Among moving image archives, commercial video platforms are a popular method for providing online access and public engagement, but their socio-political impact has received little critical discussion. Responsible and ethical twenty-first century practice requires moving image archivists to familiarize themselves with key concepts, themes and debates in critical digital scholarship.

Abstract/Method

This paper lays the groundwork for more informed commercial video platform usage among moving image archives through a brief survey of five key themes in critical digital scholarship.

Introduction

Among moving image archives, usage of commercial video platforms for public access or engagement purposes is widespread and increasingly commonplace.^[1] Despite this, there has yet been little to no discussion within the field about the social and political dynamics that surround and persist through commercial video platforms.^[2] In other words, usage of commercial video platforms by moving image archives has not yet been the subject of scholarship from a critical archival studies perspective.^[3] If moving image archives strive to provide trustworthy stewardship and active contextualization of their materials in service of meaningful public engagement with history, then they must also now contend, in pragmatic terms, with specific social, cultural, political and financial entanglements related to utilizing commercial video platforms like YouTube, which employ a range of strategies to shape the meaning of their video content and its effect on users. In short, I argue here that, as commercial video platforms become an increasingly normalized component of how moving image archives relate to their publics, practitioners must familiarize themselves with key concepts and problematics related to their use. Accordingly, this paper offers a brief survey of some relevant critical scholarship in fields such as human-computer interaction (HCI), digital political economy, user experience (UX) research, and critical internet studies. I discuss five key themes: platform capitalism, the attention economy, surveillance capitalism, context collapse, and persuasive/deceptive design. To demonstrate their value to moving image archives, I follow each term’s definition with a brief discussion of the concerns they raise for hosting moving image works on commercial video platforms.

Platform Capitalism: Network Effects, Cross-Subsidization, and Platform Politics

An understanding of platform capitalism offers moving image archivists a conceptual framework to situate the appeals and risks of commercial video platform use within the broader digital political economy.

In essence, platform capitalism is a mode of capitalism emerging in the twenty-first century in which capitalist firms seek to extract and use data as a raw material by operating through a platform business model.^[4] Digital political economist Nick Srnicek outlines a general definition of platforms as “digital infrastructures that enable two or more groups to interact.”^[5] Srnicek also notes that platforms generate and rely on a cyclical network effect (the premise that platforms become more valuable to both their users and owners as they attract more users and usage), a dynamic which naturally tends towards monopolization.^[6] Additionally, in Srnicek’s conception, platforms usually attract users through a complex price structure heavily dependent on cross-subsidization, which is when “one arm of the firm reduces the price of a service or good (even providing it for free), but another arm raises prices in order to make up for these losses.”^[7] The online video-hosting platform YouTube (a subsidiary of the multinational technology company Google LLC, which itself is a subsidiary of the conglomerate holding company Alphabet Inc.) demonstrates how these characteristics of digital platforms present both strong appeals and easy-to-overlook risks for moving image archives.

YouTube, with its high count of average daily users, presents a network effect that can make the platform a more appealing digital venue for archival material than an institution’s own website or online portal, especially if that institution is particularly interested in reaching as many viewers as possible.^[8] Further, YouTube’s cross-subsidized business model offsets the loss of providing free video hosting and access through a complicated arrangement of premium subscription services, advertisements, and larger data-collection operations that generate revenue for its parent company Google.^[9] These qualities make YouTube an especially attractive option for moving image archives with limited budgets that are seeking a cost-effective way to reach as many viewers as possible. Even in cases when an institution can afford to develop their own access portal, the network effect can make YouTube an important destination for specific collections or promotional material that an organization wants as many people as possible to see. Such cases demonstrate Srnicek's observation that network effects trend toward monopolization, as a presence on YouTube or other social media platforms can easily become the norm among institutions, especially those which buy into neoliberal discourses about maximizing ‘return on investment’ or prioritization of public visibility to demonstrate value.^[10]

Platform usage poses additional risks for moving image archives in their tendency to present themselves as “empty spaces for others to interact on,” when “they in fact embody a politics.”^[11] In other words, as the ground upon which digital interactions take place, platforms are in a privileged position to construct the “rules of the game” and shape the character of user action/interaction. Despite this power of influence, they often project a sense of neutral utility.^[12] This is alarming because normalization of highly complex technical systems (sometimes called “black-boxing”) can often obfuscate the political, cultural, social, and economic decisions embedded in a given platform.^[13] In the case of YouTube, we might consider the extent to which one’s video viewing experience can be altered by any number of content moderation policies, interface choices, and strategies for data collection. Further, scholars across research areas note difficulty in obtaining a historical record of changes to these policies or features.^[14] Such a lack of transparency demonstrates the extent to which any institution utilizing commercial video platforms invariably defers an unknowable degree of control and influence over uploaded content and user reception to the platforms they use. This makes commercial video platforms like YouTube overdue for more critical examination, especially among institutions that curate and contextualize moving image material.

The Economy of Attention, Metrics, and Meaning

The basic premise of the attention economy is that “in contexts of information abundance, attention is a scarce resource that needs to be managed.”^[15] According to human computer interaction scholars Rebecca Jablonsky, Tero Karppi, and Nick Seaver, this premise has become “a matter of commercial common sense, engendering new corporate practices.”^[16] Under platform capitalism, where data extractions and advertising revenue depend on user acquisition and retention, capturing user attention becomes a key design priority for commercial video platforms like YouTube. As such, critical interrogation of the assumptions underlying the attention economy’s “common sense” can help moving image archive staff recognize important differences between their organization’s priorities and those of commercial video platform owners.

Recent critiques of attention commoditization in the mainstream press and academic scholarship have argued that various platforms’ strategies for soliciting and profiting from attention enforce social relations and power dynamics that compromise the agency or personal sovereignty of their user base and advance a harmful politics within the information environment at large.^[17] The priorities of so-called ‘attention merchants’ can easily diverge from the thoughtful reflection and engagement most moving image archives seek to cultivate.^[18]

Take a feature like the display of binary metrics such as “view counts” or “likes and dislikes” on a YouTube video: ‘common sense’ in the attention economy may persuade certain institutions to pursue maximization of these metrics either as ends in themselves (taken as a measure of successful public engagement) or as assets for demonstrating value to stakeholders, funders, or decision makers.^[19] Critics of online audience development question what these metrics actually denote and they call for critical evaluation of the relationship organizations seek to foster with their public.^[20] In order to better understand what modes of interaction are possible online, digital content practitioners must take up critical consideration of how engagement metrics are captured (e.g., do users consent to collection of this data?), what exactly they measure (e.g., how is a “view” determined?), and how they might influence organizational or infrastructural decisions (e.g., will decision makers adopt YouTube’s entrepreneurial ethos as an excuse to further entrench neoliberal policies that jeopardize operational sustainability, working conditions, service missions).^[21]

Surveillance Capitalism

For moving image archives, an understanding of surveillance capitalism can help decision-makers recognize the harmful and exploitative aspects of commercial video platforms’ data extraction and accumulation practices. Critical inquiry into the logic of surveillance capitalism forces organizations to consider how commercial video platform usage makes uploaders complicit in large-scale corporate operations that advance economic inequality and limit the public's right to self-determination.

Social psychologist Shoshana Zuboff defines surveillance capitalism as a twenty-first century form of capitalism oriented around: 1) the extraction and accumulation of human behavior as data, 2) the analysis and sale of that data in a marketplace of predictive products (e.g., targeted advertising or facial recognition services) where profit derives from anticipating human behavior and, 3) the leveraging of this data to “nudge, coax, tune, and herd behavior toward profitable outcomes.”^[22] In short, surveillance capitalism describes the system under which user data becomes a major source of corporate profit and therefore motivates corporate operations to act accordingly.

Moving image archive staff might recognize how certain platform operations designed to capture user data (e.g., cookies, tracking pixels)^[23] raise ethical issues in terms of personal privacy, but Zuboff’s third component of surveillance capitalism–the capacity for predictive systems to steer public behavior towards the most profitable outcomes (for owners) at the expense of personal autonomy (for users)–demonstrates the extent to which exploitative system design raises even broader personal sovereignty concerns.^[24] Though both Zuboff and Srnicek claim the contemporary digital political economy centers around the collection of data as a raw material, for Zuboff, platforms are the puppets and surveillance capitalism the puppetmaster. Further, Zuboff insists that the data extraction and the fabrication of predictive products under surveillance capitalism are not “inevitable expressions of the technologies they employ” as certain companies would like us to think. Instead, surveillance capitalism is “a logic in action and not a technology.”^[25] As such, moving image archivists might understand the risks and harms related to commercial video platform’s data collection methods as ultimately political and economic in nature, rather than technological. This is an important point, as data collection, surveillance, and behavioral nudging from platforms becomes increasingly normalized and certain organizations might not fully reflect on the extent to which they ask users to enter into a harmful relationship with the platforms they utilize.

One important implication of surveillance capitalism for moving image archives to understand is that this drive for data might not just introduce users to unwanted surveillance, but also make subjugation to surveillance a requirement for certain interactions with platform-hosted archival material. As one broad example, consider that platforms like YouTube tend to require users to create accounts in order to comment or otherwise interact with content.^[26] Here it helps to recall Srnicek’s observation that platforms strive to present themselves as neutral in order to naturalize the politics they embody. While a need to hold users accountable for inappropriate or offensive behavior is a reasonable concern, the insistence on account creation for user interaction also reframes dialogue with a moving image archive as a privilege reserved only for users who consent to any other policies tied to account creation, which, according to Zuboff, may involve consenting to be steered towards behaviors that generate the most profits for system owners.

Such cases demonstrate how critical digital scholarship can provide urgent refiguring of commercial video platforms and the aspects of their usage that might otherwise appear technologically neutral.

Context Collapse

Context collapse is another valuable concept for moving image archivists to understand because it highlights the extent to which commercial video platforms might challenge curatorial agency and limit the capacity to foster critical dialog around uploaded materials.

Studying how Twitter users navigate the expectations of their ‘imagined audiences,’ social media researchers Alice E. Marwick and danah boyd use the term context collapse to describe how the social media platform “flattens multiple audiences into one,” thereby making it “impossible to differ self-presentation strategies” as one might when dealing with different audiences in different contexts.^[27] Parallel research from cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch characterizes context collapse experienced by YouTube vloggers in even more distressing terms: “The familiar walls that help limit and define the context are gone. The vlogger must address anybody, everybody, and maybe even nobody all at once.”^[28] Platforms that accumulate broad networks of diverse users (something Srnicek considers an essential characteristic) create tension among users as the collapse of various potential contexts into a single virtual space “ruptures the ability to vary self- presentation based on audience, and thus manage discrete impressions.”^[29] Marwick and boyd observe two strategies content producers employ to navigate this tension: self-censorship (“strategically concealing information” or limiting topics to those palatable to a “lowest-common denominator” of acquaintances) and balance (adjusting performance in response to an “ongoing loop of impression management” or audience reaction monitoring).^[30]

While one might imagine that such strategies don’t necessarily translate to archival institutions that usually speak to broad audiences or the ‘general public,’ consider how the “strategic concealment” of self-censorship can align with well-criticized myths of artchival neutrality or objectivity.^[31] This is especially concerning in light of a more recent study from Mikaela Pitcan, Marwick, and boyd on self-censorship strategies among upwardly mobile young people involved adoption of “neutral” or “vanilla” presentations that catered to the racist and sexist “respectability norms of the most powerful potential viewers—often potential employers or high-status community members—rather than peers.”^[32] In other words, self-censorship in the face of context collapse can resemble strategies of archival neutrality that support dominant values. For moving image archives using commercial video platforms, one might worry that context collapse will incentivize avoiding acknowledgement of racism, sexism, homophobia, or other difficult aspects of the historic material they collect. Will self-censorship in the face of context collapse on commercial video platforms create a ruling-class, hegemonic landscape for moving image history? Further, it is worth considering how the balance strategy’s “ongoing loop of impression management” can become unsustainable for staff to manage in terms of labor and attention, challenging the seemingly low-cost appeal of commercial video platforms like YouTube. In such cases where there are not sufficient resources to develop a public access portal, how could an organization possibly have the resources necessary to responsibly manage their relationship with online audiences?

Familiarity with context collapse can help moving image archivists interrogate what online dynamics contribute to the range of reactions different materials might receive. Further, critical engagement with scholarship that examines these dynamics will help moving image archive staff work with stakeholders to find effective strategies beyond self-censorship and balance, charting a path towards anti-oppressive and social justice approaches to navigating networked audiences.

Persuasive and Deceptive Design

Understanding how platforms employ persuasive and deceptive design can help moving image archivists understand the myriad ways commercial video platforms seek to control their users and shape the cultural and economic value of the video content on display.

Since the late 1990s, cognitive scientists and human-computer interaction scholars have published literature on persuasive technology, and more specifically, on “persuasive computing that may be ethically questionable.”^[33] Under platform capitalism, what design ethicist Tristan Harris terms an “arms race for attention” has spurred large platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter to develop sophisticated design strategies for manipulating users into spending more and more time on their platforms.^[34] While the attention economy tends to normalize these manipulative strategies as “commercial common sense,” from the early 2010s onward, HCI and UX researchers have devoted more critical attention to identifying, classifying, and advocating against these online manipulation strategies (often termed Dark Patterns, though more recently reframed as deceptive design).^[35] A simple definition of deceptive design is “interface designs that materialise manipulation strategies to benefit a service,” often seeking to nudge, steer, deceive or coerce users into taking actions or decisions they might not have taken if they had paid full attention and possessed complete information, unlimited cognitive abilities, and complete self-control.”^[36] To counter this, scholars have proposed a range of educational, technical, design, and regulatory interventions.^[37]

One key example of a persuasive/deceptive design strategy is the “auto-play” function on streaming platforms like YouTube. Seeking to keep users watching video content on a given platform, auto-play typically takes the form of a short countdown timer that begins when users finish a video. The timer tends to have some way for users to stop the timer or opt-out, but by starting automatically and having a predetermined selection for what plays next, this feature does not just reduce the amount of consent needed to keep users on-platform but also exerts platform influence over what content users watch. This is troubling because even though Google claims that “The Autoplay feature on YouTube makes it easier to decide what to watch next,” reportage and academic study observe user frustration with a lack of agency related to YouTube’s recommendation system.^[38] For moving image archives this poses a major threat to curatorial agency or contextualization, as users can easily be lured away from an institution's channel by deceptive design and launched into a rabbit hole of platform-determined content. Autoplay is just one example of a persuasive/deceptive design choice employed by commercial video platforms that can compromise an organization's obligation to serve the public's interest, actively curate material, remain transparent and accountable for curatorial choices, and provide responsible historical contextualization of moving image material.

In order to make informed decisions about how videos are framed on commercial video platforms and develop effective counter strategies for platform influence, moving image archives must engage with the expansive discussion of deceptive design across HCI, UX, and mainstream publications.

Conclusion

Though moving image archives and archivists are unlikely to shy away from uploading material to commercial video platforms, they must consider how the advantages of those platforms come at a certain social or political cost. Engagement with critical digital scholarship from fields such as political economy, human-computer interaction, critical internet studies and user experience design help moving image archive staff recognize the political and economic character of commercial video platforms, paving the way towards more informed practice and the development of effective strategies to counter platforms’ influence.

In light of the concerns discussed in this paper, moving image archives might reframe the uploading and maintenance of digital content as an extension of their collection management operations rather than simply promotion or public engagement. In other words they might understand the videos uploaded to YouTube as part of their collection, and therefore subject to as much condition monitoring, cautionary action, and proactive treatment as a film print that circulates.

In order to counter the risks or potential harms of commercial video platform influence, organizations should also consider devoting additional resources to digital content staffing, training, critical reflection, reportage, and stakeholder consultation. Institutions might also want to explore methods for gauging the political, economic, or cultural impact of their commercial video platform usage.

On an note of optimism, Master in Library and Information Science (MLIS) graduate programs already tend to be a popular form of training for many professionals entering the moving image archives field, and many MLIS programs feature course work in HCI, UX, critical internet studies, science and technology studies (STS), digital infrastructure critique, and critical theory.^[39] As such, further necessary scholarship on the intersection of critical archival studies and moving image platform use may already be on its way.

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Professional Development Statement

Introduction

In hindsight, it would seem that my interest in media archives and audiovisual preservation began at the Foster City Branch of the San Mateo County Public Library, where there was no limit on how many DVDs I could borrow and I could renew them online up to three times. From ages 14 to 18, bringing home piles and piles of DVDs drew my attention to the rich history of moving image production, the vast landscape of home video and nontheatrical distribution, the immense cultural value of film preservation, and the complex life-cycle that unfolds for each film long after its initial release.

Doing research for my undergraduate thesis, which compared Kinetoscope films of the 1890s with Vine videos from the 2010s, I was surprised to find an abundance of documents from cinema’s first decades and a worrying dearth of recent digital records. This experience gave me an appreciation for the infrastructure and labor that make media objects and historical material accessible.

These experiences motivate my preparation for a career in media archiving, digital preservation, and technical services. I strive to provide responsible, relevant, effective, social justice aligned, and critically engaged information service. Further, I am proud to say that the Master in Library Science program at UCLA has provided me with an excellent platform to combine my academic interest in film and media histories with my passion for interrogating technology and systems design. Specializing in Media Archival Studies and pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities has furnished me with a broad range of professional experiences, technical skill sets, critical frameworks, and digital proficiencies.

Coursework

From my very first quarter, enrollment in courses like May Hong HaDuong’s Media Description and Access introduced me to current debates around cataloging, digitization, film print circulation, ethical description practices, metadata standardization, accessibility, and complex digital objects. From there, Shawn Vancour’s Introduction to Media Archiving and Preservation provided a comprehensive overview of the professional landscape and the profession’s theoretical background. In Dino Everett’s Motion Picture Technology, I was able to develop a technical skill set that would come in handy the following summer during my film and video digitization internship at Producers Library Services, a stock footage company in North Hollywood. In my final quarter, I am gaining incredibly valuable hands-on experience performing vinyl disc and magnetic tape transfers in the IS Media Lab for Professor Vancour’s Audio Archiving course.

In Miriam Posner’s Introduction to Digital Humanities I learned about the breadth of digital tools and methods available for performing history and humanities scholarship. Before this course, I had little interest in data analysis or programming. I also didn’t think of myself as someone with much “tech savvy,” but the skills and analytics I developed in this course quickly became valuable across a wide range of contexts over the next year and half. I used my newly developed data manipulation and visualization skills to undertake an exciting research project while interning at the American Film Institute (AFI) Catalog. I also had the confidence to enroll in a two course series on the R programming language with Professor Ozan Jaquette in the Education Department.

In other technical elective courses like Metadata, Digital Asset Management, Descriptive Cataloging, and User Experience Design I built out a full suite of professional skills and competencies related to media archiving, digital preservation, and access platform development. Overall, this coursework has enabled me to raise theoretical questions about professional practice while applying practical considerations to theoretical issues.

Professional Affiliations and Experience

UCLA has been an ideal program for me because its American Library Association (ALA) accreditation allows me to consider opportunities in the public and academic libraries field while its active Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) student chapter has enabled me to hone in on my specific area of professional interest. In my first year, affiliation with AMIA provided informative guest speaker visits with media archives professionals working in the field.

In February of 2021 I secured a work study position in the UCLA Film and Television Archive (FTVA). Working under the supervision of Digital Content Manager Jennifer Rhee, I support public access projects, outreach initiatives, and public programming. This has been an incredibly meaningful experience and presented me with a lot of opportunities to learn more about how moving image archives develop long term projects and how they operate on a day to day basis. Working for the FTVA also allowed me to attend AMIA’s April 2021 and November 2022 conferences, where I was able to engage with current issues and debates facing the media archives field. With my student membership, I was also able to enroll in AMIA workshops on Web Archiving and Bash Scripting for Audiovisual Preservation.

In my second year, holding a position on the board of UCLA’s AMIA student chapter has allowed me to play an active role in cultivating a network of support among the MLIS cohort for emerging media archives professionals like myself. During the 2021-22 school year the UCLA AMIA board coordinated guest speaker sessions with professionals in the field, hosted student bonding events, and circulated important professional development resources. This spring we look forward to publishing the chapter’s first zine since 2018 and planning an alumni roundtable event.

During the last two years I have also had the pleasure of volunteering with the Los Angeles Home Movie Day team. Working as a moderator for the virtual Los Angeles Home Movie Day in 2020, I learned about the rich diversity of local community archives with moving image materials in their collections. Volunteering in person at the Los Angeles Home Movie Day in 2021 allowed me to put the technical skills built through my coursework and professional experience into practice, offering film inspection and projection services to the community members that participated.

