Creating Digital Performance Resources
A Guide to Good Practice

Performing Arts Data Service
Guide to Good Practice
Creating Digital Performance Resources

SECTION 2: Digital Resources in Performance Studies

2.3: Approaches to building digital archives
Barry Smith

1. Origins

"Mummy, Mummy, where do digital archives come from?"

I've never been asked this question and, come to think about it, probably never will. But it's the nub of an interesting question just the same and an essential one if you're thinking of starting to 'digitally archive' something. Given that the word 'archive' derives from the Greek 'arkheia' meaning 'public records', it's small wonder the word usually describes, or described, local, regional and national government collections of documents and other records kept for consultation and research purposes (contemporary ones sometimes with an embargo prohibiting access before a given date, presumably to protect the guilty). Frequently such public archives have been complemented (occasionally contradicted) by private collections of letters, diaries and notes (military and scientific collections being foremost in this category though literary papers have latterly achieved increasing significance too). We can note in passing - and perhaps as a spur to start one! - that theatre collections can prove valuable: the British Library has recently paid £1.2 million to buy for the nation the vast collection of private papers, letters, photographs and diaries of the late Laurence Olivier. We can also note that Amazon.co.uk currently rank Olivier's Henry V (1945) at number 53 in the Sales List of most popular DVDs: digital resources have indeed entered the marketplace!

Even in such a brief overview one can sense new digital facilities making their presence felt. It's a passing thought that in the past the sheer welter of paper in government administration (letters, minutes and internal memorandum) ensured the longevity of ideas and discussions and strategies as they were bundled off, literally tied up with red tape, to the Records Office. Now, the advent of gov.uk (equivalent of ac.uk in government) means an increasing amount of discussion and conferencing is undertaken in the far less permanent medium of email. In the arts too the impact of 'the digital' is now acknowledged without necessarily full cognisance of what is or will be involved: as the call for papers for the CADE 2001 (Computers in Art & Design) Conference makes clear:

"Most practitioners and educationists in art and design now acknowledge the wide-ranging impact of digital media, even though they may not yet recognise the character of its potential nor how to engage with it."
(from an email circulated on many Mailbase Lists, 17 June 2000.)

Just as word-processing was one of the first useful digital applications for many areas of study - not least the performing arts - so the 'digital archive' in various forms is proving to be one of the most widespread subsequent applications. Imperative in any archive - whether public or private, paper or digital - is the primary 'documentation' (primarily but no longer as necessarily paper-based as the word 'document' suggests) and the notion of a collection or accumulation of related items which are in part at least systematised or ordered or, in modern parlance, searchable. Because the 'digital archive' concept is very recent it is still usually recording, cataloguing or sometimes replicating paper-based documentation, but one can hardly suppose that will always be the case and indeed already it isn't. There are already 'archives' which exist solely in digital form, particularly email, indeed all Mailbase Lists (the UK email correspondence facility for subject groups in Higher Education funded, monitored and maintained by the UK's Higher Education Funding Councils, the SCUDD List being the one most readily associated with this publication). Mailbase Lists are automatically archived for a period of 2 years (then deleted unless a special case is made for retention). But some Lists have made a much greater feature of longevity, creating named archives by requesting subscribers to send in their contributions, ideas, essays and 'papers' for permanent digital archiving and thus creating a permanent 'digital archive' seemingly out of nothing.

Fans of Richard Brautigan may feel this is nothing new. In his novel The Abortion: An Historical Romance (1996) Brautigan created the magnificent if impractical notion of a huge underground library/archive for all the unpublished manuscript novels in the world - so that all and any rejected novels could find a resting place and be salvageable. Fans duly tried to create such a facility in Burlington, Vermont, USA and an archive of donated manuscripts does exist at the Burlington Fletcher Free Library (but rapidly became so over-subscribed that it is sadly no longer able to accept new submissions!). The problem can be digitally solved in an instant of course, and has been: there is now a digital-only Brautigan Virtual Library where you can submit your unpublished novel which qualifies you to read all or any of the others... ; there is also, inevitably, a Brautigan Mailing List devoted to correspondence about the author, a Traders' Corner (memorabilia, signed copies etc), bibliography and links pages, the totality making a (perhaps 'a' rather than 'the' for there are several other related collections on the Internet) Brautigan Archive. This easy networking of both large and small collections and associated interests is becoming a key aspect of digital archives on the Internet. As yet at a very early stage and still in a confused state, the links facilitated by any hypertexted document or database means that new, well-organised additions can quickly find their rightful place in the collections of information and data about any chosen subject.

One of the earliest digital-only archives was a Usenet newsgroup called Talk.origins devoted to mainstream theories in geology, biology, cosmology and theology. Contributions essentially arguing the Darwinian evolutionary line were posted and, though often sent anonymously, seemed to bear all the hallmarks of serious research, close argument and bibliographic referencing. It inevitably attracted the attention of the Creationists who after some predictable hubris set up their own equivalent email archive rather wittily named True.origins. These two archives still exist and expand side by side in an uneasy truce, reflecting not only the ability of the Net and digital facility to create archives of some seriousness and substance apparently from thin air but also, with contributions from a Professor_Enigma@hotmail.com for example, to maintain that anonymity and game-playing which is such a basic ingredient of the Internet. Not that vast tracts of serious thought are beyond reach either. The 'History of Thought Archive' at McMaster University, mirrored in the UK at Bristol University, in Australia at Melbourne University and with the Université de Paris, Sorbonne, adding a French "Bibliothèque Virtuelle", is, through the means of a relatively simple international collaboration, building a digital archive on its chosen specialism of the History of Economics. Through the simple expediency of reproducing essential philosophical essays (with permission or those out of copyright restrictions) relating to the topic and inviting all interested participants to contribute to its moderated but burgeoning bibliography. In networked digital archives this emergence of an interactive user/contributor axis is a very noticeable and intriguing feature.

