As part of the Library’s Of the People: Widening the Path initiative, the Community Collections Grant (CCG) program of the American Folklife Center (AFC) has supported over two-dozen, year-long cultural documentation projects in diverse communities across the U.S. – from Caribbean and Pacific islands, to urban, suburban, and rural areas of the South, Midwest, and East and West coasts. Since 2022, the 29 project teams have documented contemporary musical, dance, crafts, and food traditions, community celebrations and sacred events, as well as shared efforts in safeguarding their living cultural heritages. You can read more about CCG projects here.
Equally, CCG awardees are supported by AFC staff in the preservation of their project documentation, where the many videos, interviews, and photographs, among other materials, they have created become collections in the AFC archives and online, on the Library of Congress website. And just a couple of weeks ago, in August, we were excited to announce that the first CCG project collection, the Warp and Weft of Yap’s Outer Islands: Backstrap Weaving in Micronesia Collection, has been made available online (which you can read more about here).
In light of this milestone, and to shine important light on all that it entails, the following is an interview with AFC archives staff who are instrumental in the acquisition, accessioning, processing, and preservation of CCG project collections for the future, and in ensuring access and meaningful engagement with them – for the public and researchers alike – on the Library’s website. To pull back the curtain on these “behind the scenes” processes, we are joined by AFC archivists Charlie Hosale and Sabine Lipten, Digital Project Coordinator Jason Smith, and Digital Library Specialist Steve Berkley, key members of the AFC’s CCG team. The interview has been edited for length and flow.
Charlie, you’ve been involved with the CCG program from its start. To begin, take us through the general process of working with CCG project teams, from when they first embark upon their documentation projects through to the preservation and online presentation of their resultant project collections.
Charlie Hosale: I’ve been with CCG collections from early on. I helped design the acquisition, accessioning, and processing workflows for CCG project collections. I also collaborated with Matthew Smith, AFC Senior Cataloging Specialist, to create the metadata worksheet that grantees use to describe each of their project materials – be it audio recordings of interviews with community elders, photos of traditions being practiced, and video footage of ceremonial events, to name some examples. I also developed the file format guidance for grantees to assist with their production decisions, as well as helped with the design and implementation of the new Digital Submission Portal tool built for CCG awardees to submit their project documentation. I think I’ve talked to every team!
In terms of a timeline, CCG project teams begin their grant period with training – via group and one-on-one meetings – on meeting the program’s goals and the AFC archive’s submission workflows. We’ve found this helps grantees understand the archive’s file acquisition, copyright and rights management, and metadata workflows, and ensures they’re accounting for that work in their grant’s plans, as they prepare to start their projects. Over these first months, we conduct open conversations with each team about their project’s documentation plans and equipment. These discussions help us identify any unique plans – for instance, multiple team members on one grant working concurrently, or a desire to shoot extremely high-definition video – for which we need to account and respond. After teams have had a little time to start their documentation we conduct metadata trainings. These are in-depth, one-on-one conversations with each team about the metadata worksheet they’re expected to use as they continue documenting, and eventually submit to us, along with their project materials, at the end. Those are fun conversations!
When teams have completed their project documentation, generally after the one-year mark, we have another round of acquisition discussions where we review their metadata and plot how the digital files should be delivered. I serve as a subject matter expert for the accessioning and processing work, and provide guidance to colleagues and CCG teams on video and digital preservation. Project teams either send a hard drive or submit files over the internet (now through the new Digital Submission Portal website built for CCG). Our staff review the submission and pass it to an archivist – namely, Sabine Lipten (interviewed here as well) – to go through AFC’s routine accessioning workflows. We run computer scripts to document file fixity and extract system and file format metadata, and check that file formats conform to grant expectations.
Our communication with CCG teams continues well after the submission of their project documentation; these are years-long relationships that have been built. After submission, we then document the collection in our inventory systems, count the acquisition for annual reporting, and upload the files to long-term archival storage. Processing work on these collections so far has been light. The collections are highly focused and curated. We don’t need to make the kinds of acquisition, selection, arrangement, and description decisions that are typical of most archival collections. Access work is a bit heavier since the expectation for CCG is item-level online access, via the Library’s website (loc.gov). We typically need to create what’s called “access derivatives,” such as streaming versions of HD recordings or PDF versions of interview transcriptions. We talk to teams throughout processing and access work, as they help refine metadata and create web pages for their records. It’s currently my job to input metadata into systems that transform it into loc.gov web pages. After it’s online, the archives work on the collection is complete!
Clearly, there are a number of steps to this process, requiring not only teamwork, but specialized expertise from each of you. Toward this key goal of preserving and enhancing public access to CCG project collections, what are your individual roles and responsibilities?
Jason Smith: As the Digital Projects Coordinator for the CCG program, my role is to coordinate the submission and delivery of teams’ project documentation, train awardee team members on creating their metadata, and handle any technical issues that may occur.