Future Plans and Goals

This spring I am interning with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)’s Collection Information and Digital Assets (CIDA) department. I am the first CIDA intern taking part in a pilot project that will lay the groundwork for ongoing digitization operations at the Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies. As such, I am looking forward to applying the skills and knowledge that I have built over the last two years towards developing sustainable digitization workflows and crafting clear, understandable documentation for future interns who will continue this work.

This summer I will be interning with the Margaret Herrick Library, which collects material related to motion picture industry, history, and culture. I will be assisting with the processing of ephemera, data migration between collection systems, and web archiving work. I could not think of a more perfect opportunity than this to blend the interest in film history that brought me to the MLIS program with the technical skills that I have since developed.

Conclusion

Though it was film preservation, access, and scholarship that brought me to UCLA’s MLIS program, I have been able to leverage a vast range of academic and professional resources to broaden my technical skill set and knowledge base. These experiences learning new tools, engaging in current issues, practicing new skills, and cultivating a community of peer support make me confident that I am ready to enter the field, call myself an information professional, and continue adapting to provide effective and responsible media stewardship service for decades to come.

Examples of Coursework

The following examples of coursework were each submitted as final assessments for their respective courses. I have selected these essays because they share a common theme: critical attention towards overlooked yet essential infrastructure (human and technical) that preserves and maintains access to media objects and collections:

Grain, Pixels, Portals, and Platforms

Major/Specialization Paper - IS 289: Museums in the Digital Age (Fall 2021)

This paper was submitted to Kathy Carbone as the final research paper for her Museums in the Digital Age course. Dr. Carbone’s prompt asked us to consider how the ubiquity of digital technology has changed museums’ roles with respect to artifacts. I took this as an opportunity to examine how film archives, cinematheques, and museums were adjusting to the rise of ‘virtual screening rooms’ and virtual programming overall. Framing online access as a form of cultural production, I argue that while digitization and the development of a ‘digital film heritage’ offer major new social and cultural affordances, online access portals and platforms also pose serious challenges with regard to ongoing maintenance, infrastructural costs, economic sustainability, interface design, and obsolescence risk factors.

Is Video Game Archiving a Profession Yet?

Elective Course Paper - IS 289: Motion Picture Technology (Winter 2021)

The final assignment for Dino Everett’s Motion Picture Technology course prompted students to take an analytical perspective on any media archives technology consideration of their choosing. I chose to respond to a challenge Dino offered in class: a convincing case that video games required formal archival institutions. More specifically, Dino felt that video game preservation could be managed well enough by informal hobbyist communities. While maintaining that non-institutional efforts have been a foundational force to the video game preservation movement, I draw on Ray Edmonson’s canonical 1995 provocation for the film archiving profession to demonstrate how a similar trend towards formalization might benefit video game preservationists. Namely, I argue that a formalization of video game archiving as a profession might lend preservationists resources for advocacy, improved working conditions, greater legal protections, expanded access to institutional resources, and systems to ensure essential preservation knowledge and practices can be passed between generations.

Essential Principles and Considerations for Video Streaming Services and Platforms

Core Course Paper (Policy Brief) - IS 272: Systems and Infrastructure (Winter 2021)

Professor Jean-François Blanchette’s final assignment for Systems & Infrastructure was a cumulative report in which students were asked to synthesize several weekly research reports on a certain technology into a single mock-policy brief addressed to a campus leader. I chose to draft a mock report on streaming platforms for University Librarian Virginia Steel on behalf of May Hong HaDuong, Director of the Film and Television Archive. Responding to a hypothetical archive initiative to make more content accessible online, my report provides a brief overview of the infrastructure that supports video streaming, key terms, the current market conditions among streaming services, and potential concerns related to developing a streaming platform for the archive or partnering with an existing service provider. Concerns I cover include: accessibility standards, privacy vs. personalization, copyright vs. digital rights management, and possible future trends for the field.

Major/Specialization Paper - Museums in the Digital Age

Grain, Pixels, Portals, and Platforms:

The Implications of Digital Film Materiality for Online Access Systems

Introduction

Digital access policies, systems, portals, and platforms are no longer a novelty for film archives and, in some cases, are even the norm. The inability to hold in-person events during the COVID-19 pandemic has further raised the urgency of providing online access and necessitated rapid adoption of virtual substitutions for in-person programming. This development creates an occasion to examine some of the affordances, limitations, risks, challenges, and potentials of providing access to archival film collections through exclusively online methods.

In light of the new urgency behind online access to film collections, this paper will examine digitization and online access platforms as a form of cultural and material production. I will argue that digitization and online access is not a dilution or corruption of film heritage material, but rather offers viewers and participants a materially distinct but culturally related experience. Using a framework of digital materiality to demonstrate the affordances, limitations, challenges, dependencies, and risks of digitization and online presentation for film heritage institutions, I will argue that digitizations and online access platforms have major financial, infrastructural, social, and cultural implications for film heritage institutions’ role with respect to their collection, the public, and the twenty-first century’s digital economy.

Part 1. Analog and Digital Film Heritage in the Twenty-First Century

In order to examine how digitization and online presentation have changed the role of film archives, museums, and cinematheques with respect to their film collections, it is first necessary to define film heritage and describe digitization as a material form of production therein. It might be tempting to understand online access to digital film material as fundamentally different or culturally inferior to traditional in-person and on-site analog film projection. In reality, both analog and digital moving image material occupy the same broad cultural category and tend to serve similar access goals.

Film Heritage and Cultural Boundaries

In From Grain to Pixel, EYE Filmmuseum (Amsterdam) curator and scholar Giovanna Fossati defines film heritage as a broad concept that “includes all the elements that inform and form film culture,” both digital and analog.^[40] As such, everything from paper documents and marketing materials to films of all genres and formats fall within this cultural category. Additionally, the term “elements” in this definition implies cultural practices, activities, and social formations are also relevant. Therefore, we might say film heritage includes room for digital files that contain information scanned from film prints, the scanning process itself, and behaviors related to watching films online.

Scholar and archivist Caroline Frick observes that “film and television archivists employ the concept of heritage to support their current actions and projected budgets.”^[41] In other words, film heritage has the potential for constant transformation, its definition contingent on the practices and plans of various individual and institutional actors. Film archives, museums, and cinematheques might therefore be understood as organizations in a perpetual state of cultural knowledge production, shifting the dominant notion of film heritage to suit a range of social, political, financial, and practical needs. The utility of film heritage for justification of certain actions, policies, and funding has made it host to various dynamics of authority and control. In general, this has historically had a limiting effect on public access to film heritage material, such as physical film prints, the experience of film exhibition, and the dissemination of film heritage information. In the twenty-first century, digital methods of production and access present an opportunity to expand public access but have not been fully embraced by film archives, museums, cinematheques.

There are many reasons film archivists and curators may feel digitization of films in their collection is unnecessary or inadvisable. One potential reason is an understanding that “digitization is not preservation,” but rather an alternative form of production.^[42] Digitization requires a series of file formats, playback software, storage devices, and complicated workflows. Any of these components may become obsolete, unsupported by their manufacturer, or encounter some form of corruption/failure.^[43] Film archivist and researcher Sabine Lenk explains that film archives might find digitization costly, logistically daunting, and antithetical to institutional practice. Lenk contends that “digitization technically challenges a fundamental tenet” of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) preservation guidelines, which stress “that films have to be kept and conserved on the carrier on which they were originally produced.”^[44] Scholar, projectionist, and archivist Leo Enticknap complicates this further, arguing that digitization of film stokes the perennial Lindgren-Langlois debate, named for the different priorities of BFI National Film Archive’s first curator Ernest Lindgren and Cinémathèque Française co-founder Henri Langlois.^[45] Thomas Elsaesser characterizes this debate as a “classical (and by now quasi-mythical) divide among the first generation of film archivists” between a Langlois faction that posits “showing is preserving,” and a Lindgren school for which “preservation must have priority over showing.”^[46] These conflicting views demonstrate the extent to which, recalling Frick’s observation, film heritage is the product of ongoing cultural projects. While digitization may not be preservation or maintain FIAF standards for conservation, there is no doubt that the creation of digitizations allows for an expansion of possible access to film collections. Further, with each day it becomes increasingly clear that more and more institutions take interest in digitization and online access projects.

The Materiality of Digitization

Fossati argues that the term “digital film” remains appropriate for both born-digital works and digitization products, as such a designation maintains a cultural continuity with “120 years of film history” and allows for greater appreciation of digital film heritage’s particular material qualities.^[47] Framing digital and analog film objects as culturally similar but materially distinct opens a productive conversation about how film archives, museums, and cinematheques might understand digitization and online presentation as a separate form of cultural knowledge production rather than a dilution of an original artifact’s cultural value.

Scholarship in the cultural heritage field carries this appreciation of digital material further. As Fiona R. Cameron explains, “The digitisation does not lead to the impoverishment of its original—rather, it is and does something different, but also carries some of the information and affectual responses invoked by its parent.”^[48] In Cameron’s view, digital film objects retain an informational and cultural connection to their source artifacts while demonstrating a distinct material and operational difference. Cameron sees the products of digitization as “new things” that present their own unique technological interdependencies and participate in a radically different global ecology of information infrastructure. Further, for Cameron once the products of digitization are brought online, they are no longer merely objects but become “multiple, messy, multi-scaled ecological compositions made up of heterogeneous coordinates, forces and agencies with effects that are at once complex, emergent and multivalent.”^[49] For example, one might consider how similar information can now simultaneously occupy multiple material instantiations in different locations (within the source film print or original camera negative, a hard drive, a data storage center, and distributed across any various personal devices) and produce various de-contextualized meanings.

Part 2. The Implications of Digital Materiality for Film Heritage Institutions

So, what does this digital materiality mean for film heritage institutions? Digitization, or rather the production of digital film ecologies, has tremendous theoretical and practical implications for the way institutions preserve and provide access to film heritage. In this section I will delve into how these material implications raise new social, financial, cultural, and functional questions in the twenty-first century.

Digital Film Heritage Has a Material Footprint and a Financial Value

Digital films, whether born-digital or derived from an analog source, are material objects with their own technical and financial dependencies. This means that the digital material created for online presentation has a physical footprint and maintenance requirements, even if this may not always be obvious. Archives are often incredibly aware of the material infrastructure that supports their digitization work because it requires significant financial investment, staffing, and equipment (scanners, hard drives, computers, servers, LTO libraries, data tape machines, and of course all the resulting energy use). For example, the BFI’s “Unlocking Film Heritage” initiative, which makes 10,000 film digitizations viewable on the web-based BFI Player, did not just involve the scanning of those films and transfer of digitizations to a new cloud server for hosting, but also involved the construction of a new “state of the art data centre” for long-term storage.^[50]

The physical footprint of digitization and online storage can be less obvious to archives, museums, and cinematheques when it does not involve direct financial internment, procurement of new devices and appliances, or on-site infrastructure. This can be the case when institutions opt to use third-party social media and video platforms, such as YouTube. In a recent article about FIAF affiliates’ online access resources, film heritage researcher Oliver Hanley observes that “Today, one is hard pressed to find a FIAF-affiliated institution that doesn’t maintain its own YouTube channel, even if not all of these include films from their collections and are used primarily to promote and document the respective institution’s on-site activities.”^[51] Hanley’s observation reveals that regardless of opinion about YouTube's appropriateness for FIAF affiliate collections, it still enjoys widespread and popular use. Some institutions might be wary of the platform’s seeming impermanence or contextual malleability, but they recognize its value as a platform for outreach, engagement, and promotion of film culture.

Even if YouTube’s ease of use and lack of up-front cost make it feel almost immaterial, uploading, hosting, and gaining networked access to the platform require an immense, heterogeneous assemblage of physical devices and digital infrastructure.^[52] Using the platform might be an appealing low-cost option since there is no fee for hosting, but that does not mean there are no costs overall or no physical footprint. Some institutions, such as the Korean Film Archive, might opt to host digital films on their own websites and on YouTube as a way to expand their reach and contact new audiences.^[53] There is no doubt this approach will expand discoverability of digital collections, but the expanded discoverability also comes with an expanded infrastructural and financial footprint. In the case of YouTube, video information is stored on Google servers and managed across a Content Distribution Network (CDN), with the operational costs being managed through a complex and opaque digital economy that exchanges video hosting and presentation services for collection of user data and sale of advertisement space within the platform.^[54] As of 2018 YouTube generated 11% of Google’s net US advertisement revenues.^[55]

One basic consequence of opting for a commercial third-party video platform like YouTube is that institutions develop access methods contingent on the infrastructural dimensions of these platforms and entangle themselves in the financial interests of these platforms. Cultural heritage scholar Caroline Wilson-Barnao explains that digital media platforms recalibrate how a museum operates, creating a “disparity between museums with transparency and accountability requirements producing cultural content versus geographies of distribution that are reliant upon commercially owned platforms and subject to different dynamics.”^[56] It would be both severe and misguided to argue that uploading digitizations to commercial third-party platforms denigrates or corrupts their source material. Still, the infrastructural dependence and financial entanglements of these platforms bring film archives, museums, and cinematheques into a relationship with larger geographic and economic dynamics that limit their capacity to remain transparent and accountable to the public. While these platforms offer a path to access that can be low-cost for the archive, it must be weighed against the considerable risks to their interest in public service, transparency, and accountability.

It should be mentioned that there are some non-commercial or non-profit third-party platform options, such as the Internet Archive, which hosts digitization collections from the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA),^[57] the Penn Museum,^[58] and the Field Museum of Natural History.^[59] While these options may relieve film heritage organizations of certain financial entanglements, these platforms have their own physical footprint as well.^[60] Film heritage organizations must be sure all parties recognize (if they do not already) that film heritage material hosted by third-party platforms is, in turn, dependent on that platform’s infrastructure and economic organization.

When film heritage institutions enter into a relationship with third parties, they pass that relation onto their end users as well. The risk (or benefit) of entering into a relationship with these platforms touches on another implication of digital materiality for film heritage organizations, the understanding that digitization and online access constitute a distinct form of cultural production.

Online Access is Digital Mediation

Products of digitization are neither inferior copies nor materially bound to their source artifacts. This means that online access platforms and virtual screening presentations do not provide direct access to the artifacts in a film collection, or even the digitizations themselves but rather present that digitization through the mediation of an interface.^[61] In other words, film heritage institutions are creating something new when they put digitizations online. By mediating access to this material through their (or third-party) interfaces, they are taking up a digital form of cultural production and articulating a particular understanding of film heritage through their digital offerings.

This is particularly apparent when examining the variety and effect of digital interface designs among the film heritage access portals and platforms. As designer and cultural researcher Mitchell Whitelaw explains, “the interface plays an inescapable role in mediating digital heritage.”^[62] As such, Whitelaw recommends that cultural heritage institutions design their interfaces with a level of generosity that is consistent with the size and richness of their digital collections. Generous interfaces provide the user with more detail up front, “offer multiple ways in,” “support exploration,” and “enrich interpretation by revealing relationships and structures within a collection.”^[63] In other words, generous interface design choices afford film heritage organizations multiple ways to generate meaning from their collection and share that meaning with the digital publics. Just a few examples make this clear.

One great example of a generous interface for digital film heritage collections comes by way of the BFI Player’s Britain on Film map, which presents users with a fully browsable Google Maps interface displaying the British Isles covered in tooltips (Figure 1). Each tooltip displays a number, representing the number of films that were shot in that particular region. The right side of this interface also features a free text search bar and faceted filtering options to limit results by decade and subject. As users select these filters, the tool tip numbers change, reflecting how many films fall within the given parameters. Additionally, when users first arrive, a small module appears in the bottom right corner of the interface, providing some sample location, decade, and subject filter criteria to give users an idea of the degree of granularity available to them.

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Figure 1. The map interface for BFI Player's Britain on Film collection. [https://player.bfi.org.uk/britain-on-film/map].

There is, however, one small design issue. The Britain on Film portal’s otherwise generous interface hides behind a welcome page that presents users with a single free-text search query box (Figure 2). This is problematic. Search “demands a query, discourages exploration, and withholds more than it provides.”^[64] Further, search makes it difficult or impossible for users to browse a collection casually, and can be unwelcoming for users lacking expertise or specific goals. In short, search, especially search alone, is not just ungenerous but counterproductive for institutions seeking to provide public access. Of course, once viewers enter their first search (or even if they simply click the “Explore Now” button without entering any search terms), they are brought to the map interface. Hiding such a generous map behind such an ungenerous landing page demonstrates the degree of control film heritage institutions exert over the extent of possible access to their collection and the spectrum of possible meaning users can make of it. The potential affordances and limitations of interface design demonstrate the extent to which digitization and online access are hardly a digital translation of analog to digital, but rather a distinct form of material production with an impact on the cultural meaning of the film heritage that it produces.

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Figure 2. The search query page that precedes the Britain on Film map. [https://player.bfi.org.uk/britain-on-film/].

This becomes clear when comparing the BFI Player’s map with the “digital shelves” of other national film heritage platforms, like the Cinémathèque Française’s “Henri” platform and the EYE Filmmuseum (Amsterdam)’s EYE Player (Figures 3 and 4). The advantages of generosity in interface design with regard to public access and exportability are quite apparent. In terms of layout, these interfaces arrange thumbnails of available films in a grid mimicking the physical shelves of a video store, or the digital shelves of subscription streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. Such an arrangement, though easy to navigate and browse casually, does little to convey any relationships between items in the collection and does not offer any opportunity for more complex exploration. Still, the limited affordances of these minimal interfaces are likely a result of the limited size of their offerings and an interest in constructing a sense of curation. As such, these platforms tend to frame their collection as a simple exhibition, rather than jumping off point for exploration and research. In other words, these interfaces aren’t meant to be generous but simply emulate the typical dynamic of repertory film programing, which articulates the institution's vision of film culture and film heritage.

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Figure 3. The English Film Collection offered on the Cinémathèque Française’s Henri platform. Users can sort the collection alphabetically by title or by date added. [https://www.cinematheque.fr/henri/english].

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Figure 4. The free to watch section of EYE Filmmuseum's EYE Player. A set of filtering facets on the left side feature some tags to sort by. [https://player.eyefilm.nl/en/watch-free-films].

It is worth noting that the migration of repertory programming online during the COVID-19 pandemic did not exclusively construct such dynamics. Some features of interface in “virtual film programing” allow for potential user input, offering an opportunity for users to shape the meaning of the film heritage material they access online, even with the confines of limited one-time screenings. One interface feature that has demonstrated such a potential is the chat function in virtual screening platforms.

Interface Design Can Foster Digital Co-Production

One might think that “virtual screenings” and other one-time programmed events, with their time-restrictions and highly curated selection of materials, hold little potential for public input. With the addition of chat functionality, however, a one-time screening can offer remote viewers an opportunity for co-production of meaning and experience. Digital education researcher Jen Ross describes “co-production in cultural heritage settings” as an “activity in which representatives of the cultural heritage institution and representatives of one or more of that institution’s publics are engaged in reciprocal forms of participation, interpretation, cooperation or exchange.”^[65] In other words, co-production involves public influence over the meaning of cultural heritage material and the way in which that material is experienced. As such, the chat function offers viewers the chance to transform an online presentation with a seemingly clear distinction between the “active” curatorial creators and “passive” remote viewers into a shared polysemic experience.

The UCLA Film & Television Archive “Virtual Screening Room” events are just one of many virtual repertory events that used a platform (Vimeo) with chat functionality. Vimeo’s chat box, a module that appears beside or below the video module, provides remote viewers with a space to give their own co-productive commentary throughout the film. Visitors to UCLA’s Vimeo-hosted live streamed films have used the platform’s chat box to communicate with each other in a way that is often not possible at in-person screenings, where active conversation during the film might be discouraged or strictly prohibited. In the UCLA “Virtual Screening Room,” however, viewers have bantered back and forth, shared links to resources with additional information about the films being shown, expressed their reactions, and formed meaningful connections.^[66] The meaning developed through textual communication during film heritage livestreams demonstrates both material and immaterial affordances of interface design. The chat function allows users to participate in a shared experience of film heritage, even as they sign in from different geographic locations and may experience the livestream through different material conditions (e.g. smartphone using data, shared device with fiber optic connection). Still, the chat box limits viewer participation to text, while programmers, curators, and presenters will usually speak and steer the conversation.

Another potential limitation of chat boxes is their ephemerality. Chat is usually offered as an interface function during “virtual screenings”, but no record is kept after the fact. While this may seem to be a limitation, I assert that this can be a major gain for film heritage institutions and audiences. When chat is ephemeral, it offers viewers and curators a space to share experiences and focus on the production of intangible film heritage rather than create detailed records of that experience. In other words, chat’s ephemerality prioritizes experience, shared experience, and personal memory over the development of material documentation.

