The first time the Digital Library Federation (DLF) held it’s DLF Forum outside the USA they decided to come to Vancouver. I was lucky enough to be on the Planning Committee for this wonderful event, present at, and attend DLF2015. The weather was glorious. The venue lovely, and the people amazing. Being surrounded by American accents all day gave the conference an out-of-town flavour for me! DLF forum is a conference that has a loyal following and the first conference I have encountered that sold out before the conference program was even announced!

DLF Forum (#DLFforum) was a packed event with up to five steams to choose from and often three presentations happening during ‘lunch break,’ one of which was an improv class where improv techniques were used to raise issues within digital scholarship – silly me went to an intense open source software workshop. The program as a whole included a mix of practical workshops, presentations and snapshot sessions, where presenters had seven minutes to present and two minutes for questions.

I would like to share just a few highlights from my conference experience with you.

I met Chris Bourg, Director of MIT Libraries. If you are the sort of twitter-user who follows intelligent and witty librarians who also describe themselves as: Sociologist. Feminist. Butch. Lesbian. Queer. Then do follow @mchris4duke. She is currently in charge of an exciting project at MIT planning the future of the libraries at MIT. This project relies heavily on student input. Check out Bourg’s blog, Feral Librarian, she’s much funnier than I am.

Bourg agreed to do a keynote for the DLF preconference only if the keynote would be collaborative and participatory and if she could invite her twitter friend Cecily Walker. Cecily is Vancouver Public Library’s Assistant Manager for Community Digital Initiatives & eLearning. She spoke to us about a project she was involved in that she ended up getting emotionally involved in; a project to preserve the Women’s Memorial March Quilt and make accessible the stories of the women who are missing or dead. The final project will be launching January 2016. Together Bourg and Walker reminded us that what we librarians do matters. They completely succeeded in getting the room to participate and set the tone for an exciting day.

@safiyanoble keynote should be required listening for all undergraduates! Power, Privilege and the Imperative to Act #DLFforum

— shannon m robinson (@shannonmtherese) October 26, 2015

Safia U. Noble @safiyanoble continued the trend and blew everyone’s minds with her keynote, “Power, Privilege, and the Imperative to Act.” Dr. Noble shared some of her research on search engines and the power wielded by the few who write the algorithms of what is seen and not seen by the public. She argues that Librarians play an important role in teaching and empowering other researchers to acknowledge that search results are never neutral.

https://twitter.com/paigecmorgan/status/658707096469266432

Lesson learned! Now I will always start presentations with my twitter handle!

Along with Mahria Lebow I gave a 7 minute Snapshot presentation called “Meaningless Metadata: Maintain the Trust of our Academic Communities.” We are both metadata geeks; ’nough said.

The Snapshot sessions were fun and very popular. In a seven minute presentation there is no time to be boring. The most interesting and relevant things people have to say is all that there is time for. My favourite Snapshots included:

• BigDIVA , a new way for Digital Humanities researchers to discover and curate digital artifacts. Presented by Timothy Duguid, Texas A&M University.
• Also out of Texas, Elizabeth Gushee, Harry Ransom Center, talked about their new fantastic open access policy. Project REVEAL, makes available 22,000 pages of manuscript content of some of the best-known names from American and English literature to be used for any purpose without restriction.
• The Provenance Online Project (POP) is a crowdsourcing initiative out of the University of Pennsylvania that is turning out to be very popular and actually answer some exciting research questions. Check out the POP flickr feed. Presented by Laura Aydelotte, University of Pennsylvania.
• And for you math-lovers, from our neighbours at UBC, YouTube for Mathematics (almost, but digitally preserved) – BIRS and UBC Collaborate to Create a Digitally Preserved Mathematical Video Archive, Presenter: Eugene Barsky, University of British Columbia. Lectures from the world’s best mathematical minds are turning out to be far more popular than initially anticipated when the team started to preserve these videos for the long term and make them available on YouTube.

Purdom Linblad presented her work on Take Back the Archive, an inspiring and challenging project out of the University of Virginia (UVa). The aim is to preserve, visualize, and contextualize the history of rape and sexual violence at UVa. Much like the Women’s Memorial March Quilt the project Take Back the Archive honors the individual stories of survivors. These will be preserved along with official documents of the university and newspaper articles. The biggest challenge is in sharing stories in a safe way, presenting the final website with all of the gathered materials in a manner that respects the survivors and challenges those complacent in the violence to examine their attitudes.

