Notes on remediating loss

Emerging roles for librarians

Angela Galvan

The Ohio State University

Health Sciences Library

Code4Lib Midwest 2015

Why study this? 

Photo CC-BY tambako

Photo CC-BY Vernon Hyde

And even while we delight in building the shiny and the new…we know that someone, sooner or later, curates bits against our ruins. 

(Nowiskie, 2014)

Contemporary grief practices

• Catalog the dead alongside us.

• Maintain relationships through linked data. 

• Curate, discard, and re-purpose digital objects to suit our mourning.

We collect digital objects. 

Photo CC-BY mandj98

Technology complicates loss. 

Photo CC-BY Ana Fuentes

Photo CC-BY Aza Raskin

Digital estate management 

Photo CC-BY Linda Tanner

Choice and consent

Photo CC-BY Nina Cheng

Emerging roles

• Create policy, standards, and practices.

• Help users develop inventories of digital assets.

• Develop tools for data migration.

• Digital estate management, permissions, access.

Thanks! Questions? 

@galvan_as

galvan.as@gmail.com