This distinction can be important for film heritage institutions navigating their role within the digital economy. To this point, Ross warns that institutions are often tempted to use co-production, particularly digital forms of co-production, as ‘currency,’ collecting records of digital engagement “as evidence of the value and impact of the institution and its activities.”^[67] In cases where the number of comments, “likes,” shares, or views is captured and displayed (which is often the case on YouTube and most social media platforms), institutions may be tempted to play into a given platform’s certain power-dynamics and act less out of public interest than self-interest. This then, is one advantage of chat as a design element, it can afford space, time, and forms of meaning-making that does not lend itself well to institutional co-option.

The risk of instrumentalizing digital engagement raises another critical implication of digital materiality for film heritage institutions: that new digital platform present various new metrics for measuring the reach of their collection. These metrics, however, might not possess the degree of stability in their definition or operation as platforms might lead one to believe.

Metrics, Meaning, and Neoliberalism

Expansion of reach seems to be a popular argument in favor of online access initiatives in the film heritage field. Hanley’s recent article covering FIAF affiliates’ online access platforms proclaims that during March of 2020, when many institutions closed their doors, the “British Film Institute allegedly saw its online traffic double,” and Milan’s Fondazione Cineteca Italiana reportedly attracted four million online users to the website that hosts digitizations from their collection.^[68] Expansions of access and institutional reach like these are often measured through metrics (such as site traffic, page visits, or video views) that allegedly capture the number of people film heritage content has reached, but such metrics have little to offer with regard to relevance, meaning, or public service. These are metrics of scale and spread, that measure (if we take them to be accurate) the number of devices connecting to these resources, but they tell us nothing about how people actually feel. Traffic, hit counts, views, and even engagement metrics such as “likes” and “retweets” can tell us that people are engaging, but not much about how they engage. In an article on audience engagement during the COVID-19 lockdown, Chiara Zuanni observes that variety of metrics leveraged by cultural heritage institutions as evidence of their online impact reveal a “current lack of clear methods and benchmarks for researching online audiences and evaluating their engagement.”^[69] In other words, institutions don’t just struggle to make meaning out of these metrics, but also struggle to determine which (if any) actually matter.

Art writer Orit Gat suggests that online platforms can complicate institutions’ public service missions by introducing “the pressure to attract a global audience.”^[70] This can especially be the case with third-party video and social media platforms, which, as Wilson-Barnao explains, “are designed to maintain user interest through the production of content that renders visitor activities into data for third parties.”^[71] In short, a focus on scale and accumulation online introduces film heritage institutions to risk of falling into and supporting the commercial interests of other parties at the expense of their own mission, values, and spirit of public service. This risk is a major concern for film heritage professionals who decry a neoliberal turn in film heritage institutions and the field at large, figuring the public as consumers rather than citizens.^[72] Recent scholarship on political, economic, and cultural publicity in the EU has partially substantiated these concerns, noting trends of digital optimism and economic instrumentalism that leave film heritage institutions with diminished long-term support for technology intensive initiatives.^[73] As online access platforms gain wider adoption in the twenty-first century there will likely be more internal and external pressure put upon film heritage institutions to frame their digital strategy in terms of efficiency, scale, reach, and productivity. These are neither the values, nor the missions of film heritage institutions and should not become top priorities. As such, film heritage organizations should couple the development of online access systems with thoughtful consideration of which metrics, if any, are most relevant to their ultimate goals.

Digital Film Heritage Access Systems Require Ongoing Maintenance

Questions of funding, values, and digital optimism touch on one last major implication of digital materiality for film heritage institutions: long-term storage and access (online or offline) to digitizations requires ongoing maintenance work. As previously mentioned, lack of funding, staff, and appropriate infrastructure can keep film heritage organizations from digitizing films in their collection and making them available online. The same can be true for maintaining access (public or internal) after completing a major digitization project. This can especially be the case when digitization and access initiatives are muddled by discourses of digital optimism, sometimes called “technological solutionism,” is the belief that new technology can fix all human challenges.^[74] This misconception about technology can influence some decision-makers to overlook the long-term material consequences of digitization and platform development, limiting the resources, funding, and staffing necessary to maintain operations, fixes, and updates. When film heritage institutions undertake digitization work and embrace online access, they must not overlook the perpetual need for ongoing maintenance. Here, reframing digitization and online access as a service, rather than a project is helpful. Digital access platforms often “require sustained funding, people, time, and ongoing research and maintenance.” Further, “These systems cannot be static as they must accommodate new file formats, changing restrictions, and legal concerns over time.”^[75]

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Figure 5. The video player interface for UCLA Preserved Silent Animation Collection. Users were able to check the boxes on the right side of the player to try out different sound options leading to an authentically interchangeable viewing experience. [http://animation.library.ucla.edu/].

UCLA Preserved Silent Animation web page presents the pitfalls of project-based rather than service-based approach to film heritage preservation and access. Produced as part of a project funded by the National Film Preservation Foundation in 2009, the UCLA Preserved Silent Animation project commissioned 22 new scores from composer Michael D. Mortilla for 11 preserved shorts and presented multiple versions of the films online through a specially designed webpage.^[76] The webpage’s interface provided a function to switch between multiple audio tracks for the films (silent, with two different score options, or preservationist commentary), each offering a different interpretation of how to preserve “silent film sound” (Figure 5).

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Figure 6. The UCLA Preserved Silent Animation Project in its current browsable form on the new digital library site. [https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog?f%5Bmember_of_collections_ssim%5D%5B%5D=UCLA%20Preserved%20Silent%20Animation&sort=title_alpha_numeric_ssort+asc].

At the time of writing the page no longer has audio or video functionality. Though each version of the film can be looked up and played in the new UCLA Digital Library system, the generous interface that once accompanied the films and effectively conveyed their polysemy is no longer an option.^[77] This case is notable as it represents a best-case scenario for what can happen when online platforms lack ongoing maintenance. Though the specially commissioned audio is still publicly accessible, full functionality is not. In other cases, an entire collection might be locked behind a default in hosting fees, a lack of sufficient staffing, or an inability to manage necessary updates. In severe cases, they may even become inaccessible to internal staff, representing a loss of film heritage material and institutional resources. Film heritage institutions that begin digitization projects may want to design future updates, maintenance, migration of data or emulation-based access solutions into their access system at the point of development. Additionally, as online access increasingly becomes the norm, institutions must be sure to understand and approach digitization and platform development as a public service rather than a specialized, one-time project.

Conclusion

This paper has argued that digitizations are not an inferior copy of their source print. Instead, film digitizations, or “digital films” are something entirely different—the result of a digital turn in film production, distribution, and heritage operation. Digital films are culturally continuous with analog film prints, but materially distinct. Appreciation for the material attributes of digital films draws attention to the underlying technological, economic, social, and cultural infrastructure that make digitization and online access possible. As film archives, cinematheques and museums digitize material in their collections and make it available online they embed themselves in a complex, heterogeneous, and contingent ecology in which the cultural meaning, economic value, and functional dependencies of their collection become difficult to manage.

Since online access is certainly here to stay and may at times become the sole method of serving the public, film heritage institutions can no longer afford to dismiss, put off, or argue against digitization and platform development. At the same time, the materiality of digitization and online access systems poses a wide array of challenges, financial undertakings, cultural risks, and functional requirements that are not to be taken lightly. Digital films have a material footprint, create infrastructural contingencies, and pose risky economic entanglements when hosted online. Digitization and online access can enable new forms of mediation, cultural (co)production, and public participation. Digital film heritage content and online access platforms can accrue additional information from the public with varying degrees of usefulness and meaning. Finally, digital film heritage material and online access systems require ongoing maintenance in the form of financial support, staff attention, and potential continued updates. As such, it will be advisable for film heritage institutions to view digitization and online access as a public service, rather than a one-time project.

Even if film heritage institutions cannot afford to make it their top priority, online access systems must become the subject of serious consideration, long-term planning, and reasonable investment. Understanding digitization work and online access as forms of cultural and material production are paramount to responsible, ethical, and competent film heritage stewardship and public service.

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Elective Course Paper - Motion Picture Technology

Is Video Game Archiving a Profession Yet?

Introduction: Questions of Profession and Professionalization

In the years since it was published, Ray Edmondson’s 1995 article “Is Film Archiving a Profession?” has come to hold a foundational position in the history of film preservation. Unlike previous calls to fellow archivists, Edmondson’s work had little to do with any particular film format or process. Instead, it outlined the benefits of developing a distinct professional identity. He concluded, “If we don't know that we're professionals, with very clear perceptions of our self-image and our values, we can hardly expect anyone else to know.”^[78] In other words, formalizing as a profession could make earning trust and respect from other professionals—such as historians, librarians, government officials, museum conservators, and filmmakers—much easier, as there would be a larger system of credentialization on which film archivists could stake their name and reputation.

Edmondson’s call to professionalize came more than half a century after Iris Barry began collecting films at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1930s. In 2012, MoMA made headlines with its acquisition of 14 video games and a promise that more would follow.^[79] Like Edmondson’s call to professionalize, this too was a watershed moment for the media preservation community. While it was hardly the first effort (or institutional effort) to collect, preserve, and contextualize video games, MoMA’s decision to collect games themselves (as opposed to media or software art) signaled a major shift among institutions that collect cultural heritage objects. It signaled a change in their cultural valuation of game design itself as an art form. If cultural heritage institutions were beginning to collect video games, then there must also be staff passionate about video games working to preserve and catalog them. When will these new video game archivists—though that may not yet be their official title—find themselves asking their own version of Edmondson’s question? Or have they already?

This paper will draw on recent scholarship in video game preservation to assess what models of professionalism are tenable within the nascent field. Because video game historians and enthusiasts often draw comparisons between video game and film preservation, this discussion will follow suit and use some relevant examples, cases, and frameworks developed by scholars and practitioners of moving image preservation. In making such comparisons, I will argue that the fields not only share various technical, legal, ethical, social, and creative challenges, but also that both fields harbor near-identical internal debates on questions of professionalism, preservation methods, and the efficacy of institutional support.

1. Professionalism: Have Video Game Enthusiasts ‘Grown Up?’ Have Film Archivists?

In Re-collection: Art, New Media, and Social Memory digital curator Jon Ippolito observes that, “The typical game enthusiast has little in common with a salaried conservator besides a devotion to the art form to be preserved and a talent for the craft of preserving it.”^[80] By Ippolito’s account, in 2014 crowdsourced efforts performed by “a global community of dispersed enthusiasts” had already done far more to safeguard video games than “professional curators and conservators.”^[81] Further, Ippolito observes that careerism is not only a low priority for video game preservationists but in some cases professional career choices can actually stand in opposition to their efforts.^[82] Additionally, video games tend to be taken less seriously by cultural institutions. It can be difficult for video game preservationists to find recognition for their work. This is troubling. If there is nobody recognizing the work as important, or willing to pay a decent salary for it, then video game preservation efforts will remain para-professional at best.

Questions of salary, recognition, and personal principles were central to the forum discussion that media studies journal Synoptique held in their 2017 special edition dedicated to evaluating Edmondson’s foundational question. In “Is Film Archiving a Profession: A Reflection 20 Years On,” Edmondson points out that back in 1995 “Many [moving image archivists] preferred to identify with the professions in which they happened to hold formal qualifications,” because such qualifications and their related professions had “pay scales attached to them,” while “there was no comparable recognition for something called film archivist.”^[83] In other words, people doing the work or moving image archivists avoided adopting a comparable title because they felt the corresponding title would not pay well and it lacked formal documentation to ensure fair compensation.

Many working in film archives, museums, and libraries today will corroborate that the same frustrations persist. A recent report from the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) shares that “when asked what they think are the most important challenges for moving image archiving professionals, 57% of the answers related to job security and livable wages.”^[84] Video game preservationists interested in professionalizing may find it discouraging that moving image archiving, several decades into its formalization process, still struggles to establish its importance within institutional budget and staffing decisions. However, consider that the AMIA report makes no suggestion that there is a lack of archival work to be done, but simply a lack of advocacy and bargaining power to ensure that work receives enough compensation to sustain the profession. Further, AMIA’s reporting and advocacy present an avenue for correcting the issue. Just because video game preservationists are passionate enough about some games to put time and effort into saving them without institutional support does not mean they would prefer to do so. As more cultural heritage institutions see value in collecting and providing access to video games, employees who move from amateur communities to professionalized spaces will require effective avenues to advocate for their needs. Amateur video game preservationists might find that a formalization of their field could give them more leverage to affect institutional change and contribute to better long-term models for knowledge and resource sharing.

Despite his suspicions of what professionalism can actually offer video game preservation, Ippolito has been and continues to be one of the few practitioners and educators whose work bridges the gap between formally trained archivists and their less institutionally constrained amateur counterparts. His work gestures in both directions: his seminal 2004 exhibit at the Guggenheim, Seeing Double: Emulation in Theory and Practice, sought to call on “a hidebound institution run by the art world's elite to adapt to and learn from a successful preservation practice developed by a community of amateurs.”^[85] His current work at the University of Maine, which offers a Digital Curation certificate, recalls early efforts to strengthen the moving image achieving field through accreditation and/or certification at the University of East Anglia and L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation. Whether or not one believes accreditation or credentialization is necessary, there is no doubt that graduates from these programs and their work have benefited greatly from the formalization of shared standards and the professional community composed by their alumni. It follows, then, that digital curators, digital preservation specialists, and video game preservationists who seek out and engage with similar professional programs could benefit in a similar manner.

Still, even if the field of video game preservation might one day hold something that resembles a professional community, there will likely continue to be tension between the conflicting approaches to preservation.

2. Preservation Methods: No Right Answers

2.1 – Questions of Urgency

While there is no question that conflicting approaches to preservation persist in film preservation at large, video games present their own exceptional challenges. A close comparison might find, however, that despite the unprecedented challenges video game preservation faces, the concepts at the root of these frustrations are still the same questions that scholarship and practice in film preservation continue to explore to this day. For digital preservationists the two approaches to mitigating obsolescence are migration and emulation. Neither method enjoys a full endorsement from preservationists, archivists, historians, information professionals, and game developers. However, a discussion of their essential principles, limitations, and affordances reveals the extent to which the video game preservation community might benefit from formalizing/professionalizing their profession as the film preservation community has in the past few decades.

The last twenty years have seen rapid changes in digital infrastructure, but a variety of guidebooks and manuals have strived to keep pace. One such book is the Northeast Document Conservation Center’s Handbook for Digital Projects, in which Howard Besser writes that a combination of factors including rapid changes in digital infrastructure, compression standards, data transfer schemes, operating systems, and hardware requirements have led to “a literal Tower of Babel in the proliferation of combinations needed to view a file.”^[86] While such a claim might seem like an exaggeration, most literature specific to video game preservation expresses concern with similar urgency. Information Science professionals Megan A. Winget and Caitlin Murray lament that:

“Initially through the process of trial and error, and then through scientific/chemical principles, people have been conserving traditional art forms for hundreds of years. New media artifacts like videogames do not have that history of production and scholarship, nor is there time to ‘hope for the best,’ in terms of preservation. For example, while it is still possible to look at unpreserved five-hundred-year-old paintings and sculptures, and in many cases, we can still look at preliminary studies and drawings for those works – there is a significant risk of losing a new media artifact as soon as ten years after its initial creation.”^[87]

In other words, the digital nature of video games makes it less likely they might persist when shoved into the back of storage closets or frozen in swimming pools to be discovered decades later.^[88]

Such ‘benign neglect’ situations might be okay for a lot of analog audio-visual material, but scholarship on video game preservation tends to agree that a combination of physical, social, and commercial factors make the preservation of games uniquely precarious. Such precarity led the Game Preservation Special Interest Group of the International Game Developers Association (IDGA) to claim in their 2009 whitepaper that “if we fail to address the problems of game preservation, the digital games of today will disappear, perhaps within a few decades.”^[89] Unlike other scholarship, this whitepaper makes a point to list specific physical liabilities such as: the susceptibility of magnetic disks, tape and hard drives to bit rot; the susceptibility of optical discs to chemical and dye deterioration; and the susceptibility of ROM Cartridges to moisture and battery acid corrosion. Aside from these physical concerns, the whitepaper also explains how the rapid pace of the digital market, and the video game market in particular, can accelerate software obsolescence.^[90] Many enthusiasts and institutions combat these problems by migrating the information into a new repository.

2.2 – Migration and Building Trust with the Industry

Migration, arguably the most popular form of video game preservation, simply involves copying digital information to a new container or location (such as a hard drive, remote server, or personal computer). Migration puts an emphasis on the programming information of a game rather than the environment and context that enables it.

A similar approach in film preservation might be scanning a film or striking a new print from available elements, ideally the camera negative. If video games had a camera negative, according to researchers Kris Krause and Rachel Donahue, it would be the source code. Krause and Donahue explain that “you can do a lot more with the negatives, and the same is true for source code.” When a design or studio releases a game, its source code is compiled into the executable programs that speak differently to different operating systems and consoles. This process turns the game’s programming into binary files that “obscure the underlying code and are difficult or impossible to decompile.”^[91] To mitigate these issues, Krause and Donahue advise that collecting organizations should get developers involved in the preservation process as early as possible because, “the nature of development and the rapidly changing market,” make it such that, “raw source code is more likely to be available before a game is officially released.”^[92] To make this happen, it is essential that preservationists build relationships with studios and independent developers to secure their support.

Cultural heritage institutions will likely have a better chance building such relationships than independent preservationists. Winget and Murray share that the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin has already collaborated with “some of the leading figures in the game industry,” in order to “attract large donations from video game pioneers and current practitioners alike.”^[93] Large companies and independent video game designers may feel that a museum or archive will remain more accountable for preserving IP and copyright protections than an individual enthusiast or small anonymous community. To this point, there are already institutions like the Strong Museum of Play and the National Video Game Museum in Frisco, TX that are hard at work building a reputation for preserving “not just the physical artifacts, [but] the information and stories” related to video games’ development as well.^[94]

Migration has long been a key component of institutional approaches to preservation, and still continues to be. In fact, the Strong Museum’s Digital Preservation Handbook outlines a migration-based model for electronic and video game preservation while conceding its technical and conceptual issues, such as limited possibilities for access and problematic file formats. Even in a perfect world with unlimited digital storage space and perfect file fixity, migration can strip a video game of qualities that are essential to its meaning. For one, preserving the information of a game’s code might not exactly convey how it was played or how it related to its cultural context. To mitigate this, the Strong’s handbook recommends creating video capture of gameplay in order to keep a record of “how a game functioned using original hardware,” allow others “to study gameplay,” and capture elements of a game that depend on networked servers.^[95] Even if this gameplay footage is thorough and comprehensive, it will still reflect the priorities of the archivists or preservationists that made it. Preserving these living aspects of a game are as vital as they are fraught with difficult interpretative choices, much like restoring a film. In both, consultation with historians and the work’s creators themselves will likely be necessary. Here again, formal recognition or institutional affiliation would be an asset to accomplishing preservation goals.

2.3 – Emulation: Efficiency at Our Own Risk

For some enthusiasts, copies and gameplay footage alone will not sufficiently embody the experience of playing a game. Consider silent film presentations that stress the importance of live accompaniment, or experimental films that depend on variable elements like duration, audience participation, performance, or specific projection instructions. The preservation of dynamic elements like these is one of the strengths of emulation, which also poses greater flexibility and efficiency. Emulation can be an excellent way to maintain access to video games in a variety of contexts. It can also make new users more receptive to a game’s value. In one unique case, researchers at the University of Michigan found that though test subjects were able to notice “very minor differences between the original and the emulated version of Chuckie Egg [a Pac Man-like game that originally ran on the BBC Microcomputing platform],” they greatly preferred the emulated version.^[96]

Emulation is the design of applications that impersonate certain obsolete software (and even hardware). Most emulators do not preserve games directly but simulate their required digital environments. Because of this, emulation appears to be an ideal preservation method as it can be relatively medium-independent and far more efficient than migration. Ippolito explains that migration, “must be reperformed case by case for each work on each platform,” which means that there is “minimal added benefit to having performed a migration in the past,” but, “once you’ve emulated a popular chip to preserve, say, Space Invaders for the Atari, you’ve also inadvertently added to the lifespan of every other game or artwork that runs on the Atari's chip.”^[97] Further, it is possible to run an emulator within an emulator, meaning preservationists will not have to worry about emulator obsolescence so long as designers continue to make new emulators to daisy-chain across multiple obsolete hardware and operating systems.