If you search systematically on the Net you are most likely to find an 'archive' with some reference to your point of interest. This might be anything from the Searchable Online Archive of Recipes at Berkeley (67,087 recipes to date) to the Mechanical Music Digest Compilation Archive (on musical instruments which play themselves) which seems to average an incredible additional 14 contributions of knowledge, opinion and insight per day. Google Search returns nearly 3 million archive references, AltaVista, with its looser approach to indexing, over 14 million, both of which only represent a fraction of the totality. The largest Net Archive that I am personally aware of is called 'Internet Archives' which, as of March 2000, claimed one billion pages, fifty thousand FTP sites, sixteen million relevant postings and is the equivalent of about a thousand complete copies of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Started in 1996 it still welcomes donations of data and claims to grow in size by 10% a month. Its reputation as 'the biggest' may not last as rumours persist that some wag is about to launch 'The Archive of Everything'! In sharp contrast at least in scale, 'personal archives' seem to be a rapidly increasing feature of the Net too, where individuals and families trace their genealogy by researching parish registers, posting family photographs and other memorabilia, inviting others to contribute additional pieces to the jigsaw. Once more the user/contributor axis is in evidence.

That developing an archive or database on the Internet can still be the territory of the novice should not mask the fact that professionalisation and (relative) standardisation have continued apace, none more so than by the professional librarians and archivists of UK Government and Higher Education who have made enormous and worthwhile inroads into and contributions to the so-called Information Society; indeed in many respects they are creating the Information Society. Their task is, to say the least, daunting - vast collections in some instances accumulated over centuries - sometimes of enormous intrinsic and extrinsic value and totally unique - suddenly needing to be available in some digital indexed format. A recent announcement from the Cabinet Office that a consortium consisting of the Public Record Office, the British Library and the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, with support from the National Council on Archives, the Society of Archivists and the Association of Chief Archivists in Local Government gives a glimpse into the sheer scale and professionalism of the task and the seriousness which it is afforded. And 'afforded' is a term of some consequence where the investment necessary is usually measured in at least large fractions of a million pounds sterling and sometimes significantly more. The development of accessible digital archives for future generations is a serious business.

If, when you contemplate this maelstrom of new digital applications, you still feel some urge to jump in but are not sure quite how to or what you should be clutching as you leap, the 'personal archive' is perhaps the easiest point of entry. Not that I particularly want to encourage everyone to be posting pictures of great grandmother, my recommendation would be more along the lines of the Brautigan hypothesis that everyone can write at least one (unpublished) novel, that there is a place for the willing beginner to indulge their specialist knowledge and make it available to others. Collaboration with another or others with identical, similar or related interests can be a key ingredient in developing useful collections from such relatively small beginnings and the advent of email makes it relatively easy to locate those persons through Lists, UseNet newsgroups and even Chat Lines. The naturally unwary should perhaps be reminded that the Internet inevitably contains many jokers, games and absurdities and that archive-building and database development have significantly changed and become more professionalised in very recent years. However the essential ingredients remain an over-riding interest in the material or idea/notion to be archived or databased, a modicum of time in the early stages to get to grips with the major pitfalls and advantages of the activity and the confidence to ask occasionally for assistance. With those three ingredients the rest is relatively easy.

2. Getting Help

As standards and technical complexities have increased so, fortunately, have the various help facilities supporting them. In Higher Education this is a central concern of the AHDS (Arts and Humanities Data Service) and its subgroups including for the performing arts PADS (Performing Arts Data Service) and the visual arts VADS (Visual Arts Data Service). One specific role of PADS and VADS is to act as a bridge between the initial enquiry and the resulting digital works and they are also equipped to act as a possible depository for final outcomes. For both the novice and the more experienced, one or both of them should be listed as a first port of call.

The importance of seeking collaboration and asking for assistance should not be under-estimated. It is difficult to build a digital database single-handed without some recourse to advanced technical expertise at some juncture or without some assistance with data-input. And it is equally unwise to set about building either a database or an archive without recourse to at least a second opinion, some user-testing procedures and a check that the software you propose to use meets the increasingly stringent national and international standards. But for the relative or total novice there are enormous resources of friendly information freely available on all aspects of archiving and databases from colleagues already working the field. The generous spirit of the early email communities is today perhaps sometimes hedged with concerns about the sheer overload of email and Lists but it still generally exists within specific H.E. email communities (and interestingly enough on most Chat Lines where information and guidance on the latest technological developments tends to be freely discussed if sometimes in a disarmingly frank manner!). Higher Education Lists (currently hosted by Mailbase, from 1st August 2000 by CLRC) provide an extraordinary assortment of freely available lines of enquiry and one can pick carefully for the one or two that sound the most pertinent. Small wonder, given the Library and Information Services emphasis on digitizing activities, that Library Lists form one of the largest collections of Lists on Mailbase (over 220 in all; you are advised not to try joining all of them nor even the 23 specifically devoted to electronic resources). Other Lists with electronic aspects as a focal point currently offer a choice of 95 Lists (including AHDS and PADS as noted above), a further 16 on Archives and a further 28 with databases on subjects as varied as fish and Robert Graves (that's two separate databases not one). Given this overwhelming wealth of potential information and help sources, the greatest difficulty is probably in choosing one. They can all be found via http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/, (archives) and http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/, (current lists). Even if you initially choose the wrong one someone will more than likely suggest someone who can advise on your particular problem, however basic. If still in doubt and your subject matter is related to performing arts choose PADS.

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