The Present of Digital Preservation

Heidi Kelly

Digital Preservation Librarian

Let us go boldly into the present.

The web dwells in a never-ending present.

Jill Lepore

“Now, we don’t fix that problem [of memory and abolition] by shunting one great man off the stage and wheeling another one on; or, a great woman... We don’t fix it. We have to do some damage to that idea of history.”

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

<History.>

The Present of Digital Preservation is POLITICAL.

Documenting the Now

IMPOSING SOME RESTRICTIONS ON OURSELVES AS USERS OF DOCNOW OR OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA ARCHIVING TOOLS WILL BE ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT IN TERMS OF PROTECTING THE PEOPLE WHO WILL END UP IN THE COLLECTIONS WE BUILD.