capturing the zeitgeist

Capturing the ZeitgeistCapturing the Zeitgeist

Gretchen GueguenDigital Archivist10/09/2012

June 10, 2012

• Teresa A. Sullivan announces resignation…

…Gretchen M. Gueguen, Digital Archivist at Uva, prepares to attend Rare Book School the next day

June 11 -14

• Reactions grow increasingly vocal around Grounds as both town & gown become suspicious of the motives and actions of the Board of Visitors…

…Meanwhile, Gretchen Gueguen turns OFF her computer in order to fully pay attention to her RARE BOOK SCHOOL class about the NINETEENTH CENTURY BOOK TRADE

June 18, 2012

• Decision is made to form a cross-departmental group within the library to discuss saving the historic record related to these events

• University Archives: already decided to attend the first rally in order to collect signs, have been in touch with faculty senate

• Digital Curation Services: convening meetings to discuss coordinating activities and outreach

• Scholar’s Lab: creates Omeka-based digital collection where any one can contribute material related to the events

• University Records Manager: consults with group about her activities/buried in FOIA requests

… and the Digital Archivist is increasingly interested in nineteenth century illustration techniques!

At 9:00 a.m. on July 19th…

me

What’s the Big Deal?

• Digital is THE publishing platform• “Twitter Revolution”• Event was important for both the

historic nature of the events (message) but also HOW it was communicated (medium)

Springing into action

• Twitter• Blogs and Web• Facebook• News• Video

Twitter API

• Allows you to download tweets as data for a given hashtag, user, or keyword search (#woo-hoo!)

• Has many tools available for doing all kinds of neat stuff (#woo-hoo!)

• Limits you to just the last 1500 tweets for any given search (#d’oh!)

Goals for Twitter Archive

1. Find a good tool for finding and saving tweets

2. Figure out how to get the oldest possible tweets related to these events

3. Figure out what people are posting and linking to via twitter

1. Find a good tool…

• The Archivist

• RSS reader

• Google docs script

The Archivist

• Benefits:– XML and tab-delimited– Searches both tweet and username

• Drawbacks:– Limited data captured (tweet and user,

but not geotag (if used), in reply to, etc.)–Would only capture when opened

RSS Feed

• Benefit– Passive collection of tweets

• Drawback– Unsure if data can be exported and in

what format– Some readers don’t collect if they aren’t

open leading to missing tweets

Info at:http://mashe.hawksey.info/2011/11/twitter-how-to-archive-event-hashtags-and-visualize-conversation/

TAGS Google Spreadsheet

• Benefits– Passive collection at all times– Spreadsheet format that can be exported–Most complete data retrieval of all tools

• Drawbacks– Can crash if it gets too full– Given volume during the height of the

crisis had to export and delete from live version once per day

2. Older tweets

• Major hash tags: #UVA, #BOV, #Sullivan

• Lesser used: #BOVfail, #dragasmustgo, #rally4honor, #whatthebovisdoing

• Specific profiles: @SivaVaid, @LarrySabato, @facultySen, @CavDaily, @WUVAonline

– Parody profiles: @HelenDragas, @RectorIvanDrago, @RectorDrogo, @DragasMemes

3. Posted content

• Links, pictures, video related to the story

• Could not find a tool to just extract these to look through later

• Many shortened links that had to be clicked on to find out what they held

• Many links were retweeted

http://cat.www.virginia.edu.meowbify.com

Blogs and other web content

• How to capture everything else• Tools for web capture– Difficult to implement– Don’t do exactly what is needed– I’m running out of time!

• Solution:– I have to look at it anyway to select, so• Firefox “Save As”• Screengrab plugin for screenshot

Facebook & “Privacy”

• Rallies on grounds were organized through Facebook “groups.”

• Some posts are visible only to members of the group.

All others are only visible to those with a Facebook account.

Facebook & Privacy

• Facebook accounts are free

• But my Facebook account was my personal account

News

• Relatively easy to capture• Overwhelming in volume• Why capture the online version?

– Some things only appear online, some only in print

– Online version, for many sources, allows commenting

• Why capture this when it will be saved elsewhere?– Reference collection– Databases may capture content but not

commentary

Subscriptions

Audio/Video

• YouTube • News• WINA podcast• WUVA streaming• Streaming Board

Meetings• Public Affairs

User Contributions

• Capture what the public thought was important

• Possible violations of privacy or intellectual property

Final Tally

• Tweets: 80,000

• News articles: 572

• Blog posts: 147

• Other web content: 196

• Twitter pictures: 243

• Video: 69

• Documents: 21

• User-Contributed Items: 118

What’s Next?

• Filling in some collection gaps• Collection finding aid• Working with OLE and

others to try and get into repository and ensure digital preservation

• Likely, reading room only access for much of the content