Sabine Lipten: As the CCG archivist, I am responsible for both the long-term preservation of these digital records and preparing them to be accessible and useful to the public via the Library’s website. I find it helpful to think about our workflow as a relay race: after my colleague Jason Smith works with the CCG teams to receive their project materials, he reviews each collection before passing the baton to me. From there, I start the archival work of arranging and transferring the collections into the Library’s long-term storage system so that the files remain safe and accessible for as long as possible. There is a lot of documentation that goes into this first part of the archival work, which we call accessioning. I essentially create records about the records in a few different collections management databases, along with writing up reports detailing the different types of files in each collection and their respective sizes, including any notes for the next phase of archival work: processing.
Processing involves arranging, describing and “rehousing” the files so that they are intellectually described and packaged in a “digital wrapper” that will ensure they remain stable for a long time and easily tracked by other AFC and Library staff. Finally, I work on the descriptive portion, which is reviewing all the metadata associated with the collections and working with other AFC and Library digital teams to transform all this associated descriptive information into a form that can be imported and associated with each CCG record that is presented online. Marrying the description to the items is important, because without it, the items would not have any contextualizing information and would make research – and understanding the materials – by patrons a lot more difficult.
Steve Berkley: I manage the workflow for all AFC collections slated to go online, which includes the CCG project collections over recent months, and for the next couple of years. In particular, I am responsible for pulling together the work being done by different colleagues in the AFC. For example, I work with the Center’s Research & Programs staff, who have served as the main contacts, or “liaisons,” to individual CCG teams, providing guidance during the documentation phase of their projects (and on the grants administration side of things). In preparing CCG teams’ online collections, I work with AFC liaison staff, who in turn work with CCG awardees on the language to frame the presentations of their collections on the Library website, as well as “Rights & Access” information, and the inclusion of other resources (“expert/related resources”), such as including related essays or Of the People blog posts about projects (which you can see here, on the left side of the Warp and Weft of Yap’s Outer Islands “About this Collection” landing page). In prepping collections for loc.gov, I work on content arrangement, derivative creation, as Charlie mentioned earlier, quality control of the collection build online, as well as the selection of representative photos to be spotlighted for each online collection on its landing page. I track all of these steps and progress internally, for which we use the software, Jira.
It is also clear that ‘metadata’ is crucial to these processes, and archival work in general. What is its importance, and how is its creation approached in the CCG program?
Charlie: Being pragmatic, metadata drives discoverability. The Library website, loc.gov, is the main access platform for these materials, so we need descriptive metadata that drives search functionality and provides item-level structure. On a more philosophical level, the descriptive metadata is a critical part of community collaboration. Instead of us receiving a collection and imposing our terms and arrangement, we work with the community to realize their terms and arrangements.
Sabine: The common aphorism to explain metadata is that metadata is “data about data” which is true-ish, but also not a great definition. I think it is more helpful to think of it as all the information that describes and gives context and orientation to an item, from fundamental description like a title or creation date to more technical specs like dimensions – or in the case of digital files: bit size. So, metadata is important because it contextualizes and provides more information about a record than what is tangibly in front of the researcher when exploring the collections. Traditionally in the archive, metadata is created by the archivist and not by the donor or subject of the collection. This has and can lead to issues of “archival gaps” and under/misrepresentation of communities present in a repository. One unique aspect of CCG is that all of the donor awardee teams provide the metadata for their collections. This allows for more accurate cultural description as well as community voices to really shine through and start to fill the archival gaps in Library collections.
Charlie: As Sabine notes, the metadata workflow is designed to be collaborative and community led, reflecting the overarching ethos of the CCG program. We want teams to use their vernacular and not get bogged down or overwhelmed by controlled vocabulary, and we’ve designed a workflow that realizes these goals. Documentary work extends past creating recordings. It encompasses the description of those recordings, too. Establishing that shared understanding with CCG teams ensures that they create documentation that will carry meaning into the future, enriching public and researcher engagement with these important, primary-source materials. Of course, there has to be compromise, because Library systems are not designed to easily support every possible arrangement and description. So, we all work together to find the right solutions and realize CCG goals.
With the newly online Warp and Weft of Yap’s Outer Islands Collection, where dozens of interview recordings and photos from the project can now be accessed, I’m curious about the steps taken in making this happen – and all who are involved across the AFC and Library.
Charlie: Cataloging staff review the team’s metadata and add small enhancements, such as adding Library of Congress Subject Headings subject terms that complement the terms the community team used, as well as normalizing dates and finalizing titles. We also check for spelling errors or other minor inconsistencies. We work together with CCG awardees to make any updates or changes to metadata that are necessary for publishing the collection online. Like Steve mentioned, the AFC liaison to a particular CCG team then works with them to draft web pages about their collections, and also reviews the transcripts for any issues that need to be addressed, such as redacting sensitive information.