An interesting presentation on collaborating to bring the history of women in higher education together in one searchable portal, College Women, ended up generating a small amount of controversy. The project includes seven American women’s-only colleges. Known as the “Seven Sisters” they include: Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley Colleges, and the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. Even with their history of collaboration dating back to the late nineteenth century aligning metadata and approving design in a pilot project with only one-year’s worth of funding was challenging. Future steps will hopefully include reaching out to other women’s colleges. The audience at DLF immediately wondered why Spelman College, and other traditionally black women’s colleges were not invited to participate. Inclusion is an issue that the project team would like have the opportunity to address. A blog post about Vassar’s first black students shows the historic tensions that still reverberate today.

That just made my day: "whiteboard" listed as the most useful tool / tech to help with metadata management. #DLFforum

— Corey Harper (@chrpr) October 28, 2015

https://twitter.com/bembrarian/status/659076929614557184

Talking about digital preservation and metadata was what made me the happiest!

Of the workshops that I attended, my favourite was the one on Fedora 4; an open source software project that is a repository platform for the management and dissemination of digital content.

The four days that I attended DLF Forum 2015 to be inspiring and a little overwhelming. Major themes that emerged for me included enthusiasm for collaborations, open source, open access, supporting diversity and the importance of good and thoughtful communication.

If you need a break from end of semester stress check out the Cornell Hip Hop Collection! More than 500 party and event flyers from 1977-1984 will cheer you up. I promise.

Until the mid-nineteen eighties smoking around the BCIT campus was normal. The clean air policy was implemented, to some controversy, in September of 1986 and then delayed until the new year to allow staff and students time to get used to the idea or to quit smoking.

In the beginning smoking was fairly controlled at BCIT. The BCIT Student Information Brochure from 1964/65 included a section on smoking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the rainy months todays’ smokers, however, might have enjoyed being permitted to smoke in the hallways during class breaks. While by today’s standards the smoking policy was quite permissive some might find the section of student behaviour and dress very restrictive.

When the school first opened men were required to wear shirt and tie. I especially like the afterthought comments for the obviously not very well represented female students; “Women should be attired appropriately in accordance with the regulations for men. Slacks or shorts are not appropriate attire for women students.” (p. 15)

By the 1970s it appears that it was the norm to smoke (and eat) during lectures. That smoking and eating were prohibited in classrooms in the mid-1960s was a huge shock to students in 1978. A Link article from September 13, 1978 scoffs at the idea of not being able to smoke in the classroom. The writer even offers advice on constructing an astray from the foil liner of cigarette packages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Restrictions on smoking began to slowly creep in. In 1981 the pub created a non-smoking area.

The new Student Association Campus centre (SE16) opened in 1983 with a no smoking policy. A short quote from the article above demonstrates an open attitude toward the idea that smoking is not appropriate everywhere: “ I know that the campus centre was built for students, all students, however smoking is already permitted in most areas of the SAC (except for a small section in Growlies [the pub])…so if students do get the urge to ‘light up’ it is only a short distance to the nearest smoking area.”

BCIT’s Clean Air Policy was jump-started in January of 1985 after a petition from 30 staff members requested their office area be designated non-smoking. Shortly after their request, Dr. Barbara Copping, BCIT Medical Services Director asked the Health and Safety Committee to initiate an Institute smoking policy. After a year of gathering health and legal information the BCIT Smoking Policy Committee met. The committee consisted of smokers, nonsmokers, ex-smokers, students, teaching and support staff, managers and Health and Safety Committee members. The BCIT Smoking Policy Committee conducted a survey of staff and students to gauge attitudes towards smoking in shared spaces at BCIT. The results showed students (78%) and staff (90%) in favour of a formal policy restricting smoking at BCIT. The list of shared spaces that the majority of students thought should have no restrictions on smoking or designated areas included: entrances/foyers, student lounges, the cafeteria, the pub, and recreational areas. Of staff respondents over half thought it reasonable to have no restrictions or designated smoking and non-smoking area of staff lounges, cafeterias, and the staff dining room (staff were not surveyed about the pub).

The Clean Air Policy was implemented January 1, 1987. It has since been revised several times. If you are interested in the current smoking policy at BCIT you can find it here BCIT Policy no. 7501.

