information Sciences Building | Third Floor
135 N. Bellefield Avenue
Trevor Owens is a Digital Archivist with the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) in the Office of Strategic Initiatives at the Library of Congress. At the Library of Congress, he works on the open source Viewshare cultural heritage collection visualization tool, as a member of the communications team, and as the co-chair for the National Digital Stewardship Alliance’s Infrastructure working group. Before joining the Library of Congress he worked for the Center for History and New Media and before that managed outreach for the Games, Learning, and Society Conference. He has a BA in the History of Science from the University of Wisconsin, an MA in American History from George Mason University and is currently finishing his doctorate in Research Methods in George Mason University’s College of Education and Human Development. http://trevorowens.org