At the same time, digital content staff, such as Steve, prepare the access derivatives we need, and place them in our online access platforms. In terms of the wider Library, we liaise with our colleagues in the Digital Services Directorate and Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), who start building the web pages in a test environment. When the metadata is completed, we upload it to a system that transforms it into data that loc.gov uses to populate the resource pages for collection items. OCIO then runs processes that pairs the data with the files and creates the loc.gov item pages you see online! Staff review those pages in the test environment and, about two weeks later, after review by other leaders and library stakeholders, OCIO publishes the collection online for public access. The whole access process takes about two months, though we’re not working on it for two months solid.
This is all really enlightening, as there’s much that can be taken for granted – collections don’t just appear magically online and there’s serious teamwork involved! And preserving digital collections over the longer-term obviously requires a range of resources. For those interested in creating their own digital archives, what are some key considerations to take into account?
Charlie: Money and other resources are required for sustained long-term stability. Digital preservation is an active, everyday process. Digital files are not sent to conservation when we notice they need treatment – somewhere, someone is constantly working to keep the critical machines running. Don’t read that as a criticism of digital content; the creative and social benefits digital content afford are miraculous. We can make a film with our phones and instantly share it across the world! Digital content just has a different preservation paradigm than print materials. Creators need to account for that in their collection’s administration and budgets. Your hard drives will not last. In the context of CCG, sustained digital preservation and access is a partner service the Library is privileged to provide. Preserving our collections is our duty to the country – and the country provides resources for us to do it.
Sabine: Like Charlie said, you do need money and resources for digital preservation, but I hope that does not discourage smaller institutions or even individuals interested in creating digital archives from doing so – because some preservation is always better than no preservation! There is also not a one–size–fits–all solution to digital preservation, and there are definitely scalable solutions and affordable steps digital archivists can take. Since there is no one way to do digital archiving, and because digital materials are less stable (e.g. it’s comparatively harder to retroactively recover lost bits), I think the biggest resource people should consider when planning their digital archive is time. It takes time to create a feasible preservation plan on top of time and commitment to then tend to digital collections – especially with smaller system and server infrastructures.
Great points. So, on a somewhat similar note, now that the CCG program is in its 3rd year, have there been any lessons learned?
Charlie: I learned some hard lessons about file formats. Because the spirit of CCG is open, community–led collaboration, I initially resisted impulses to be prescriptive about the file formats teams could deliver to us. We presented some best practices and encouraged teams to follow them. Then, during the first year, we received lots of different kinds of files. Most remarkable in my memory was the unexpectedly wide variety of codecs and settings used in video. So, that inspired me to provide more training and get a bit more prescriptive about what our minimum acceptable product was for the next years’ CCG cohorts. We’ve set shared expectations for the floor – such as, final edit content saved as mp4 with common settings for streaming, 8 bit tiff images, and wav audio – and we provided resources and support to help teams create those files. Beyond that, teams can reach for the ceiling and make bigger/better/crazier files if they want to, too! The file format expectations reduce the volume of processing work and put us in a better position to preserve the content.
Jason: One of the lessons that I have learned from CCG work relates to metadata, and awardee training in generating the metadata for their project materials. On one hand, from an archival perspective, we want to have very detailed metadata, and we want to include as much information as possible, as that is the needed context for understanding each and every interview, video, photograph, and so forth. On the other hand, CCG teams would have to provide very detailed metadata for, essentially, thousands of files! After the documentation phase of their projects is completed, the teams end up having limited time to complete their metadata, which has been challenging for some. Over the years, though, we learned these lessons and have been able to provide better training and support for CCG teams. This has resulted in several workflow and metadata improvements benefitting us all.
With all this important – though, often “behind the scenes” – work you all are doing, I’m wondering what you find to be most rewarding in making the CCG program such a success?
Jason: The job duty that I enjoy the most is visiting teams out in the field, as it’s a great feeling to provide in-person support. Over these past years, I have been able to meet folklorists, documentarians, and scholars from across the U.S. Hearing the stories from awardee teams has been one of the greatest aspects of my job; it allows me to really connect with the teams and provide them with support that is uniquely tailored to meeting their needs. One of my most rewarding experiences happened during my visit to the Goombay Festival in Miami, the focus of the Florida International University (FIU) 2024 CCG project, Documenting Goombay and Little Bahamas of Coconut Grove, which you can read more about here. Aarti Mehta-Kroll, the project team lead, needed additional support during the festival, held at the beginning of June. Her role was to coordinate a large team of FIU professors, students, and volunteers. To help provide documentation support, I was able to attend the festival and meet several Coconut Grove leaders, as well as enjoy connecting with the community. It was some of the most rewarding cultural documentation work that I have ever done.