Despite the tantalizing cover, actual dirt, mould and rust were the dirtiest elements of this calendar. Although honestly the last page is rather frightening, more on that later. As I indicated in my previous post about the 1984 time capsule, there were a few items found not in the official time capsule, but nestled beside it. The items in the concrete cavity, beside the capsule, with only an unsealed plaque to block out the elements fared poorly. The above calendar was badly damaged after 30 years. Upon arrival at the Archives the calendar was damp, mouldy, warped, water and rust stained and many of the pages were stuck together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the calendar was in the BCIT Archives I put clean paper between the damp pages where I could and left it to dry in an archival box and folder for several weeks. Before the Christmas holidays, once I was sure the calendar was completely dry, I took the time to clean it. I was very careful as this is the only known copy. Because of the mould (now dry and relatively harmless) I wore a mask and handled the calendar wearing gloves. To clean I used chem sponges to clean the worst of the stains and a gentle Japanese brush to carefully remove dirt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once I carefully peeled back the pages and removed the rusty staples I got to see the photographs inside. The ladies kept it classy. The style was professional head-shot with name and chosen area of study rather than pin-up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the joys of being an Archivist in a small Archives is getting to do many different tasks. From reference services and arranging and describing the holdings to conservation and preservation work. I had a great deal of fun cleaning these pages for long term storage in the Archives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I mentioned that there was one image that was not so fun to clean. The ladies of BCIT kept it classy, not it would seem, the masked men of the 1985 survey class.*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you enjoyed this conservation post from the BCIT Archives! Ending on a classy note. Here is one more beautiful woman of BCIT and the back cover of the calendar which reads: A tribute to the beautiful [and intelligent] women at BCIT!

Unveiling the 1984 Time Capsule was part of BCIT’s 50th Anniversary celebrations, for upcoming events see the BCIT 50 Years website.

*Update! May 25, 2015: Through the attention this post has generated I learned the context of this addition to the calendar. The naked photograph of the survey class was in retaliation for a certain advertisement placed (by the Engineering students) in the December 5, 1984 issue of the Link Volume 19, Number 14. Someone in the print shop was friends with a Survey student. Unbeknownst to the Engineers and the women featured in the calendar, survey students were given access to a box of around 100 printed calendars to which they glued their unauthorized addition. Everyone involved in producing the calendar was quite offended. Pranks between the Engineering and Survey students may have ended with this escalation.

In 1984, during BCIT’s 20^th Anniversary year, a concrete cairn was created in Campus Square to hold a Plexiglas box made by the 2^nd year Civil & Structural students and their instructions. And in this box BCIT students and staff placed items that they felt represented BCIT in 1984.

 

On October 5, 2014 BCIT turned 50 years old. There are many ways that BCIT’s anniversary is being celebrated this semester and the next. Check out the BCIT 50 website for all of the fun events! Following the intentions of the creators the time capsule was opened as part of BCIT’s 50^th Anniversary Celebrations.

The contents of the box have been passed to the custody of the BCIT Archives where they will be preserved and made available for future generations. The Archivist would like to share a few of her favourite items with you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the thirty years that the items were outside on campus in their specially designed box they suffered very little considering the changes in temperature they experienced and the unavoidable moisture courtesy of the west coast rain. Paper items showed some warping and all metal items removed from the time capsule were damaged by rust. The one item that was placed in the concrete cairn beside the Plexiglas box, rather than in it, was quite badly damaged by mold. Once I have cleaned it stay tuned for a conservation blog post and the big reveal of this unofficial addition to the time capsule.

A classic time capsule item is a local newspaper. The creators of the 1984 time capsule included the Year in Review Section of the Vancouver Sun from December 31^st 1984. Some quick facts from that section:

• In 1984 Canada had three Prime Ministers – Trudeau, Turner and Mulroney
• Michael Jackson released Thriller and came to Vancouver as part of his Victory Tour. Three sold out nights at BC Place Stadium
• Prince Harry was born
• Canada’s first test tube twins were born in Toronto
• Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space
• There is severe famine Ethiopia
•  Pope John Paul visited Canada

Anniversaries are a time to look back as well as into the future. BCIT is planning to bury a time capsule in the spring of 2015 as part of the 50^th Anniversary celebrations. What sort of content or specific items would you like to see included? It is the items with a personal touch that I enjoy in a time capsule. The personal touch that stuck out for me among the contents of the capsule was a quick handwritten note from a BCIT staff member.

Being as how I am also a Librarian I could not resist highlighting one final item. Looking through the publications in the time capsule I found this little gem! In 1984 BCIT was ahead of other academic institutions, a quote from the below article: “BCIT will be the first library in British Columbia, if not Canada, to have an entire catalogue on-line available to students and faculty.”

This system was very advanced for 1984 and granted students and faculty freedom from the microfiche catalogue! Do you know how to use a microfiche reader? The Archivist wants to know!