Emulation is arguably the strongest case for leaving video game preservation in the hands of devoted enthusiasts. Ippolito shares that the emulation design community possess a remarkable collaborative spirit, regularly giving away their creations, “and often the code behind them, for free on the Internet,” so that others can make improvements. This might be why he feels that “game enthusiasts wield a weapon in the battle to preserve new media more powerful than any in the arsenal of traditional conservators.”^[98] These emulators represent a community approach to preservation that might remain resilient to the shortage of funds, staffing, and other resources that archivists often complain about. While Ippolito is not alone in his optimism about emulators and their potential, some feel that such fan-driven models pose significant risks.

Digital preservation researchers Paul Gooding and Melissa Terras claim that while emulation work is often taken on with the best intentions, its long-term viability questionable because in many cases “it is effectively illegal,” which opens up the risk of suffocating under intimidation from studios, and often the, “limited skills and funding [of some developers] increase the likelihood of activity being abandoned with little warning.” Gooding and Terras also claim that, “The hobbyist nature of the work done also means that the community is vulnerable to skill loss, erratic decision making and basic loss of interest among participants.”^[99] Researchers in the Preserving Virtual Worlds project confirm this, finding that “A quick survey of popular emulators for the Atari, Sega, Sony, Commodore, Apple, and Nintendo brands showed that over 70% of the efforts never resulted in a viable emulation environment.”^[100] Still, even with these risks emulation retains several advantages over the laborious process of migration, even if it sacrifices some authenticity.

For complicated cases, Ippolito suggests a tiered approach, wherein storage and migration are not simply “augmented with emulation when these strategies fail in the longer term,” but are also consulted to document what might be lost in an emulator.^[101] In a tiered approach, additional material (physical or otherwise) might become more of an asset than a liability for preserving video games. But once again, these decisions are hardly free from the difficult interpretative decisions made all the time during film restoration projects.

Even in ideal cases where there is no shortage of resources, the Preserving Virtual Worlds report worries that, “Without a clear understanding of which aspects of a game are likely to be considered significant by scholars in the future, it is extremely difficult to choose an appropriate preservation strategy and preserving games without any change in their appearance and play may simply not be achievable in many instances.”^[102] In other words, the process of preserving video games can never be fully successful. Such setbacks make it abundantly clear that funding and access to emulation development tools are not the only important limiting factors in game preservation. There is also a significant need to forge partnerships with scholars, build relationships with developers, and raise awareness among the public. Each will be critical to doing the best preservation work possible. These needs demonstrate the benefits of formalizing the profession.

3. Institutional Efficacy: Points of Tension and Collaboration

The various debates around the affordances, limitations, and priorities of different approaches to video game preservation recall Karen Gracy’s observation that the definition of film preservation “is the subject of an ongoing dialogue among archivists.”^[103] Gracy also points out that the field of film preservation hosts a wide range of organizations with vastly different missions, from commercial archives to artist’s co-ops and regional nonprofits. The priorities of each institution shape their definition of preservation which in turn shapes the work they consider most important.

In its broadest definition, for Gracy, film preservation refers to the “multiple processes physical and intellectual, that are used by archives and libraries to maintain access to a film: collection, physical preservation techniques, cataloging, transfer to film and video, and exhibition.”^[104] There are a rare few institutions, if any, that can fully achieve this list. Still, the continued pursuit of preservation in its fullest remains a goal for most, which requires making strategic decisions about what must be done, what should be done, and what can wait. While no two institutions, let alone individuals, may agree on what dimensions of preservation are most important, holding shared space within a formalized field enables productive conversations and negotiations towards those ends.

In “Save Point/s: Competing Values and Practices in the Field of Video Game Preservation,” Benedict Salazar Olgado—product of NYU’s MIAP program, founding director of the National Film Archives of the Philippines, and current Ph.D. candidate in Informatics at UC Irvine—carries Gracy’s assessment of film preservation as a socially determined field over to video game preservation. He argues that points of tension between studios, enthusiasts, and cultural heritage institutions can also be “points of possible collaboration,” where they can come together to identify shared definitions and standards, fostering relationships that might lay the foundation for future projects or clarify the cultural stakes of certain practices.^[105] While clashes over copyright, careerism, conflicting standards, or preservation methods may make remaining outside of institutional frameworks advantageous for some video game preservationists, as the field continues to formalize its standards and boundaries, many may find a need to secure formal recognition or a stable long-term model for knowledge sharing. While video game preservation’s present may not look like film preservation’s past, its future will require similar strategies of professionalization and bids for institutional support.

Conclusion: Grounds for Collaboration

So far, this paper has only gestured towards, but not fully engaged with what is likely the most compelling reason video game preservationists may want to engage in the growing professionalization/formalization of the field: it has already begun. As such, independent video game enthusiasts who do not engage may risk falling behind. It has now been over a decade since the Library of Congress issued its Preserving Virtual Worlds Report, and nearly as long since MoMA began collecting video games. It has also been roughly twenty years since Stanford University added The Stephen M. Cabrinety collection (of video games from 1975-1993) into its History of Microcomputing Library (there are now also significant collections related to video games at other universities, including the University of Illinois, University of Michigan, and the prior mentioned University of Texas).^[106] The number of stakeholders are numerous and their interests may often conflict, so formal avenues for productive collaboration will be integral to moving forward. But those avenues are often shaped by the institutions with the most cultural authority. Forming a FIAF or AMIA for complex media and video game preservationists would not just focus internal discussion, but help passionate preservationists have a say in shaping the future. There is also certainly no shortage of standards and best practices to be set (and re-set). For Olgado, “Forming the next generation of video game archivists as a community with articulated shared values and philosophies” will be the only way to ensure that there are sustainable methods for continuing the work.^[107]

Further, video game preservationists who prefer to remain outside of institutional contexts need not necessarily buy into the professionalism of museums and universities, they simply need to develop knowledge-sharing structures that can keep their work going. It is no secret that when practitioners pass away, they often take certain essential preservation knowledge and practices with them. A formal system is the only way to responsibly ensure that knowledge can persist. Recalling the statistics about abandoned emulator projects, one wonders what would happen if the video game preservation community had an initiative similar to projection workshops sponsored by the AMIA Film Advocacy Task Force.^[108] Rinehart also muses that, “perhaps the acned [video game] modders of today will grow to be the digital museum docents of the future.”^[109] If we can forgive him the colorful depiction, we might make steps to ensure such a future comes to pass. A more formalized video game preservation field would be an asset to cultural institutions, studios, preservationists, future historians, and the games themselves.

Core Course Paper (Policy Brief) - Systems & Infrastructure

Dear University Librarian Steel,

With the UCLA Film and Television Archive continuing its transition into the UCLA Library's organizational structure, I'm sure you're well aware that we preside over one of the world’s major repositories of film and media history, artistry, and cultural heritage. There is no question that the library must be exceptionally prepared to meet the always changing media access demands of students, instructors, researchers, and the public at large. The Film and Television Archive's new director, May Hong HaDuong, feels strongly that our next chapter will feature access to much of the collection via streaming services and platforms. We will soon begin exploring if that will be done through a platform of our own design or in partnership with an existing service. As such, she has asked that I provide you and other key decision makers with a policy brief that assesses the major affordances, limitations, and liabilities of current streaming services and their underlying technology.

As a twenty-first century archive, operating in conjunction with the library of a major research university, film streaming platforms and services pose many opportunities for us. Still, all access and presentation technologies introduce their own risks and pose their own problems. Understanding the technology that supports these services will be essential to making wise decisions about how our funding, staff, and resources are allocated.

This year's strange new conditions have left many libraries and archives scrambling to meet the access needs of their patrons. Here and now, a robust institutional understanding of streaming technology, infrastructure, standards, and issues has never been more necessary. Literature on film streaming reflects that its future is both exciting and challenging, especially for institutions. I appreciate your time and hope you will find the brief helpful not just for your work with the FTVA, but also for your own research and education initiatives. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and questions on the matter.

Sincerely,

Russell Zych

Digital Content and Access Associate

UCLA Film and Television Archive

Essential Principles and Considerations for Video Streaming Services and Platforms:

An Institutional Perspective

Overview

After providing some information and background, as well as a brief explanation of the technology that supports streaming services and platforms, the following report will address:

Streaming video quality and the infrastructure that enables or limits video resolution
The costs and strategies for meeting online accessibility standards
The privacy and ethical issues surrounding personalization and recommendation features
Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems and Fair Use approaches to streaming copyrighted content
New possibilities enabled by new Streaming Infrastructure as a Service models (S-IaaS)

Introduction and Background

Over the last decade online streaming has gone from an exciting new possibility to the default with regard to film and media access. There has been an explosion in services and platforms, as well as innovation in their underlying design and configuration. The popularity of film streaming means it is not just part of our media consumption diet, but it now plays a functional role in education and information access.

Because video streaming services and platforms tend to leverage near-identical technology and infrastructure, almost all comparisons foreground content and devote little to no attention to any of the technical aspects of that content’s presentation or delivery. This focus on content obfuscates how digital infrastructure and engineering shape the way we use these services.

While the home video model of distribution enabled public libraries, universities, community centers, and individual enthusiasts to develop vast collections, streaming and its subscription and pay-per-use models take control of media lifespan away from viewers, librarians, and collectors. This is one of many arguments against buying into streaming as an institutional media access solution.^[110] Still, the utility of streaming services and platforms—especially those with unparalleled access to application development storage and processing resources—make them appealing. As such, libraries, universities, and archives would all do well to ensure all decision makers and high-level staff possess a basic understanding of how video streaming works, as well as its related issues and opportunities.

What are Video Streaming Services and Platforms?

Streaming services and platforms are essentially delivery agents for video content online. These platforms and services most popularly take the form of applications on various devices or websites accessible through web-browsing software. There are services that primarily offer entertainment (e.g., Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, HBOMax), services that offer educational content (Lynda, Udemy), services that blend this line by operating in educational contexts (e.g., Kanopy, Alexander Street Press, Lumière), and platforms that simply host and moderate user-generated video content (YouTube, DailyMotion). While each of these services offer different content, the underlying technology that supports their operations is essentially the same.

As opposed to downloading a full video file, with streaming “the media file being played on the client device is stored remotely and is transmitted a few seconds at a time over the Internet.”^[111] Most services offer client applications for a wide range of devices. The majority of the architecture and components involved reside on the services’ back end with a relatively “thin” client software comprising the front end. This arrangement means that end-users will need very little storage and processing on their own devices but does require network connectivity. From the perspective of services and platforms themselves, such as Netflix or YouTube, however, the processing and storage demands can be immense.

Most streaming services pay for server space and processing with third party IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) companies like AWS (Amazon Web Services). Streaming Services operate through existing internet network infrastructure. This means that services aiming to provide delivery of video content will need to make that content discoverable and accessible through the internet. Users access this content through web pages discoverable on web browsers or through designated applications installed on smartphones, tablets, Smart TVs and video game consoles. In these applications, users navigate a graphic interface displaying video offerings.

The volume of information transferable on the internet at any given moment is not unlimited. For example, Netflix’s minimum bandwidth requirement is .5 Mbit/s, but they recommend 25 Mbit/s for UltraHD quality.^[112] Like all data delivered over the internet, video streaming data is broken down into several smaller packets to be interpreted and presented by the client software on an end-user’s device. When the video file is ultimately displayed it will require video and audio hardware (screens and speakers), but most devices used to access these services tend to have built-in screens and speakers.

Key Challenges and Issues:

Infrastructure to Support and Enable Video Quality

Users today have come to expect high resolution video from streaming services and platforms. Three elements are necessary to ensure video quality: processing, storage, and reliable connectivity. Access to each of these can be a fundamental barrier to entry for developers and users alike.

To ensure that this is possible on any given device and can run smoothly under poor network connectivity conditions, streaming services will convert video files into every version format necessary. This long list of video file formats and versions is called a streaming service’s encoding profile. Depending on the video quality and the number of versions needed, some encoding profiles require multiple servers with immense storage and CPU power to create those. Because the majority of required processing for this method of media delivery takes place on the service end, user devices will require minimal processing. Even so, devices will eventually need to re-interpret and present the video file packets as they arrive, which requires internet connectivity. But again, much of this is managed on the service end--many services will switch between different video resolutions to allow for the stream of video data to continue uninterrupted. So, while users have come to expect high resolution video at a reasonable speed, established processes and shared infrastructure can continue to deliver. Even smaller platforms and services with less resources can pay for IaaS to keep pace with the major players.

Accessibility Standards

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) claims that places of “public accommodation shall afford goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations to an individual with a disability in the most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of the individual.”^[113] For streaming services, the three most prominent issues involve captioning for the deaf or hearing impaired, keyboard navigation for those with motor impairments, and audio descriptions for the blind. Providing these services has been a place of tension even for streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, which as a result of a 2012 court ruling were forced to provide closed captioning and other online aids.^[114] Thanks to the US courts enforcement, these large streaming services have had no choice, and as a result they have developed efficient and well documented procedures for meeting these standards.^[115]

Still, smaller services with less resources often struggle to meet these standards and tend to provide accommodations that are inconsistent at best, and outright unusable at worst.^[116] However, interested organizations like the Web Accessibility Initiative and Section 508 offer assistance by providing guidelines and a directory of vendors that can create captioning and provide other relevant services.^[117] An organization looking into subscribing or contracting a video streaming service would do well to ensure ahead of time that there are already systems in place for ensuring ADA compliance.

Privacy vs. Personalization

Over the course of the last decade, video streaming services have taken part in several key functional design trends that now shape the way almost all transactions take place online. Most prominent among these is the development of recommendation engines and algorithms. Like many other online services that feel pressure to capture and monetize user attention, streaming services incorporate a toolset of slick user interface and user experience (UI/UX) design choices such as personalization features and streamlined browsing processes to make the collection of user data not just easy to manage, but palatable to the public. These features offer some useful functionally but introduce privacy concerns. Further, some users may find recommendation and personalization features to be invasive, inappropriate, deceptive, coercive, and outright inefficient.^[118] Further, the degree to which most streaming platforms and services have seamlessly integrated data collection and predatory “dark pattern” design into these personalization features raise serious ethical issues, and now legal issues.^[119]

Another major area of regulation for streaming services and platforms is the protection of copyrighted content as set out by the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), which aims to stop unauthorized copying and distribution of intellectual property and copyrighted material online. While most streaming services have developed robust DRM (Digital Rights Management) tools to stop screen capture or unauthorized duplication of content, smaller services and educational institutions with less resources have had more difficulty navigating the successful mitigation between rights holders who want to protect their content and end-users who want convenient access. In some cases, “fair use protections'' can allow individuals and institutions to provide streaming access to copyrighted materials without extra costs or licensing fees.

One unique fair use streaming strategy that has materialized in the last decade is UC Berkeley’s Lumière platform, an “online library [that] contains 20,434 clips drawn from 6,504 films in 65 languages,” which allows limited access for students and instructors to stream videos of copyrighted works.^[120] In order to gain access, instructors need to file an application and ask their institution to provide a list of works they own on DVD. UC Berkeley IP lawyers believe that so long as the institution accessing any given piece of content already owns it on DVD, that institution is within its rights to allow students to stream it for an accredited course. Publications within the ALA (such as a recent joint brief from the Library Copyright Alliance, Association of Research Libraries, and Association of College & Research Libraries) ^[121] have extended similar rationale to defend the educational streaming of copyrighted material as a practice well within the “Fair Use” protections of the Copyright Act.

Future Trends

The last few years have seen a rise in Streaming Infrastructure as a service (S-IaaS), which lowers the barriers to entry. One example of this would be the Criterion Channel, which is curated and operated by the boutique home video label, but otherwise technically run through Vimeo’s for-hire streaming infrastructure.^[122] Another completely different example is OVID.TV, which operates through the pooled resources of six different independent film distributors to make their content available online.^[123] Similar opportunities for the archive or university are possible, such as the previously mentioned Lumière platform. Each of these examples demonstrate that there is no longer a need for institutions to feel that they must develop a streaming solution or platform themselves: there are now tools and vendors that offer significant hosting, processing, and design services that suit any specific streaming needs. In light of this, the future of streaming services and platforms may be a complete reconceptualization of the “service” that lies within the underlying technology. In other words, it may no longer be video-on demand, but video-on-demand…-on-demand.

It should be noted, however, that any outsourcing of system design will always entail sacrificing a degree of control. While the future of streaming services and platforms may allow for a wide variety of options, including S-IaaS for institutions, stakeholders will need to make diligent assessments of which resources best suit their needs.

Additional Coursework

Though the IS Handbook advises sparing and judicious inclusion of additional documentation, I have elected to include two further coursework items. I feel these examples are necessary to demonstrate my digital humanities scholarship, for which I am earning a graduate certificate, and to further illustrate my development of critical inquiry into digital systems, platforms, and practices in the cultural heritage field:

Against Assets

Methods Course Paper - IS 298B: Critical and Postcolonial LIS Methods (Winter 2022)

This final research paper was submitted to Professor Michelle Caswell for her Critical and Postcolonial LIS Methods seminar. Dr. Caswell’s course provided vital guidance on strategies for applying critical theory to library, archives, and museum practices. The course also covered strategies for structuring large research projects and developing professional academic writing skills. As such, Dr. Caswell’s prompt was intentionally open. Students were simply asked to apply the work of any critical thinker to any relevant library or information science topic. I chose to apply the work of various critical digital scholars to undertake a Foucaultian discourse analysis of language used in Digital Asset Management promotional material and instructional literature. In this paper I argue that the language of Digital Asset Management reinforces harmful neoliberal dynamics in the Libraries Archives and Museums field. I make this point through close readings on usage of three key terms: Digital, Asset, and Management.

Mabel’s Film Career

Project Summary - Introduction to Digital Humanities (Winter 2021)

This abstract combines the Introduction [https://r-zych.github.io/MabelsFilmCareer/] and About [https://r-zych.github.io/MabelsFilmCareer/About.html] pages of my data visualization project for Professor Miriam Posner's DGT HUM 201. The project described was submitted as a dynamic web-hosted demonstration of the processing and presentation skills acquired in Dr. Posner’s course throughout the quarter. My project focused on the career and reception of silent film star Mabel Normand, who, like many other women filmmakers of the silent era, has recently benefited from critical and historical revaluation. Taking her filmography data as a starting point, I used skills acquired in Dr. Posner’s course and other independently built skills to explore the affordances and limitations of quantitative methods for biographical and historical scholarship. This experience prepared me to undertake data ‘cleaning’, visualization, and user-testing work with my friend and colleague Patricia Lesdesma Villon the following Fall (2021) for Sarah Clothier at the American Film Institute (AFI) Catalog.

Methods Course Paper - Critical LIS Methods

Against Assets

This use of the word content desires a kind of “free

flow” of content, much like the “free flow of capital” in contemporary

finance capitalism.

Alexander Horwath, The Market vs the Museum^[124]

Content + Rights = Asset

David Austerberry, Digital Asset Management^[125]

Introduction: The DAM vs The LAM

This paper takes up a cause based on my own discomfort with particular terminology adopted within the Library and Information Science (LIS)/Libraries Archives and Museums (LAM) field.^[126] More specifically, I am building on the concern expressed by curator and film heritage scholar Alexander Horwath, who’s 2005 polemic “The Market vs The Museum” warned that an emerging neo-liberal rhetoric of the digital would limit museums and archives’ capacity to ensure, “Respect both for the artefacts that are collected, preserved, and exhibited, and for the person who views them in order to engage with them.”^[127] I believe that a similar rhetoric influences the increasing demands for Digital Asset Management systems (DAM systems, sometimes DAMs or DAMS) within the LAM field and cultural heritage sector more broadly, limiting information and memory workers’ capacity to respect their missions, their collections, and themselves.^[128]

Though definitions of DAM can vary widely, DAM systems typically comprise an arrangement of hardware for digital file storage and software for their description and access.^[129] Though there are many past precursors, the formal conception of DAM emerges around 1990 in the commercial sector, specifically the publishing and media industries, where it referred to the process of maintaining a high volume of digital production files for convenient shared use and future re-use.^[130] As early as the 2005, large LAM institutions were contracting outside vendors to provide DAM services for their digital collections.^[131] Today, DAM system adoption is widespread among LAM institutions and outside vendors remain a popular method for every aspect of DAM strategy from software to cloud storage and digital preservation services. It is not the widespread adoption that gives me pause, but a suspicion that uncritical adoption of DAM’s cultural imports might emblematize Cifor and Lee’s observation that “neoliberalism has become the dominant ideology of LIS institutions, shaping how LIS professionals and academics conceptualize their work, frame problems, and offer solutions.”^[132]

Broadly speaking, Neoliberalism describes a distinct set of economic policies, political agendas, and cultural logics advanced since the 1970s that prioritize the flow of capital at the expense of social welfare services and programs meant to maintain public goods.^[133] This neoliberal rhetoric atomizes individuals as practical decision-makers in a free market economy and undervalues labor related to maintenance and care in favor of actions that appear ‘productive’ in the sense that the generate economic value.^[134] For LAM/LIS and the cultural heritage field more broadly, this translates to: an over-emphasis on productivity, efficiency, and “return on investment;”^[135] pressure to derive “previously untapped” value from collections;^[136] an interest in visibility and prioritization of ‘more visible’ projects to demonstrate value and secure additional funding; reduced budgets with the expectation that workers can adapt and contrive “creative” solutions to ‘do more with less;’^[137] an intense strain of digital optimism that overvalues new technology as a solution to social or economic problems.^[138] I worry that the enthusiastic call for DAM systems can entrench these harmful neoliberal dynamics and foreclose a wider spectrum LAM activities that are important but do not register as ‘productive,’ ‘efficient,’ or ‘highly visible.’