Sabine: I am still relatively early in my career, so it’s really exciting to already be working on an archival project that is pushing the envelope. Archival processing can be pretty solitary, so being able to collaborate with both my colleagues and the teams has helped open my eyes to new possibilities in the field. Also, I want to shout out the many hands it takes to make the online presentations possible! To see the hard work of everyone involved pay off via the collections going live online is very gratifying. I am proud to be a part of stewarding these collections, and I am proud that all my colleagues hard work is able to be showcased in such a public way.
Charlie: By design, the teams have a wide variety of goals, skills, and backgrounds. The bit of building collaborative relationships with the teams I’ve experienced has been great – each has it’s own flavor and perceptions of what an archive is and should do. I’ve enjoyed finding the right approach to collaborate with each team to realize the CCG goals. Explaining what we do and how we do it is not a one-size-fits-all situation (though, is anything really ever one-size-fits-all?).
I’m also wondering if there are there any projects – including specific interviews, photographs, and/or videos created by CCG teams – that have stood out to you?
Sabine: One of the 2022 CCG collections I’ve been accessioning is called, Follow the Music: Exploring Multi-Linear Legacies of House Culture, that I am excited about! Led by the organization, Urban Artistry, and its Founding Director Junious Brickhouse, this collection documents house music culture across a number of U.S. cities, including here in Washington, D.C. While reviewing their files and metadata, there were a few DJs I recognized, which was exciting – but even more exciting was I noticed a short video of an event that happened at the now closed Owl Room club on 14th St NW. That was exciting, because I’ve been there! It was a really fun club that I was sad to see close after only existing for a short time. It was gratifying to experience a collection immortalizing a physical space that is now gone, as one of the functions of the archive is to preserve memories, but as an archivist, I don’t usually get to experience that user connection firsthand.
I also think that there is a cultural bias to relegate significance and hold space first and foremost for serious issues and pain narratives, as if joy is not also central to relationships and cultures – and worth documenting, too. So, it is awesome to have collections like this one and others documenting the legacies of dancing/music and festivals and celebrations of people coming together and enjoying each other’s company and being in community.
Jason: During my time working with the awardees, there have been two collections that have really stood out: Documenting the Stories, Agricultural Traditions, and Culture of Specialty Coffee Farmers in Puerto Rico by 2022 CCG awardee Russell Oliver and, as Sabine highlighted, Urban Artistry’s Follow the Music. Russell’s collection focuses on the life of Puerto Rican coffee farmers in Adjuntas, San Sebastián, Lares, and Las Marías. Russell captured drone footage of several farms from these regions, which is something that I have never seen before. His documentation allows one to see into a unique aspect of farming in Puerto Rico and all that’s entailed in the production of coffee.
I’ll also echo Sabine on the importance of the Urban Artistry Follow the Music project, as it focuses on dance forms born in Black and Brown urban communities. As someone with an interest in dance music, this collection also really connected with me. The project documentation includes several performances happening in clubs and parks throughout California, where I’m from, as well as many other locations across the country.
On a final, ‘big picture’ note, why do you think the CCG program is important?
Steve: I believe the importance of these CCG collections is that they allow specific communities to document something unique about the community, while maintaining a modicum of control over how it’s unveiled. Historically, cultural communities, like the ones supported by the CCG program, have not been the authors of their anthropological introduction to wider society. The program offers a strong level of authenticity.
Sabine: I mentioned earlier the issue of archival gaps in collections across archives in general, not just here at Library… but also here at Library. I’m not trying to toot the Library’s horn too much, but it is an institution of influence – we are the largest library in the world and other repositories do turn to us to see where the bar is set. How we use our influence can create ripples across cultural institutions, and I think the best way for us to do so is through programs like CCG. The program not only expands and diversifies our holdings, but it does so with the consent and direct involvement of the communities documented. It’s not just what we are doing, but how we are doing it that is a cornerstone of this collecting initiative. I think the CCG program shows the world that the Library is not only a place for people to come and learn, but that it is also improving praxis by learning from the communities we serve. We are showing that a capital “I” institution can ethically collaborate with people on all sorts of expansive projects.
Charlie: The significance to me is the investment of the Mellon Foundation and the Library, through the Of the People: Widening the Path initiative, as well as our partners, that has been put into engaging communities across the U.S. These rich collections show so many different corners of what all combines to make our country. In a lot of cases, I feel like archivists at national institutions are put in a position to dictate what our shared history and community is. In this case, though, we’ve had the privilege to have communities do that themselves. The Library talks a lot about ‘throwing open the treasure chest,’ but here we’ve been able to invite people to throw knowledge that they find valuable into the treasure chest.
Thank you, all, for your important insights! We look forward to seeing more CCG project collections online over the next months and years.