This was Horwath’s concern too: his polemic was penned in reaction to the overnight saturation of three buzzwords (“content,” “access,” and “user”) in museum and archive discourse that suggested a neoliberal wolf in democratizing/populist sheep’s clothing, seeking to install “a market logic at the cost of the critical and political functions of the museum.”^[139] Seeing a similar dynamic with DAM promotion, like Horwath, I asses the neoliberal rhetorics of three terms: ‘digital,’ ‘asset,’ and ‘management.’ I argue that these terms (and the language of DAM more generally) can further entrench a neoliberal configuration of information work in LAM contexts. This is especially apparent when one analyzes the way ‘digital,’ ‘asset,’ and ‘management’ are mobilized across promotional material from DAM vendors and clients. Reading these materials closely, I’ll demonstrate how a certain strain of ‘digital’ optimism obfuscates the material requirements of DAM, how the term ‘asset’ advances a problematic instrumentalization of digital objects, and how the term ‘management’ enforces a managerial individualization among information and memory workers.

To be clear, I am not advocating to expel DAM from the LAM field. Below you will find no attempt to dispute its utility. I do not argue against the use of DAM systems, but rather against an asset-ification of LAM organizations, their collections, and their workers. My project here is informed by Rawson and Muñoz’s “Against Cleaning,” which does not advocate for the abandonment of data-cleaning as a practice, but for more precise and thoughtful articulation at each point of the “cleaning” process.^[140] I am arguing that when care for digital collections involves the use of contracted or licensed digital systems, information and memory workers must remain critical of the processes, requirements, and products of those systems. Further, critical awareness about how neoliberalism manifests in techno-social systems grows more urgent every day.

This matters because adoption of DAM systems is not just widespread among large, well-resourced institutions (the kind of institutions with goals that might easily align with neoliberal projects), but also among smaller, non-academic, and community organizations (the kind of organizations those neoliberal projects can harm). DAM systems tend to be costly to implement and resource intensive to maintain. A 2014 study of nonacademic archival repositories cited “lack of personnel, “lack of financial resources,” and “lack of institutional support” as the greatest impediments to DAM system use by a majority of archivists surveyed.^[141] In short, despite a seemingly hegemonic demand for DAMS there is not always the potential (let alone the need) to meet the demands of DAMS.^[142]

Digital Hype and Competitive Global Transformation

In DAM promotional material, a neoliberal digital hype can overemphasize the potential affordances of layered digital system stacks while downplaying their design assumptions and material requirements. This mystification of the digital in DAM promotion is problematic because it insists that digital systems are inherently better, more efficient, or more convenient by virtue of being new, when, in terms of social justice, often the opposite can be just as true.^[143]

As digital preservationist Trevor Owens points out, “All our interactions with digital information are mediated through layers of platforms.” What are platforms exactly? For Owens, “whatever the programmer takes for granted when developing, and whatever, from the other side, the user is required to have working to use a particular software, is the platform.”^[144] In other words, platforms represent the assumptions of their designers and can often place a degree of individual responsibility on the part of the user. Within neoliberal digital rhetoric the “taken for granted-ness” of these platform assumptions is increasingly unspoken, invisible, and a matter of practicality so that their harms and exclusions are the fault of individuals who cannot properly meet the demands of the modern world, rather than a social order rife with systemic inequity, injustice, and oppression. Here, DAM service vendors certainly fit the bill. Further, through their mystification of digital affordances as an efficient and in-demand aspect of the future, these vendors aim to persuade LAM organizations to adopt or further entrench a neoliberal logic of individualism, competition, and embrace of technology as a virtue in and of itself.

A blog post titled “Digital Asset Management for Museums” from system provider Extensis announces, “Digitization now empowers institutions to reach far beyond their four walls. To share the stories of the many different objects in their collections, that might not ever get space in their galleries.”^[145] Ignoring the fact that this potential use case for digitization assumes the institution in question has a physical location and holds “many different objects in their collection,” the core of this value proposition depends on assumptions that: museums are interested in expansion of influence, have the suitable resources to do so, have the appropriate stakeholder approval to do so, and understand digitization an opportunity for otherwise uncapturable value. While this use case for Extensis may be easy to imagine among several LAM institutions, there is no doubt that its assumptions capture several key neoliberal propositions and interests.

Of course, it might be easy to overlook this digital hype as empty sales-speak, but additional context demonstrates this rhetoric is far from harmless. First, consider that this form of digital hype—which emphasizes expanded reach, frames digital operations as a frictionless streamlined process, and stresses an impulse to ‘keep up’ with the demands of a global digital revolution—is characteristic of several other DAM vendor advertorials. The “What is Digital Asset Management?” page on the website for Canto, a popular DAM provider, claims that, “In today’s rapidly evolving digital climate, there’s no limit to what a digital asset can be.”^[146] The hyperbole here develops a sense of unimaginable untapped value. A post from another system provider, MediaValet, titled “DAM for Archiving: The Best Way to Preserve History,” claims that “we are in the middle of a massive, global digital transformation. The digitization of archives and historical records are a huge part of this evolution.”^[147] Here a neoliberal rhetoric of digital hype emphasizes expansion, competition, and global transformation, while strategically avoiding any mention of the forces that drive such changes. Another example from DAM vendor ResourceSpace, makes the emphasis on digital as new, optimal, and necessary far more pronounced:

You might associate museums with ancient artefacts and antiques, but that doesn't mean they have to be just as old-fashioned behind the scenes. In fact, many institutions are turning to the latest digital technologies to help them manage valuable assets more effectively.^[148]

As with previous examples, the copy here positions digital systems as synonymous with productivity and keeping pace with demand. To these examples we can add the additional context that the search engine results for countless variants of “digital asset management museums” will return a deluge of similar advertorial blog posts from DAM vendors rather than more credible sources on digital collection policy.^[149] This is worrisome simply because search engines tend to socialize users into believing they “provide access to credible, accurate information that is depoliticized as neutral.”^[150] While I do not believe the average information worker to necessarily be susceptible to these incredibly biased advertorials, I am concerned by the extent to which DAM vendors leverage search engine optimization and the neoliberal information environment to assert control of knowledge creation related to their services. Most importantly, I worry this digital hype might influence the priorities of funders or decision makers that are less close to the material they seek to ‘digitally transform.’

This is not to say that all DAM vendors or clients avoid discussion of material requirements (funding, labor, and infrastructure). Museum implementation case studies from leading DAM services provider NetX describe in a closer level of detail the various labor, decision-making, and compatibility requirements of its clients.^[151] Further, the company’s FAQ page provides some frank detail of what DAM systems typically cost, how long implementation may take, and the advantages of ensuring your organization assigns sufficient staff for maintenance.^[152] While this information provides a degree of transparency about the financial, labor, and infrastructural requirements on the “front end” of DAM, there is little clarity about the politics of “back end” operation or broader consideration of how these factors still constitute barriers for organizations with less resources.

To this point, consider “Unprecedented Access to Cooper Hewitt's Collection,” a promotional video embedded within a blogpost from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum titled “Mass Digitization: Digital Asset Management.”^[153] In this video, depictions of an object’s journey through the digital imaging process are intercut with statements from museum leadership relating how their scale of digitization (2,000+ objects in under a year) with its “unheard of” efficiency will allow the museum to “soar into the future.” While the video provides some clarity on the material infrastructure, labor, and financing that make digitization possible, the neoliberal rhetoric of transformational progress obfuscates any clear sense of the values or social interests that motivate this work. Further, such a characterization of the future paints an uneven vision of which actions (digitization and online access) and who (well-resourced, often predominantly white institutions) are ‘forward-thinking.’ Consider that these systems are not immune to disaster, faulty design, or general degradation. When errors arise, technical or human, the stratification of DAM vendor pricing structures guarantees that organizations with the least resources (or at least less resources) allocated to digital programs, will receive less optimal service than those with more. For example, ResourceSpace includes “priority support” for its Enterprise Cloud clients, “ongoing support” and “unlimited bug fixes” for its Business and Team Cloud clients, but no support for free users.^[154] Neoliberal discourses aggressively insist on the value of transformative digital initiatives within and outside LIS/LAM, while downplaying the economic and material texture of the digital landscape can enforce persistent dynamics of exclusion, oppression, and unaccountability.

This matter is made more complicated by the growing dominance of platform capitalism, under which businesses do not just develop platforms but aggressively pursue arrangements where the platform configurations can ensure control over the scope and terms of user actions and interaction. Political economist Nick Srnicek explains that platforms often provide “a series of tools that enable their users to build their own products, services, and marketplaces.” Further, platforms encapsulate the neoliberal fiction of fairness through a tendency to sell themselves as “empty spaces for others to interact on” or customize yourself, when “they in fact embody a politics.”^[155] In other words, just as there are no neutral archives, there are no neutral digital platforms. Recalling Owens’ point, DAM systems and the projects they enable can bundle together the politics of the information workers who use them with the politics of their institution, the DAM vendor, and any number of software designers and hardware technicians.

This layering of platform politics is especially harmful when one considers accounts of “Failures of Care” on behalf of predominantly white institutions, in which, as Bergis Jules notes, digital collections become a “selective and specialized space” that “prioritizes professionalism, technical expertise, and standards, over a critical interrogation of the cultural character of our records.” This is to say that who gets represented in digital collections is closely tied to “who writes the software, who builds the tools, who produces the technical standards, and who provides the funding or other resources for that work.”^[156] Caswell and Carbajal suggest that “without a radical redistribution of the means to create and maintain digital archives,” we should expect these inequities to continue flourishing within the current neoliberal climate. ^[157] The more one considers the gaps and barriers that surround digitization, the more urgent such a suggestion becomes.

In a field like LIS/LAM where neoliberalism dominates, these overlapping platforms can embed a variety of biases and exclusions. Often digital systems are not so much “forward-thinking” as they are expensive or resource-intensive to implement. In such conditions, overemphasis on digital systems as a competitive and transformative step towards the future can betray an unwillingness to consider inequity to the point of cruelty. In many digital platforms, the invisibility of design assumptions and user requirements offloads care work from designers onto users, maintaining a neoliberal regime of individualized responsibility. Considering this, any mystification of future digital potentials merit considerable scrutiny as a form of neoliberal rhetoric.

Assets and Value Extraction

Digital assets, as defined by both DAM vendors and instructional literature, betray a neoliberal instrumentalization of LAM collections. Use of DAM systems can also risk tooling digital objects and records towards neoliberal imperatives, influencing how users, workers, and institutions understand the cultural and material value of collections. DAM systems, which emerge from commercial production contexts, are designed to extract as much economic value as possible from creative assets and their metadata, but this mode of production and organization might not be ideal for digital objects in an information and memory service context where other more traditional archival notions of value could be better suited to ensuring long term access.

According to DAM instructional and promotional literature, the central appeal of DAM systems is extracting as much value as possible from assets. In his textbook Digital Asset Management, David Austerberry defines the term ‘digital asset’ through an explicit lens of finance and ownership: “A quick look at a dictionary will tell us that the word asset usually relates to property. The same association with property also applies to digital media content.” Below this explanation is a diagram that puts it bluntly: “content + rights = $” 9 (Fig 1).^[158] A few pages later, Austerberry supplements the strictly financial value of assets with a broader understanding that involves additional economic value derived from saving time, avoiding additional labor, or learning from past mistakes: Graphical user interface

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What gives an asset value? If it can be resold, then the value is obvious. However, it can also represent a monetary asset, if it can be cost-effectively re-purposed and then incorporated into new material. To cite just one example, a new advertising campaign can build on the lessons and experience of the past through access to the media archive. This can save a corporation with both time and resources in such research projects.^[159]

Austerberry’s vision of digital assets, in the context of optimal DAM operation, is one in which digital assets are meant to serve as many different purposes as are profitable. With a DAM system the labor and output of each individual in the firm is subject to consideration of future efficiency and cost-benefit analysis. For Austerberry (and for DAM advocates in general), the central motivational principle of DAM is the maximum value extraction on as many levels as possible for each digital object in a firm’s possession. He makes this explicit: “Perhaps, the most important feature is that DAM provides a framework for the successful monetisation of media assets.”^[160] In this sense, DAM, in any context but especially in a public or community LAM context, can become an easy technology to invest with a wide range of neoliberal imperatives, such as the impulse to seek “untapped value” or the pursuit of individual competitive advantage, to name a few.

On first glance Austeberry’s (and DAM’s) definition of digital assets may seem like just a slightly more business-oriented approach to popularly accepted archival notions of value. To this point, I would note that archival practice has developed myriad conceptions of value, such as enduring value, evidential value, informational value, contextual value, documentary value, ephemeral value, continuing value, commercial value, and fiscal value to name just a few.^[161] These terms are often subject to critique, debate, and reformulation within the field of archival studies.^[162] These conceptions of value are more than just the subject of theorization, critiques of archival concepts target and seek to reshape practice, particularly towards social justice goals.^[163] While archival studies, as just one related field/node in the constellation of LIS/LAM scholarship hosts debate along political, economic, and social justice terms, currently the scholarship covering DAM is almost exclusively instructional. This is not to say DAM must develop its own critical sub-discipline, but simply to suggest that a dominant discourse of practicality pervades the area and, as such, the definition popular of digital asset (grounded in value-extraction) does not yet hold a clear analog to notions of value as debated in other fields. In other words, the canonical definition of digital asset is positioned entirely too well to carry neoliberalism’s overinvestment in efficiency and “value-added.” Digital asset is a risky term for objects in a digital collection.

In light of this, some stakeholders may feel obligated to point out two interrelated, de-escalatory counterpoints: first, that many information and memory workers are well aware of this distinction and, as such, do not view certain digital objects in their collection as ‘assets.’ They may feel they can exercise the judgement to manage collections with care, that appropriation of DAM systems from the commercial field need not mandate adherence to that field’s definitions or terminology. Second, they may feel that many contemporary institutions—especially large, well-resourced ones—pursue a wide range of initiatives and host a breath of departments, some of which include separate marketing, communications, or business departments. For example, they may feel that they can keep marketing photos from an event at their institution distinct, in understanding and practice, from a recently donated collection of important born-digital video art files.

On this matter, I ask what is to stop the marketing department from requesting derivative files of the born digital objects? What is to stop the institution's preservation department from feeling the marketing photos are an important record of the institution’s activities? Such instances arise in a 2016 case study from Anthony Cocciolo titled “When Archivists and Digital Asset Managers Collide: Tensions and Ways Forward.” In Cocciolo’s study, tensions arise between workers in DAM and archivist roles at a small art museum in the northeast United States. Such tensions include disagreements about where digital files should be stored, who should be allowed access, what constitutes sufficient digital preservation planning, and even how an archive should be defined. Cocciolo describes how in meetings with the rest of the staff, “the digital asset manager would indicate that digital files with value should be deposited in the DAM and that they would be available indefinitely, thus making the archives appear superfluous.”^[164] Of course it is rather unlikely that an entire institution would adopt the same attitude, and perhaps unfair to suggest that all digital asset managers would hold the same opinion. Still, the point here remains that DAM as a practice and digital assets as a concept carry risky, totalizing assumptions about the value of objects, infrastructures, workers, and practices.

Regarding risky notions of value, it is worth returning to DAM vendor websites and promotional advertorial blog posts, this time to check on the definition of digital asset. On this, take my word that, as with discourses of digital transformation, these blog posts display a somewhat varied but overall homogenous perspective about the definition of a ‘digital asset’ and how it motivates DAM usage.^[165] In general these definitions of digital asset or digital asset management emphasize the two components of Austerberry’s definition: that an asset has digital content of some shape or form (digital images, videos, documents) and the right to exploit their value. What’s most striking about this definition is how broad the first component (the digital content) is. Some definitions list a wide variety of digital file extensions.^[166] Recall Canto’s definition of a digital asset from the previous section, which simply claims “there’s no limit to what a digital asset can be.” The second component in some cases can be just as vague, keeping value open ended.^[167] Even in the case of exceptions to this trend, such as NetX’s note of caution, which advises a simple litmus test for determining what, exactly, belongs in a DAM:

How do you determine when something is an asset? It’s a common misconception that a DAM is a storage solution. While the DAM will store all of your assets and can become the system of record, it is not the place for everyone to upload anything your organization has ever produced. Before organizing and uploading, you need to ask yourself, “Does this digital file have value within my organization?”^[168]

At first glance, the broad open-endedness of these definitions might appear to simply demonstrate the strategic wording of vendors intending to capture as broad a clientele as possible. While this may be true, there is still no denying that such broad, open-ended regard of digital assets and their management resembles the totalizing “empty spaces for others to interact on” that Srnicek attributes to platforms under platform capitalism. Of course, such “empty spaces” always embody a politics. In this case, the politics of extractable or exploitable value in all digital files of all types resemble the neoliberal insistence that “untapped value” might lurk anywhere if an individual is creative enough to figure out how to render or extract it. Even in the example from NetX where selectivity is advised, the question remains open, bounded only by value to one’s organization. The point here is that, in seeking a broad range of clients and broad application, these vendors have positioned themselves to receive the investment of neoliberal interests from a LIS/LAM field where, as Cifor and Lee note, neoliberalism ideology dominates.^[169]

In short, DAM carries over the term asset from the commercial context of its emergence, but the term asset can clash with more easily scrutinized LAM notions of value. Even if information and memory workers maintain a distinction between digital objects and assets when they are working, the broad definition advanced by instructional and promotional material insists on expansive and open-ended boundaries, encouraging usage that seeks to create as much value as possible from any digital object. As such, the demand for DAM in LIS/LAM can all too easily align with the dominant neoliberal culture in the field. Therefore, uncritical adoption of DAM systems risks entrenching neoliberal politics further.

Management Over Maintenance

The term management can mischaracterize the work necessary to ensure long term access to digital materials and risks forcing information and memory workers into a different relationship with the collections they steward. This matters greatly in a field where neoliberal hegemony continues to alter the working conditions and demands placed upon information and memory workers. Overemphasis on management does not just advance a neoliberal preoccupation rendering systemic precarity as an individual obstacle but also

As previously noted, Cocciolo’s 2016 case study observed several underlying tensions between archivists and digital asset managers working at the same institution. The study ultimately concludes on a point of optimism, grounded in an observation that while both roles contain considerable overlap in their responsibilities, they might be able to collaborate based on appreciation for their diverging missions.^[170] I find such this point to be no cause for optimism, considering the extent to which the neoliberal turn in has already placed undue pressures for counter-productive ‘efficiency’ and ‘innovation’ onto the shoulders of information and memory workers. Further, multiple accounts from the last decade note that a mix of digital and social factors are driving convergence not just between DAM and archivist/librarian roles, but between distinct institutions within the LAM field as well.^[171] In such circumstances, the spectrum of possible actions that comprise information and memory workers responsibility widens. However, if past and current conditions for information work are any indicator of the future, such a convergence likely spells limitations on which responsibilities are given institutional resources, priority, and support.

Karly Wildenhaus’ recent analysis on unpaid internships in the field discusses a “ladder of precarity” in information work “where precarity refers to an overall tendency towards less secure and more temporary jobs and the subsequent increase in exploitation and alienation of workers.” Wildenhaus observes a “continual pressure on employers to move essential work within archives and libraries down the ladder through strategies such as deprofessionalization and limiting workers’ hours in order to reduce the overhead of labor costs and employee benefits.”^[172] At first, such a state of affairs may indicate the value of a position with the term ‘manager’ in its title for securing basic agency within the neoliberal LAM field. In this sense, DAM, with its leverage of the term ‘management,’ may be the most desirable title for information and memory workers, as Elizabeth Kealthy argues in her 2014 textbook on DAM:

While the arrangement, description, preservation, access, and, above all, findability of information has fell to librarians in the twentieth century, DAM professionals would do well to keep the term “digital asset managers” and not call themselves “librarians” or “archivists.” While the jobs are very much the same, and my background in library science gave me an excellent grounding in the techniques and processes that help in the understanding and implementation of a DAM, labeling the job as “digital librarian” or “digital archivist” may be the path to low earning potential over a lifetime.^[173]

While Kealthy’s advice is well intentioned and clearly seeks to ensure all DAM workers are paid fairly for the complexity of their work, it effectively only helps individuals and not the profession as a whole or the field at large. Further this advice cannot account for how, as the roles of archivist, librarian and asset manager continue to converge and precarity persists in the field, workers filling each position may have little say in their title or the boundaries of their responsibilities. Individualized advocacy can only go so far in a neoliberal climate.

Of course, Kealthy here is not speaking specifically to an LIS/LAM field audience, but to DAM managers across all sectors. Even so, while reviewing a 2010 salary survey she remains acutely aware of pay disparities for women (the lowest 41 percent of earners, 75 percent of them were women) and observes that a large proportion of these women, like her, hold an MLIS.^[174] Further, Kealthy connects these trends in poor compensation among MLIS holding DAM workers with public perceptions of library work, sharing that, “Low wages in the library field are reflective of how American society values a traditionally female-dominated field of public service.”^[175] Despite this, Kealthy draws the conclusion that DAM should distance itself from the traditions of service within LIS:

DAM as a profession runs a real risk of facing lowered wage averages if the work is lumped under Library Sciences, even if the work remains as technically challenging, detail-oriented, and labor-intensive as it is today. Librarians did not face the lowering and shrinking of their wages over the last 50 years because their jobs became less technically demanding or less skilled; it was the perception of the profession as “women’s work” and the devaluing of their role in society that sunk their collective professional ship^[176]

On this point, Kealthy’s stance is emblematic of neoliberal notions of enterprising individualism, which takes societal ills as personal faults or individual obstacles. This uncritical pursuit of management, rather than stewardship, will not just hurt workers but collections as well. If a neoliberal rhetoric of individualism follow DAM into LIS/LAM over the next decade than a convergence of roles, especially those involving stewardship or preservation, carries with it the potential to further de-prioritize less ‘visible’ or ‘productive’ actions within and beyond the field.

This is particularly alarming as the term ‘management’ within digital asset management, also captures the field’s historic preoccupation with managerialism as a strategy for constructing invisible class barriers and strengthening alignment (in theory and practice) with the dominant power structures.^[177] We can trace such dynamics across the different knowledge digitization projects within and beyond LAM, such as the Cooper Hewitt mass digitization example from the first section of this paper, in which digital imaging staff cart objects back and forth to support the museums push towards bringing 2,000+ objects online in under a year and bringing objects “from storage shelf to website in just 48 hours.” At one point in the Cooper Hewitt video, a program officer mentions that the Cooper Hewitt had 6 or 7 digitization pipelines running at once.^[178] To this we might ask, what exactly constitutes a digitization pipeline? We can see some of the staff involved in imaging, and the blog post explains the path of the images through a DAM to website workflow, but are these the only infrastructures and workers on which this process depends? What labor maintains its operations? On what networks and infrastructures does its power, storage, and processing depend? These questions get at a key risk in overemphasizing ‘management’ in digital asset management: not just an overemphasis on the movement of digital objects rather than the maintenance of the infrastructure that sustains them, but also a convenient distinction within LIS/LAS between the professional managerial labor of overseeing digital movement and the maintenance or manual labor that is often rendered invisible or separate by design.^[179]

While in the short run the ‘manager’ of digital asset management roles in LAM organizations may be an appealing angle for personal advocacy, increasingly precarious working conditions and de-prioritization of maintenance over digital production can introduce a harmful imbalance in the field. These imbalances demonstrate the practical problematics of uncritical DAM discourse adoption. If LIS/LAM workers are going to ensure livable working conditions personal pursuit of digital asset management roles is grossly insufficient. If the field at large is going to advocate for better recognition of service and maintenance work under neoliberal hegemony, then institutional boasts about digitization management at scale must also feature clarity on necessary maintenance systems and labor.

Conclusion: DAM/LAM Nonscalability Towards Slow Archives

It is worth noting that nearly two after Horwath’s polemic, some surveys of moving image archives have validated his worries: cultural policies, funding structures, overestimation of technological innovation, and planned obsolescence driven by the commercial IT sector place serious strain on the sustainability of analog and digital film preservation.^[180] Further, in terms of vocabulary, Horwath’s line in the stand is far behind us: (if they were not already by the time he spoke out in 2005) content, access, and user are essential terms for describing LAM systems and processes. Still, Horwath’s point certainly bears considerable truth, social and economic dynamics can invest certain cultural meanings into certain terms. Certain terms then lend themselves more to metonymic forms of ideological expression and often oppression.^[181] Registering those meanings is an essential practice for information and memory workers, whose profession presents a dense entanglement of socio-technical and interpretive processes.

As this analysis has demonstrated, the issue is hardly the language or the tools they surround, but the dynamics they capture and their ready instrumentalization in enacting neoliberal cultural logics within information and memory work. Once again, it is not the widespread adoption of DAM in the LAM field that gives me pause, but the cultural claims embedded in its discourses of global transformation, value extraction, and efficient managerialism. While the LAM field hosts a wide range of scholarship that ranges from historiography to cultural critique, scholarship on DAM is almost exclusively instructional and geared towards effective professional practice. As a result, DAM is subject to almost no cultural criticism and current understandings of DAM tend to be steered more by vendors than by users. I hope this work initiates some change on that front.

On this point, I’ll conclude with a brief discussion of one of many valuable analytical frameworks that may aide future critique of DAM and neoliberalism in LAM: Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s concepts of scalability and nonscalability, as adopted by Rawson and Muñoz in “Against Cleaning.”^[182] Rawson and Muñoz understand scalability as “an overarching paradigm for organizing systems (whether world trade, scientific research, or colonial economies).” Scalability is “the quality that allows things to be traded out for each other in a totalizing system without regard to the unique or individual qualities of those things—like many stalks of sugarcane (which are biological clones of one another), or, subsequently, workers in a factory.”^[183] In the context of digitization projects, Rawson and Muñoz see scalability as the insistence on reductive abstraction of objects, ignoring or smoothing unique qualities for the sake of operating at a large scale. Recall how all the objects in the Cooper Hewitt digitization example were shot against a white background: three dimensional, textured objects became flat objects in a uniform visual context. We might also think about how Keathley’s 2013 DAM survey revealed that across sectors, “The type of asset or type of system in which [a digital asset manager] worked did not matter: all digital asset managers do basically the same tasks everyday. It did not even matter where the DAM was housed or how it was organized.”^[184] Under a neoliberal demand for DAM systems, LIS/LAM risks a scalability of mission, collections, and labor.

To count this trend, enter Tsing’s theory of nonscalability, which operates as “an analytic apparatus that helps us notice nonscalable phenomena.”^[185] In this sense, we might think about the nonscalable aspects of an object: what is not photographable? What is not easy to push through the DAM system to the web or social media? What is not easy to render financial value from? We might also think about goals or qualities of organizations that cannot be easily accommodated by DAM systems. In this sense a nonscablability framework might also help advance what Kim Christen and Jane Anderson call “slow archives.” Drawing from the work of Indigenous scholars, Christen and Anderson explain that, “Slowing down creates a necessary space for emphasizing how knowledge is produced, circulated, contextualized, and exchanged through a series of relationships.”^[186] Slow archiving prioritizes the aspects of information and memory work that cannot happen quickly, that cannot be compatible with overnight global transformation. These aspects include trust, intergenerational relationships, attentiveness to social environmental consequence, and ethical practice. Only future analysis and intentional practice will help answer DAM can be leveraged for slow archiving or if its cultural import makes it unadaptable. Either way, I hope critique like this has begun to make such praxis conceivable.

In both the craft and theory of memory and information work, attentiveness to nonscalable qualities present some leverage against the instrumentalizing force of neoliberal hegemony in LIS/LAM. If such leverage is attainable, perhaps a call for DAM need not be exclusively neoliberal in nature.

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Project Summary - Introduction to Digital Humanities

Introduction to Mabel Normand's Career and Legacy [https://r-zych.github.io/MabelsFilmCareer/]

In the past few decades several scholars have developed important revaluations of early film production in the United States, with a particular focus on highlighting the accomplishments and prominence of many women who wrote, directed, and produced these early films. A leading example is Columbia University’s Women Film Pioneers Project [https://wfpp.columbia.edu/] and the American Film Institute’s Women They Talk About Project [https://aficatalog.afi.com/women-they-talk-about]. This project aims to contribute in the same spirit.

One figure of unique standing in early cinema is comedienne, actress, director, and producer Mabel Normand. After a rapid rise to prominence in the mid-1910s, health issues and involvement with several high profile scandals undercut her career at its peak. Normand starred in 200 films (shots and features) in the 17 years between 1910 and 1927.

Several film scholars and historians lament that her accomplishments are not better known and recognized more widely, which may be attributable to accounts from her better known creative partners and collaborators (namely Mack Sennett and Charlie Chaplin) that diminish her contributions and influence for the sake of emphasizing their own. Placing her career in comparison to theirs would not be productive, so instead this project simply aims to examine the distinctiveness and notable qualities of Normand’s work.

While there has been invaluable work done to assess the extent to which her achievements and contributions to silent comedy, much of her history and legacy remain grounded in speculation. This is in part due to a combination of the reasons mentioned above, but also due to widespread infatuation with Normand’s that extends into scholarship about her work. As Simon Joyce and Jennifer Putzi in explain their Women Film Pioneers entry on Normand:

“Even after her death, scholars have been more interested in the gossip surrounding Normand’s life and romances (including an announced marriage to Sennett in 1915 that never materialized) than her work...Scholars would do well to refocus attention on Normand’s distinctive contribution to early cinema and slapstick comedy, as well as the nature of her directorial work for Keystone.” If scholarship thus far has indulged too much in speculation and scandal, then grounding the story of Normand’s career in filmography data alone might offer an instructive realignment.”

If scholarship thus far has indulged too much in speculation and scandal, then grounding the story of Normand’s career in filmography data alone might offer an instructive realignment.

This project site employs a combination of visual storytelling tools, data visualization tools, and film clips to display a few dimensions on which we can assess Mabel Normand’s career. These observations and the data visualization that enable them are by no means meant to be taken as conclusive but instead should be viewed as pointers towards several avenues for further scholarship and inquiry.

Navigating the Site (Some Guiding Questions)

While these pages have been sorted into a “seven act” format, users should not feel obligated to navigate them in order. There is no larger organizing principle beyond these diverging questions:

1)How was Normand’s career emblematic of trends in silent comedy production?

2) How was Normand’s career exceptional relative to major trends in silent comedy production?

In developing some analysis grounded in this data, a third, reflexive, question emerges:

3)What is gained and what is lost (or must be compensated for) when using filmography data alone to account for the importance, meaning, and influence of a single person’s filmography?

It might come as no surprise that quantitative visualizations alone cannot adequately account for what makes Normand and her work significant. To this point, I have included some historical context, some brief commentary, and a curated selection of distinctive performances.

In short, this project juggles three guiding questions, how was Mabel Normand and her career emblematic, exceptional, or beyond our methods. The following section details the project’s methods.

Prologue: About the Project and Methods

The initial goal for this project was to ground analysis exclusively in filmography data. That quickly became too limiting. Still, I have made a point to avoid unneeded extrapolation or speculation on Normand’s personal life, secrets, feuds, or quirks. Below I account for the sources, processing, and presentation that has resulted in the final product you see here.

Sources:

~Filmographies

Preliminary filmography records for this project were copied from Mabel Normand’s Internet Movie Database (IMDb) page using the web scraping application ParseHub. While IMDb was not an ideal source, it had the structure and breadth that would work best, making it the best starting point. As the information hosted on IMDb was not entirely reliable or consistant, I compared and combined it with the filmography that Simon Joyce and Jennifer Putzi compile in their Women Film Pioneers Project entry on Normand, but they have been more conservative in their presentation (omitting information like studio affiliation for non-extant films, which I have kept because it is relevant to my analysis and reasonably verifiable).

I also compared the data against the filmographies and narratives given by biographers Betty Fussel, and William Thomas Sherman. Dealing with any apparent discrepancies, of which there were very few, I have deferred to the Women Film Pioneers Project (to the extent possible) as it seems to me to be the most thoroughly researched compilation. For more on the limitations of this data set, see Act VII.

~Posters, Photos, and Films

Because certain artifacts, like posters, notices, images, and videos were important to giving a full sense of Normand’s career, I have also embedded videos from YouTube and images from the Lantern database, a project of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Media History Digital Library (MDHL). I also used MDHL’s Project Arclight to export information about the frequency of Normand’s mention in Hollywood trade papers and magazines to compare with Google Ngram Viewer results in Act VI.

~Secondary Sources and Scholarship

I consulted many secondary sources of information about Normand's life and career for this project and synthesized a lot of their observations in my commentary, but tried to limit the bearing of their more colorful stories or speculations on the conclusions I drew from her filmography. For the sake of concision and straightforward presentation, information about Normand’s life or career that can be found in multiple sources is treated as common knowledge. Direct quotation was made only when absolutely necessary, or to comment on the scholarship itself. For further inquiry please consult the scholarship listed in the epilogue.

Processed

The initial ParseHub collection from IMDb was clustered and “cleaned” in OpenRefine. As mentioned above, the filmography data was checked against a handful of other sources and corrected or expanded where necessary. Average durations for Normand’s films each year were calculated directly in Tableau Public.

The filmography was also used to create an edge and node list for the network mapping in Act III. I consulted this tutorial to convert a bimodal edgelist into a unimodal edgelist in R studio.

Text analysis of Normand's film titles in Act V was performed with Voyant Tools.

While the Knight Labs story tools fill in some biographical information and context about film production at the time, it was important to me that this project make a point to see what conclusions could be grounded specifically in Normand’s filmography data and the films themselves rather than accounts of her personal life and suspicions about her habits or motivations.

Presented

This webpage is hosted on GitHub Pages. I have altered the “minimal’ template, making the site black and white and tracking down a font that suggests a silent film intertitle.

Visualizations were created in Tableau Public and Flourish. The Timeline, StoryMap, and StoryLine were created using tools available from Knight Labs. The studio timeline was created with time.graphics. Films from YouTube are embedded in Act IV.

List of Courses Taken

Fall 2020

INF STD 211: Artifacts & Cultures

INF STD 260: Description & Access

INF STD 289: Media Description & Access

Winter 2021

DGT HUM 201: Introduction to Digital Humanities

INF STD 270: Systems & Infrastructure

INF STD 289: Moving Image Technology

INF STD 480: Introduction to Media Archiving and Preservation

Spring 2021

INF STD 212: Values & Communities

INF STD 289: Digital Asset Management

INF STD 464: Metadata

Fall 2021

EDUC 260A: Introduction to Programming and Data Management

INF STD 289: Museums in the Digital Age

INF STD 489: Internship - American Film Institute (AFI) Catalog

Winter 2022

EDUC 260B: Fundamentals of Programming

INF STD 279: User Experience Design

INF STD 298B: Critical LIS Methods

INF STD 461: Descriptive Cataloging

Spring 2022 (In Progress)

DGT HUM 299: Special Projects (Documentation)

INF STD 289: Audio Archiving

INF STD 489: Internship - Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Collections Information & Digital Assets (CIDA)

Advising History

Academic Advising

I met with my advisor Ramesh Srinivasan at the beginning of my first quarter (October 8, 2020) to discuss course planning and resources relevant to my interest in media studies and critical digital scholarship.

During the Winter of 2021, while enrolled in her Digital Humanities 201 course, I met with Miriam Posner (January 21) to discuss directions for my digital humanities scholarship that could address my interest in film history. I met with Shawn Vancour (February 17), while enrolled in his Introduction to Media Archiving and Preservation course, to discuss potential thesis topics and strategies for gaining hands-on experience with media object handling in a remote learning environment.

I met with Professor Srinivasan again in the Spring quarter (April 27) to talk through thesis topics and course planning for the upcoming school year. After hearing the material I was interested in studying, Professor Srinivasan suggested that I might want to reach out to Professor Vancour about serving as my thesis supervisor and even taking over as my advisor. I met with Professor Vancour over the summer, (July 6) to discuss taking me on as an advisor and the timeline for thesis preparation. After this meeting I received an offer to serve as a Special Reader for Professor Anuradha Vikram’s Introduction to Media Arts course in the Design Media Arts (DMA) department. Another potential work opportunity with the Hammer museum, convinced me that it would perhaps be better to find other ways to demonstrate my proficiency in film/media history research without taking on the year-long project, such as projects related to a Digital Humanities certificate. After this, I met with professor Vancour again (July 23, 2021) to review the courses I planned on taking and opportunities I would pursue during the 2021-2 academic year.

In the Fall 2021 Quarter, Professor Vancour was incredibly helpful in walking me through the paperwork to receive authorization for more than 50% FTE hours from the university so that I could take on the readership position and keep my work study position with the Film and Television Archive. Between October 4th and 27th I met twice with Professor Vancour and we corresponded over email as I worked through multiple potential issue paper topics and refined the phrasing of my 50 word abstract. Shawn was patient with me as we deliberated over exploring everything from emulation and digital ephemera to digital asset management. Ultimately, we resolved to move forward with a ‘platform capitalism perspective’ for moving image archives using YouTube.

In Winter of 2022, I met with Professor Vancour (January 17) to review an outline for my issue paper. I expect to meet with Professor Vancour further this spring as I prepare to present my portfolio in May and enter the job market this summer.

Professional Advising

In addition to my academic advising with the Information Studies Faculty, I was fortunate to benefit from professional mentorship through the iSchool/UCLA Library mentorship program piloted by Katherine Kapsidelis and Dee Winn, the UCLA LIS Alumni Association (LISAA) mentorship program, and through guidance from my supervisor Jennifer Rhee.

In the Fall of 2020 I was matched with Shannon K. Tanhayi Ahari, UCLA Library’s Librarian/Curator for European Studies. I met with Shannon roughly every other week during the fall quarter and we discussed everything from PhD programs to library-vendor relations. Shannon reviewed and offered suggestions on some outgoing job applications and forwarded me resources and information about work opportunities.

For the 2021-2 school year, the UCLA LISAA mentorship program matched me with Film Preservationist Jillian Borders at the UCLA Film and Television Archive. In our meetings Jill and I discussed strategies for picking up film handling skills and projects she works on at the archive. Jill was also kind enough to invite me to join her for a screening review session with a film lab handling one of her restoration projects.

In addition to these formal mentorships, I received incredibly valuable guidance and advice from Jennifer Rhee, the digital content manager, who is the supervisor for my work study position with the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Since Jen hired me in February of 2021 we’ve had check-ins almost every week. In these meetings, Jen has provided me with invaluable advice on course planning, professional development, job hunting strategy, and working habits. Jen has also been incredibly generous in offering me opportunities to learn more about operations at the Film and Television Archive, chat with other staff, and gain experience working with the programming team. I am extremely grateful for the patience, generosity, trust, and encouragement she has extended me over the last two years.

Peer Support

There is no question that my MLIS was completed under unprecedented circumstances. Despite a virtual beginning, the 2022 cohort cultivated a tremendous sense of community. I have been lucky to benefit from the spirit of comradery, solidarity, support, mutual responsibility and advocacy shared among my peers. Resource distribution and student advocacy from the 2020-1 and 2021-2 Student Governing Boards in particular have been instrumental in my academic success during what otherwise would be an incredibly difficult time to manage graduate and professional education. Additionally the 2020-1 and 2021-2 UCLA Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) Student Chapter boards have furnished me with a much needed opportunity to trade resources and platform from which to pursue relevant professional experience in the audiovisual preservation field.

Professional Resume

Russell Zych Los Angeles, CA | russellzych@g.ucla.edu | (650) 863 5420

Education

Master of Library & Information Science | University of California, Los Angeles | Expected 2022

• Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities

• Board Member, Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) Student Chapter

Bachelor of Arts, Rhetoric & Film Studies | University of California, Berkeley | 2018

• Honors Thesis: “Record, Remediate, Repeat: Lessons in Early Cinema from Our Vine Archives”

Experience

Digital Content Assistant | UCLA Film & Television Archive | Los Angeles, CA | February 2021 – Present

• Editing access copies of archival material and resolving sound or image quality issues in Premiere Pro

• Revising and rewriting outdated catalog descriptions of historical news footage

• Researching and building contact lists for outreach and promotion for public screenings and events

• Proofreading and fact checking film program notes, web content, and newsletters

Catalog Intern | American Film Institute (AFI) | Los Angeles, CA | Fall 2021

• Performed in-depth historical research to enrich, expand, and verify existing catalog records

• Used OpenRefine and Tableau to create data visualizations about trends in film production history

Film and Video Digitization Intern | Producers Library Services | North Hollywood, CA | Summer 2021

• Inspected, prepped, repaired, and scanned 16mm and 35mm films on Lasergraphics 4k Scanner

• Captured DigiBeta and BetaSP video tapes with Black Magic UltraStudio and Avid Media Composer

• Compressed and transcoded video files and updated metadata records within DAM system

Video Editing Assistant | University of California | Oakland, CA | November 2019 – May 2020

• Organized backlog of unarchived marketing and communications video projects and digital assets

• Edited video material from all previous campaigns into “theme reels” for future projects

• Ingested new video assets, set-up, and organized project files for new campaigns in Premiere Pro

Content Operations Assistant | Kanopy Streaming | San Francisco, CA | May 2018 to July 2019

• Coordinated delivery of video assets and marketing materials from film distributors and content partners

• Performed quality assurance and resolved any video quality, captioning, or metadata issues

• Curated Kanopy’s digital “shelves” and pitched new shelf labels, content categories, and content tags

Volunteer Work & Teaching

Course Grader – DMA 101 | Design Media Arts Department | UCLA | Fall 2021

Tutor | James Eno Tutorials | Berkeley, CA | August 2019 – September 2021

Film Traffic and Inspection Intern | Canyon Cinema | San Francisco, CA | October 2019 – March 2020

Course Designer/Facilitator – Film 98 | DECal Program | University of California Berkeley | Spring 2016

Coursework & Skills

Relevant Courses: Digital Asset Management, Metadata, Descriptive Cataloging (RDA, MARC21), UX Design, Moving Image Technology, Media Description and Access, Critical Theory Research Methods

Software: Microsoft Suite, Adobe Creative Suite, Google Workspace, Avid, Airtable, Omeka, WordPress

Data & Programming: R, MySQL, HTML, CSS, OpenRefine, Tableau, Oxygen, FFmpeg, Bash, Git/GitHub

Film Inspection, Projection, and Scanning: 35mm, 16mm, 8mm, Super 8mm

[1]In a recent article on the International Federation of Film Archives(FIAF)’s online collections web-portal, film heritage scholar Oliver Hanley muses that, “Today, one is hard pressed to find a FIAF-affiliated institution that doesn’t maintain its own YouTube channel, even if not all of these include films from their collections and are used primarily to promote and document the respective institution’s on-site activities.” While Hanley’s comment is not substantiated with quantitative data, its placement in a key publication for film archives at the very least signals a general popular adoption of video platforms among the field.

Oliver Hanley, “The Best Seat in the House? Observations on Online Viewing and Access to FIAF Affiliates’ Collections,” Journal of Film Preservation, no. 104 (2021): 87–96. 88.

Further, at the time of writing the author notes that commercial platforms YouTube and Vimeo account for roughly one quarter of the links (34 of about 120) on the “Film/AV Collections of FIAF Affiliates Online” that Hanley describes in his article. From this one might surmise that commercial video platforms constitute a substantial aspect of how moving image archives interact with the public online.

[2] Discussion since the early 2000s has mostly focused on questions of authenticity, fidelity, historical context, or technical aspects like picture quality. Though already quite dated, critical conversation around film archives and online access still tends to follow the trajectory laid out in Leo Enticknap, “Have Digital Technologies Reopened the Lindgren/Langlois Debate?,” Spectator (Los Angeles, Calif.) 27, no. 1 (2007): 10–20.

[3] Here I draw on the definition of critical archival studies as described by Caswel, Punzalan, and Sangwand: critical archival studies is an approach that seeks to ”(1) explain what is unjust with the current state of archival research and practice, (2) posit practical goals for how such research and practice can and should change, and/or (3) provide the norms for such critique. In this way, critical archival studies, like critical theory, is emancipatory in nature, with the ultimate goal of transforming archival practice and society writ large.” Michelle Caswell, Ricardo Punzalan, and T.-Kay Sangwand, “Critical Archival Studies: An Introduction,” Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 1, no. 2 (June 27, 2017), 2, https://doi.org/10.24242/jclis.v1i2.50.

[4] Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, Theory Redux (Cambridge, UK ; Polity, 2017), 28-9.

[5] Ibid, 30-1.

[6] Ibid, 31.

[7] Ibid, 31.

[8] More than 2.6 billion people worldwide use YouTube at least once a month. YouTube has over 122 million daily visitors to the platform and 62% of YouTube users in the United States access the platform on a daily basis. YouTube accounts for roughly 25% of global mobile traffic; “YouTube User Statistics 2022 | Global Media Insight,” Official GMI Blog (blog), accessed April 11, 2022, https://www.globalmediainsight.com/blog/youtube-users-statistics/.

[9] Andrew Beattie, “How YouTube Makes Money Off Videos,” Investopedia, October 31, 2021, https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/053015/how-youtube-makes-money-videos.asp.

[10] On these neoliberal discourses in libraries, archives, and museums see: Lee, Jamie Ann, and Marika Cifor. “Evidences, Implications, and Critical Interrogations of Neoliberalism in Information Studies: An Introduction.” Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 2, no. 1 (April 6, 2019): 5; Nicholson, Karen P. “The McDonaldization of Academic Libraries and the Values of Transformational Change.” College & Research Libraries 76, no. 3 (March 1, 2015): 328–38. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.76.3.328.

[11] Srnicek, 31.

[12] While one 2019 survey notes that about one-third of adults (27%) of adults claim they get news on YouTube, a 2018 study found that, “Roughly two-thirds of U.S. adult YouTube users (64%) say they at least sometimes encounter videos that seem obviously false or untrue while using the site” and study of YouTube’s recommendation algorithm found that the platform progressively pushes users towards longer videos. Patrick Van Kessel, “10 Facts about Americans and YouTube,” Pew Research Center (blog), accessed April 1, 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/04/10-facts-about-americans-and-youtube/.

[13] Critical internet scholars like Safiya Umoja Noble, who analyses how search engines like YouTube’s parent firm Google reinforce racist attitudes and power dynamics, explore the problematics of black boxing; Safiya Umoja Noble, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (New York: NYU Press, 2018), 25, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/64995.

[14] John Paolillo, Sharad Ghule, and Brian Harper, “A Network View of Social Media Platform History: Social Structure, Dynamics and Content on YouTube,” 2019, https://doi.org/10.24251/HICSS.2019.317.

Susan Aasman, “Finding Traces in YouTube’s Living Archive: Exploring Informal Archival Practices,” TMG Journal for Media History 22, no. 1 (November 6, 2019): 35–55, https://doi.org/10.18146/tmg.435.

[15] Political scientist Herbert Simon, who conducted research into corporate decision making, and theoretical physicist Micheal Goldhaber are often credited with early theorization of the attention economy. Herbert A. Simon, “Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World,” Computers, Communications, and the Public Interest 72 (1971): 37.; Michael H. Goldhaber, “The Attention Economy and the Net,” First Monday, April 7, 1997, https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v2i4.519.

[16] Rebecca Jablonsky, Tero Karppi, and Nick Seaver, “Introduction: Shifting Attention,” Science, Technology, & Human Values 47, no. 2 (March 1, 2022): 237. https://doi.org/10.1177/01622439211058823.

[17]For more theoretical analysis of attention as a form of labor under late capitalism see Jonathan Crary, 24 / 7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep (London: Verso, 2014); Franco Berardi, Francesca Cadel, and Giuseppina Mecchia, The Soul at Work: From Alienation to Autonomy, 2009.; Patrick Crogan and Samuel Kinsley, “Paying Attention: Toward a Critique of the Attention Economy,” Culture Machine 13 (2012): 1–29.

For more general discussion of negative aspects of the attention economy see Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants: The Epic Struggle to Get Inside Our Heads (London: Atlantic Books, 2017); Vikram R. Bhargava and Manuel Velasquez, “Ethics of the Attention Economy: The Problem of Social Media Addiction,” Business Ethics Quarterly 31, no. 3 (July 2021): 321–59, https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2020.32.; “Goodbye Attention Economy, We’ll Miss You,” Nieman Lab (blog), accessed April 1, 2022, https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/12/goodbye-attention-economy-well-miss-you/; Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (Melville House, 2019).; James Williams, Stand out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2018), https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108453004

[18]See early discussion of this conflict in a film heritage context in Alexander Horwath, “The Market vs. The Museum,” Journal of Film Preservation, no. 70 (November 2005): 5–9, https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/market-vs-museum/docview/235936548/se-2?accountid=14512.

[19]Moving image archivist Rick Prelinger questions whether offering access to the public for the sake demonstrating relevance might just be a form of accumulating “archival capital.;” Rick Prelinger, “Beyond Noblesse Oblige,” The Moving Image 21, no. 1 (2021): 149, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/834007.

[20] Orit Gat, “Global Audiences, Zero Visitors: How to Measure the Success of Museums’ Online Publishing,” Rhizome, March 12, 2015, http://rhizome.org/editorial/2015/mar/12/global-audiences-zero-visitors/.

[21] For one discussion of the entrepreneurial ethos on YouTube see Daniel Ashton and Karen Patel, “Vlogging Careers: Everyday Expertise, Collaboration and Authenticity,” in The New Normal of Working Lives: Critical Studies in Contemporary Work and Employment, ed. Stephanie Taylor and Susan Luckman, Dynamics of Virtual Work (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018), 147–69, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66038-7_8.;

For neoliberal dynamics in libraries, archives, and museums see Lee and Cifor; Nicholson.

[22] Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, First edition (New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2019), 14.

[23] Web cookies are a technology used to track users' behavior across various sites. A tracking pixel is a small (in many cases 1x1) image placed on a webpage or email to track user behavior while remaining visually undetectable. Aaron Cahn et al., “An Empirical Study of Web Cookies,” in Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on World Wide Web, WWW ’16 (Republic and Canton of Geneva, CHE: International World Wide Web Conferences Steering Committee, 2016), 891–901, https://doi.org/10.1145/2872427.2882991.; Hang Hu, Peng Peng, and Gang Wang, “Characterizing Pixel Tracking through the Lens of Disposable Email Services,” in 2019 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP), 2019, 365–79, https://doi.org/10.1109/SP.2019.00033.

[24] Rasmus Helles and Mikkel Flyverbom, “Meshes of Surveillance, Prediction, and Infrastructure: On the Cultural and Commercial Consequences of Digital Platforms,” Surveillance & Society 17, no. 1/2 (March 31, 2019): 34–39, https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v17i1/2.13120.

[25]Zuboff, 18.

[26]Laura McCamy, “How to Comment on a YouTube Video on Your Computer or Mobile Device,” Business Insider, August 14, 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-comment-on-youtube.

[27] Alice E. Marwick and danah boyd, “I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately: Twitter Users, Context Collapse, and the Imagined Audience,” New Media & Society 13, no. 1 (February 1, 2011): 114–33, 122, https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444810365313. Marwick and Boyd adapt the term context collapse from communications scholar Joshua Meyerwitz, who “theorized that electronic media [such as television and radio] eliminated walls between separate social situations.” 115; Joshua Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); Marwick and boyd’s theorization of context collapse also depends on social psychologist Erving Goffman’s understanding of personality as context-dependent performance, similar to dramatic performance, as explained in Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Anchor books edition., Doubleday Anchor Books (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1959).

[28] Michael Wesch, “YouTube and You: Experiences of Self-Awareness in the Context Collapse of the Recording Webcam,” Explorations in Media Ecology 8, no. 2 (2009): 23, https://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/handle/2097/6302.

[29]Marwick and boyd, 116.

[30] Marwick and boyd, 122-6.

[31] Germinal work in this area include that of Terry Cook and Verne Harris, as well as Chiu et al.; Terry Cook, “Archival Science and Postmodernism: New Formulations for Old Concepts,” Archival Science 1, no. 1 (2001): 3–24, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02435636.; Verne Harris, “The Archival Sliver: Power, Memory, and Archives in South Africa,” Archival Science 2, no. 1 (2002): 63–86, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02435631; Anastasia Chiu, Fobazi M. Ettarh, and Jennifer A. Ferretti, “Not the Shark, but the Water: How Neutrality and Vocational Awe Intertwine to Uphold White Supremacy,” April 13, 2021, https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11969.003.0005.; For discussion problematizing archival neutrality in archival education contexts see Anne Gilliland, “Neutrality, Social Justice and the Obligations of Archival Education and Educators in the Twenty-First Century,” Archival Science 11, no. 3 (November 1, 2011): 193–209, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-011-9147-0.

[32] Mikaela Pitcan, Alice E Marwick, and danah boyd, “Performing a Vanilla Self: Respectability Politics, Social Class, and the Digital World,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 23, no. 3 (May 1, 2018): 170, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmy008.

[33] Brian J. Fogg, “Persuasive Computers: Perspectives and Research Directions,” in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1998, 225–32; “The Ethical Use of Persuasive Technology | Behavior Design Lab,” accessed April 2, 2022, https://behaviordesign.stanford.edu/ethical-use-persuasive-technology.

[34] “An Arms Race for Your Attention,” Stanford ECorner (blog), accessed April 2, 2022, https://ecorner.stanford.edu/clips/an-arms-race-for-your-attention/; Devangi Vivrekar, “Persuasive Design Techniques in the Attention Economy: User Awareness, Theory, and Ethics,” Master’s Theses, Symbolic Systems Program, Stanford University (2018), 6-15.

[35]UX specialist Harry Brignull coined the term “Dark Patterns” by launching a website in 2010 that listed and classified and critiqued various deceptive interface and design practices in an effort to shame the companies using them. Bignull now finds the term deceptive design to be more clear and inclusive; “Dark Patterns - about This Site,” accessed April 2, 2022, https://www.deceptive.design/about-us.; For a broad historical review see Arvind Narayanan et al., “Dark Patterns: Past, Present, and Future: The Evolution of Tricky User Interfaces,” Queue 18, no. 2 (April 30, 2020): Pages 10:67-Pages 10:92, https://doi.org/10.1145/3400899.3400901;

[36]Arianna Rossi and Kerstin Bongard-Blanchy, “All in One Stroke? Intervention Spaces for Dark Patterns,” 2021, 1.

[37]Ibid.

[38] “Autoplay Videos - YouTube Help,” accessed April 2, 2022, https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6327615?hl=en; “Is Autoplaying Video Dark UX?,” Mark Cormack, August 26, 2016, https://markcormack.co.uk/is-autoplaying-video-dark-ux/; Kai Lukoff et al., “How the Design of YouTube Influences User Sense of Agency,” in Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI ’21 (New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, 2021), 1–17, https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445467.

[39] On this see Jonathan Naveh’s case study of University California Los Angeles’s 2014 transition from a Moving Image Archive Studies (MIAS) degree to a Media Archives Specialization within an MLIS degree; Jonathan Naveh, “‘Education against the Grain’: Examining the Evolution of Media Archival Training at UCLA,” Journal of Archival Organization 15, no. 3–4 (2018): 121–32, https://doi.org/10.1080/15332748.2019.1613317;

[40] Giovanna Fossati, "Introduction to the Third Revised Edition," In From Grain to Pixel, pp. 13-20. (Amsterdam University Press, 2018), 15.

[41] Caroline Frick, Saving Cinema: The Politics of Preservation, (Oxford University Press, 2011), 18.

[42]Janet Gertz, “6.6 Preservation and Selection for Digitization.” NEDCC Preservation Leaflets, 2007. https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/preservation-leaflets/6.-reformatting/6.6-preservation-and-selection-for-digitization.

[43] Dave Rice, "Digitization Software Obsolescence, Too?," International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) Journal 45 (2015): 11-19.

[44] Lenk, Sabina. “Archives and Their Film Collection in a Digital World; or, What Futures for the Analog Print?” in The Moving Image 14, no. 2 (2014): 103.

[45] Leo Enticknap, “Have Digital Technologies Reopened the Lindgren/Langlois Debate?,” Spectator 27, no. 1 (2007): 10–20.

[46] Thomas Elsaesser, "A Look Back: The Professional Master’s Programme in Preservation and Presentation," Synoptique 6, no. 1 (2018): 75.

[47] Fossati, 16.

[48]Fiona R. Cameron, “Theorising Heritage Collection Digitisations in Global Computational Infrastructures,” in The Routledge International Handbook of New Digital Practices in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Heritage Sites, ed. Lewi, Hannah et al. (Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2020), 56.

[49] Cameron, 60.

[50] Charles Fairall, “BFI Film Forever: Unlocking Film Heritage.” In Sustainable Audiovisual Collections Through Collaboration: Proceedings of the 2016 Joint Technical Symposium, edited by Rachael Stoeltje, Vicki Shively, George Boston, Lars Gaustad, and Dietrich Schüller, 10–15. Indiana University Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2005wh5.6.

[51] Oliver Hanley, "The Best Seat in the House? Observations on Online Viewing and Access to FIAF Affiliates' Collections," Journal of Film Preservation no. 104 (04, 2021): 88. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/best-seat-house-observations-on-online-viewing/docview/2510531395/se-2?accountid=14512

[52] Cameron, 60.

[53] Victoria Duckett and Sungji Oh, “Zoom Interview with Sungji Oh, October 24, 2020,” The Moving Image 20, no. 1–2 (2020): 248–57. https://doi.org/10.5749/movingimage.20.1-2.0248.

[54] “YouTube Business Model | How Does YouTube Make Money?” Accessed December 6, 2021. https://www.feedough.com/youtube-business-model-how-does-youtube-make-money/.

[55] Insider Intelligence. “Video Swells to 25% of US Digital Ad Spending.” Accessed December 6, 2021. https://www.emarketer.com/content/video-swells-to-25-of-us-digital-ad-spending.

[56] Caroline Wilson-Barnao, “Introduction: From the Analogue to the Digital Museum.” In Digital Access and Museums as Platforms, 1st ed., 1–18. London: Routledge, 2021. 3.

[57] Internet Archive. “BAMPFA.” Accessed December 6, 2021. https://archive.org/details/pacificfilmarchive?tab=collection.

[58] Internet Archive. “UPMAA.” Accessed December 6, 2021. https://archive.org/details/UPMAA_films?tab=collection.

[59] Internet Archive. “Field Museum Library.” Accessed December 6, 2021. https://archive.org/details/fieldmuseumlibrary?tab=collection.

[60] “Internet Archive: Petabox.” Accessed December 6, 2021. https://archive.org/web/petabox.php.

[61] Cameron, 60.

[62] Mitchell Whitelaw, “Generous Interfaces for Digital Cultural Collections” Digital Humanities Quarterly, 9 (1), 2015, 6. http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/9/1/000205/000205.html.

[63] Whitelaw, 3.

[64] Whitelaw, 46.

[65] Jen Ross, “Casting a Line: Digital Co-Production, Hospitality and Mobilities in Cultural Heritage Settings,” in Curator: The Museum Journal 61, no. 4 (2018): 575–92. 578. https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12280.

[66] Both the sharing of links and of contact information were notable as Vimeo’s chat settings attempt to filter out these messages. As such virtual screening participants had to edit their text inputs to navigate or “outsmart” the platform’s automated filters. UCLA FTVA Digital Content Manager, Jennifer Rhee, interview with the author. December 2, 2021.

[67] Ross, 578.

[68] Hanley, 87.

[69] Chiara Zuanni, “Digital Responses from Locked-down Museums,” in Cultural Practices, June 28, 2020. https://www.culturalpractice.org/article/digital-responses-from-locked-down-museums.

[70] Orit Gat. “Global Audiences, Zero Visitors: How to Measure the Success of Museums’ Online Publishing.” Rhizome, March 12, 2015. http://rhizome.org/editorial/2015/mar/12/globalaudiences-zero-visitors/.

[71] Wilson-Barnao, 10.

[72] Alexander Horwath, "The Market Vs. the Museum." Journal of Film Preservation no. 70 (11, 2005): 5-9. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/market-vs-museum/docview/235936548/se-2?accountid=14512.

[73] L. Antoniazzi, 2018. “Film heritage and neoliberalism.” Museum Management and Curatorship 34, no. 1: 79–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2018.1512053.

[74] Evan Selinger. "Technological fixes." The Wilson Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 2, spring 2013. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A349488320/LitRC?u=anon~49f78b24&sid=googleScholar&xid=65ae2b19.

[75] Elvia Arroyo-Ramírez, et al., “Speeding Towards Remote Access: Developing Shared Recommendations for Virtual Reading Rooms,” in The Lighting the Way Handbook: Case Studies, Guidelines, and Emergent Futures for Archival Discovery and Delivery. Mark A. Matienzo and Dinah Handel, eds. 2021: p 141-161. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Libraries. 146. https://doi.org/10.25740/gg453cv6438.

[76] “UCLA Preserved Silent Animation.” Accessed December 7, 2021. http://animation.library.ucla.edu/.

“Animation | UCLA Film & Television Archive.” Accessed December 7, 2021. https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/collections/animation.

[77] “UCLA Preserved Silent Animation - UCLA Library Digital Collections.” Accessed December 7, 2021. https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/z1321jdw.

[78] Ray Edmondson, “Is Film Archiving a Profession?” Film History 7.3 (Fall 1995): 245-255

[79] “MoMA | Video Games: 14 in the Collection, for Starters.” Accessed February 16, 2021. https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/11/29/video-games-14-in-the-collection-for-starters/.

[80] John Ippolito, “Generation Emulation,” in Richard Rinehart and Jon Ippolito, Re-collection: Art, New Media, and Social Memory (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014). Ippolito, 116.

[81] Ibid, 112-113.

[82] Ibid, 116, 257.

[83] Edmondson, Ray. 2017. “Is Film Archiving a Profession Yet? Reflections 20 Years On.” Synoptique 6 (1): 14–22. 14.

[84] “2018-2019 AMIA Advocacy and Need Report and Needs Assessment.”4. https://amianet.org/wp-content/uploads/Committees-Advocacy-Report-2018-2019.pdf

[85] Ippolito, 117.

[86] Ibid, 158.

[87] Winget, Megan A., and Caitlin Murray. “Collecting and Preserving Videogames and Their Related Materials: A Review of Current Practice, Game-Related Archives and Research Projects.” Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 45, no. 1 (2008): 1–9. 1.

[88] Weschler, Lawrence. “The Discovery, and Remarkable Recovery, of the King Tut’s Tomb of Silent-Era Cinema.” Vanity Fair. Accessed March 19, 2021. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/09/the-discovery-and-recovery-of-the-king-tuts-tomb-of-silent-era-cinema.

[89] Lowood, Henry, Andrew Armstrong, Devin Monnens, Zach Vowell, Judd Ruggill, Ken McAllister, Rachel Donahue, and Dan Pinchbeck. "Before it's too late: Preserving games across the industry/academia divide." In American Journal of Play, Vol. 1 (1): Fall 2009. 139-166. 140.

[90] Ibid, 141-143.

[91] Kraus, K., Donahue, R.: Do you want to save your progress? The role of professional and player communities in preserving virtual worlds. Digital Humanit. Q. 6 (2012). 21.

[92] Ibid, 21.

[93] Winget and Murray, 6-7.

[94] “Our Mission | NVM.” Accessed March 19, 2021. http://www.nvmusa.org/our-mission.

[95] Ellis, Hillary, Beth Merkle, Julia Novakovic, Andrew Borman, Victoria Gray, Edited Chris Bensch, JP Dyson, Racquel Gonzales, and Jeremy Saucier. “Digital Preservation Handbook,” n.d., 20. https://www.museumofplay.org/sites/default/files/uploads/Digital%20Preservation%20Handbook%2C%20External%2C%201-9-2020.pdf

[96] Hedstrom, Margaret, Christopher Lee, Judith Olson, and Clifford Lampe. "" The old version flickers more": Digital preservation from the user's perspective." The American Archivist 69, no. 1 (2006): 159-187.

[97] Ippolito, 118-9.

[98] Ippolito, 118-9.

[99] Gooding, P., Terras, M. (2008). Grand theft archive: a quantitative analysis of the state of computer game preservation. Int. J. Digital Curation 3(2), (2008): 19–41.

[100] McDonough, J., Olendorf, R., Kirschenbaum, M., Kraus, K., Reside, D., Donahue, R., Phelps, A., Egert, C., Lowood, H., & Rojo, S. (2010). Preserving Virtual Worlds Final Report. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/17097. 62.

[101] Ibid, 135.

[102] McDonough et. al. 6.

[103] Gracy, Karen F. Film preservation: Competing definitions of value, use, and practice. 2007. 141.

[104] Ibid, 22.

[105] Olgado B.S. (2019) Save Point/s: Competing Values and Practices in the Field of Video Game Preservation. In: Taylor N., Christian-Lamb C., Martin M., Nardi B. (eds) Information in Contemporary Society. iConference 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11420. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15742-5_39 415.

[106] “Cabrinety-NIST Project.” Stanford Libraries. Accessed March 19, 2021. https://library.stanford.edu/projects/cabrinety-nist-project.

“Video Game Archives – Undergraduate Library – U of I Library.” Accessed March 17, 2021. https://www.library.illinois.edu/ugl/gaming/gamearchives/.

“Computer and Video Game Archive.” Accessed March 17, 2021. https://www.lib.umich.edu/locations-and-hours/computer-and-video-game-archive.

[107] Olgado, 416.

[108] “The Association of Moving Image Archivists - Projection Workshops.” Accessed March 16, 2021. https://amianet.org/events/projection-workshop/.

[109] Ibid.

[110] Film Quarterly. “Kanopy: Not Just Like Netflix, and Not Free,” May 3, 2019. https://filmquarterly.org/2019/05/03/kanopy-not-just-like-netflix-and-not-free/.

[111] Cloudflare. “What Is Streaming? | How Video Streaming Works.” Accessed January 24, 2021. https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/video/what-is-streaming/.

[112] Help Center. “Internet Connection Speed Recommendations.” Accessed January 25, 2021. https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306.

[113] “Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability in Public Accommodations and Commercial Facilities.” Accessed February 8, 2021. https://www.ada.gov/regs2010/titleIII_2010/titleIII_2010_regulations.htm#asubpartb.

[114] Rev. “How Netflix & Hulu Are Solving Video Accessibility,” February 13, 2020. https://www.rev.com/blog/how-netflix-hulu-are-solving-video-accessibility.

[115] “NP3 | Netflix Post Partner Program.” Accessed February 9, 2021. https://np3.netflixstudios.com/.

[116] “Kanopy Streaming Service High-Level Accessibility Evaluation,” n.d., 4. https://www.btaa.org/docs/default-source/library/accessibility-reports/kanopy-streaming-service.pdf?sfvrsn=4c4cf3_4

[117] Initiative (WAI), W3C Web Accessibility. “Home.” Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Accessed February 9, 2021. https://www.w3.org/WAI/.

“Create Accessible Video, Audio and Social Media | Section508.Gov.” Accessed February 9, 2021. https://www.section508.gov/create/video-social.

[118] “Netflix’s Use Of Artwork Personalization Attracts Online Criticism – Deadline.” Accessed March 2, 2021. https://deadline.com/2018/10/netflixs-artwork-personalization-attracts-online-criticism-1202487598/.

[119] Vincent, James. “California Bans ‘Dark Patterns’ That Trick Users into Giving Away Their Personal Data.” The Verge, March 16, 2021. https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/16/22333506/california-bans-dark-patterns-opt-out-selling-data.

[120] “Lfc.” Accessed February 22, 2021. https://lumiere.berkeley.edu/login.

[121] Association of Research Libraries. “LCA Releases Issue Brief on Streaming Films for Educational Purposes.” Accessed February 22, 2021. https://www.arl.org/resources/issue-brief-streaming-of-films-for-educational-purposes/.

[122] Kohn, Eric, and Eric Kohn. “Criterion Channel Lives! Company President Explains Going Solo After FilmStruck’s Death.” IndieWire (blog), April 8, 2019. https://www.indiewire.com/2019/04/criterion-channel-after-filmstruck-1202056861/.

[123] Nordine, Michael, and Michael Nordine. “Missing FilmStruck? OVID.TV, a New Arthouse Streaming Service, Will Launch in March.” IndieWire (blog), January 18, 2019. https://www.indiewire.com/2019/01/ovid-tv-streaming-service-icarus-films-1202036566/.

[124] Horwath, Alexander. “The Market vs. The Museum.” Journal of Film Preservation, no. 70 (November 2005): 5–9.

[125] David Austerberry, Digital Asset Management, 2nd ed. (Burlington, Mass.: Focal Press, 2006). 4.

[126]I am a white, settler, cis-gender man from a middle-class background. Two years ago, I had hardly any notion of what digital asset management was. This paper is informed by my experience learning about DAM in the MLIS program at the University of California, Los Angeles and comes with all the bias accrued in a professional school within an R1 university in the western, northern hemisphere and by someone with the privilege to attend such a program. This paper was written on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples.

[127] Horwath, 7.

[128] I take the term “information workers” from Karly Wildenhaus, who draws on the legacy of the Art Workers’ Coalition (1969–1971) in order to to develop “a common identity for archivists, librarians, catalogers, records managers, data curators, researchers, LIS professors, and others working in similar information environments.” To this term I add memory, a gesture towards stewardship of what can be known, felt, or remembered, but not computed. Wildenhaus, Karly. “Wages for Intern Work: Denormalizing Unpaid Positions in Archives and Libraries.” Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 2, no. 1 (2019). https://doi.org/10.24242/jclis.v2i1.88. 4.

[129] In the introduction to inaugural issue of the Journal of Digital Asset Management, Michael Moon muses that “DAM touches almost every aspect of commerce and enterprise,” before relating a wide range of definitions advanced by the journal’s contributors. Moon, Michael. “A Long Road Brings Us Back to Where We Started.” Journal of Digital Asset Management 1, no. 1 (January 1, 2005): 4–5. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.dam.3640001.

[130] Austerberry, 9.

[131] For a discussion of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s early adoption of DAM, specifically the vendor MediaBin see: Oberoi, Shyam. “Digital Images in Museums: Doing the DAM: Digital Asset Management at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 34, no. 4 (2008): 17–22. https://doi.org/10.1002/bult.2008.1720340405.

[132] Lee, Jamie Ann, and Marika Cifor. “Evidences, Implications, and Critical Interrogations of Neoliberalism in Information Studies: An Introduction.” Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 2, no. 1 (April 6, 2019): 5. https://doi.org/10.24242/jclis.v2i1.122.

[133] It is also worth considering the extent to which, as Ghaddar and Caswell elaborate, neoliberalism can be put in perspective as “just another gloss for empire,” an extension of the “white supremacy, violence, genocide, slavery, exploitation, conquest and plunder in the making of modern Europe and the entire edifice of the west.” Bearing in mind the emphasis that neoliberalism places on creative technical disruptions, one can see how a hegemonic demand for DAM carries a broader western colonial narrative of technological progress. J.J. Ghaddar and Michelle Caswell, “’To Go Beyond’: Towards a Decolonial Archival Praxis,” Introduction to the Special Issue on Decolonization, Archival Science 19 (Spring 2019): 71-85. 78.

[134] Caswell, Michelle, and Marika Cifor. “From Human Rights to Feminist Ethics: Radical Empathy in the Archives.” Archivaria, May 6, 2016, 29; Marika Cifor and Jamie A. Lee, “Towards an Archival Critique: Opening Possibilities for Addressing Neoliberalism in the Archival Field,” Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies, no. 1 (January 2017): 4.

[135] Lee and Cifor, “Evidences, Implications, and Critical Interrogations of Neoliberalism,” 5; Nicholson, Karen P. “The McDonaldization of Academic Libraries and the Values of Transformational Change.” College & Research Libraries 76, no. 3 (March 1, 2015): 328–38. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.76.3.328.

[136] Nicholson, 333-335.

[137] Nicholson, 329-330.

[138] Antoniazzi, Luca. “Film Heritage and Neoliberalism.” Museum Management and Curatorship 34, no. 1 (January 2, 2019): 79–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2018.1512053; Buschman, John. “Talkin’ Bout My (Neoliberal) Generation: Three Theses.” Progressive Librarian 29 (2007): 28–40.

[139] Horwath, 4.

[140] Katie Rawson and Trevor Muñoz, “Against Cleaning,” Curating Menus, July 7, 2016, http://www.curatingmenus.org/articles/against-cleaning/.

[141] Neumeier, Lori. 2014. "the Mess Is There": Digital Asset Management System Use In Non-Academic Archival Repositories, 19. https://doi.org/10.17615/tn2t-sb32

[142] Holter, Eric. “The Demand for DAMS.” Cuberis - Museum Website Design and Development, July 25, 2018. https://cuberis.com/the-demand-for-dams/.

[143] Here it is worth noting Cifor and Lee’s observation that “Neoliberalism operates in direct opposition to social justice principles and aims,” even when professing to notions of “freedom” and “equality,” because the neoliberal vision of freedom and equality tends to universalize difference and accommodate little to no acknowledgement of establish power dynamics. Cifor and Lee, “Towards an Archival Critique,” 4-5.

[144] Owens, Trevor. The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018, 41. https://doi.org/10.1353/book.62324.

[145] Extensis. “Museum Digital Asset Management | DAM for Libraries | Extensis.” Accessed March 13, 2022. https://www.extensis.com/digital-asset-management-for-museums.

[146] Canto. “What Is Digital Asset Management (DAM)?” Accessed March 13, 2022. https://www.canto.com/digital-asset-management/.

[147] MediaValet. “DAM for Archiving: The Best Way to Preserve History,” December 2, 2021. https://www.mediavalet.com/blog/digital-asset-management-archiving/.

[148] “How Can Museums Benefit from Digital Asset Management?” Accessed March 14, 2022. https://www.resourcespace.com/blog/museums_benefit_from_dam.

[149] Though this is a point on which I hope you trust me, I do invite the reader to try different variations for themselves. I look forward to the day that this observation is dated and the results are not as I describe them (unless of course they get far worse).

[150] Noble, Safiya Umoja. Algorithms of Oppression (New York University Press: 2018), 25.

[151] NetX. “The Leading Digital Asset Management Platform (DAMS) for Museums | NetX.” Accessed March 13, 2022. https://www.netx.net/museums/.

[152] NetX. “NetX Platform | Digital Asset Management FAQs | DAM Platform.” Accessed March 14, 2022. https://www.netx.net/dam-faq.

[153] Hale, Allison. “Mass Digitization: Digital Asset Management | Cooper Hewitt Labs,” October 21, 2016. https://labs.cooperhewitt.org/2016/mass-digitization-digital-asset-management/.

[154] “DAM Service Pricing (USD).” Accessed March 14, 2022. https://www.resourcespace.com/pricing.

[155] Srnicek, Nick. Platform Capitalism. Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM: Polity Press, 2016, 24. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ucla/detail.action?docID=4773843.

[156] Jules, Bergis. “Confronting Our Failure of Care Around the Legacies of Marginalized People in the Archives.” On Archivy (blog), November 12, 2016. https://medium.com/on-archivy/confronting-our-failure-of-care-around-the-legacies-of-marginalized-people-in-the-archives-dc4180397280

[157] Carbajal, Itza A., and Michelle Caswell. “Critical Digital Archives: A Review from Archival Studies.” The American Historical Review 126, no. 3 (September 1, 2021): 1106. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhab359.

[158] Austerberry, 4.

[159] Austerberry, 5.

[160] Austerberry, 4.

[161] See the “narrower terms” section in the SAA dictionary page for “value. “SAA Dictionary: Value.” Accessed March 13, 2022. https://dictionary.archivists.org/entry/value.html.

[162] One great example is continuing value, which emerges as a corrective to the imprecision in “enduring value.” “SAA Dictionary: Continuing Value.” Accessed March 14, 2022. https://dictionary.archivists.org/entry/continuing-value.html. See also discussion of appraisal in Verne Harris, “The Archival Sliver: Power, Memory and Archives in South Africa,” Archival Science

2, no. 1/2 (2002): 70–80, 84.

[163] One example would be Alpert-Abrams, Hannah, David A. Bliss, and Itza Carbajal. “Post-Custodial Archiving for the Collective Good: Examining Neoliberalism in US-Latin American Archival Partnerships.” Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 2, no. 1 (March 3, 2019). https://doi.org/10.24242/jclis.v2i1.87

[164] Cocciolo, Anthony. “When Archivists and Digital Asset Managers Collide: Tensions and Ways Forward.” The American Archivist 79, no. 1 (June 1, 2016): 121–36. https://doi.org/10.17723/0360-9081.79.1.121.

[165] Still, here I’ll share a few with the notable phrases (my emphasis) in bold “Our Digital Asset Management solution enables organisations to centralise, control, distribute and commercialise large amounts of digital information such as images, PDFs, word documents, spatial, audio and video.” “About Us.” Accessed March 13, 2022. https://www.piction.com/site/.

[166] “A digital asset is an image, audio file, presentation, video, and any other branded content or media that often have usage rights or licensing requirements. These files may be in several formats, such as PNGs or JPGs for images; WAVs and BWFs for audio files; PSDs and TIFFs for design files; PDFs and Word docs; and more.” Brandfolder. “What Is Digital Asset Management (DAM)?” Brandfolder. Accessed March 13, 2022. https://brandfolder.com/resources/what-is-digital-asset-management/.

[167] “Digital asset management (DAM) helps you get more value from creative digital assets like images and videos by making them easy to organize, access and distribute.” Bynder. “What Is Digital Asset Management?” Bynder. Accessed March 14, 2022. https://www.bynder.com/en/what-is-digital-asset-management/.

[168] NetX. “What Is Digital Asset Management (DAM) Software?” Accessed March 13, 2022. https://www.netx.net/what-is-digital-asset-management-dam.

[169] Lee, Cifor. “Evidences, Implications, and Critical Interrogations of Neoliberalism in Information Studies,” 5.

[170] Cocciolo, 134-5.

[171] Gartner, Richard. “New Roles for Librarians: Custodians or Digital Asset Managers.” In 2015 4th International Symposium on Emerging Trends and Technologies in Libraries and Information Services, 207–10, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1109/ETTLIS.2015.7048199; Hockx-Yu, Helen. “Digital Asset Management and Libraries, Archives and Museums: Separation and Convergence,” n.d., 10; Hvenegaard Rasmussen, Casper. “Is Digitalization the Only Driver of Convergence? Theorizing Relations between Libraries, Archives, and Museums.” Journal of Documentation ahead-of-print (July 2, 2019). https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-02-2019-0025.

[172] Wildenhaus, 12.

[173] Keathley, Elizabeth. Digital Asset Management: Content Architectures, Project Management, and Creating Order Out of Media Chaos. The Expert’s Voice in Content Management. (Berkeley, CA: Apress L. P, 2014), 41.

[174] Ibid; Kealthy also notes a tension around class (“is it a blue-collar or white-collar profession?”) and a striking racial disparity with the field, which respondents are unwilling to discuss making it “difficult to draw any conclusions about the racial makeup of the profession,” even as “participation at DAM conferences closely mirrors the racial makeup of tech professionals in the United States as a whole, which is to say it’s about 80 percent white/Caucasian.” Kealthy, 41-2.

[175] Kealthy, 41.

[176] Ibid.

[177] Pawley, Christine. “Hegemony’s Handmaid? The Library and Information Studies Curriculum from a Class Perspective.” The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy 68, no. 2 (1998): 123–44. Here, 129-131.

[178] Cooper Hewitt. Unprecedented Access to Cooper Hewitt’s Collection, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MveUhuPajnw.

[179] Leah. “The Darker Side of Digitization.” Leah Henrickson (NO LONGER UPDATED) (blog), March 20, 2014. https://bhilluminated.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/google-book-scanners/.

[180]Antoniazzi, Luca. “Film Heritage and Neoliberalism,” 79–95.

———. Antoniazzi, Luca. “Digital Preservation and the Sustainability of Film Heritage.” Information, Communication & Society 24, no. 11 (August 18, 2021): 1658–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2020.1716042.

[181] Hudson, David James. “The Whiteness of Practicality.” In Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Studies, edited by Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, 203-234. Sacramento: Library Juice Press, 2017.

[182] Tsing, A. L. “ON NONSCALABILITY: The Living World Is Not Amenable to Precision-Nested Scales.” Common Knowledge 18, no. 3 (October 1, 2012): 505–24. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-1630424.

[183] Rawson and Muñoz, “Against Cleaning”

[184] Keathley, 37.

[185] Tsing, 509.

[186] Christen, Kimberly, and Jane Anderson. “Toward Slow Archives.” Archival Science 19, no. 2 (June 1, 2019): 87–116. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-019-09307-x. 90.