Digital Dark Age Research Articles

Doing LGBTQ internet histories justice: a queer web archive manifesto

Despite the web’s revolutionary impact on LGBTQ communities, the preservation and study of LGBTQ web histories have been largely overlooked by archives and scholars. This neglect has contributed to a “queer digital dark age,” perpetuating the symbolic annihilation of LGBTQ people in the historical record. Drawing on an extensive review of queer archive and library studies literature, as well as a survey of curators of queer web archives, this article argues for urgent intervention. Specific actions are needed: heritage institutions should prioritise creating queer web collections, and scholars must begin consulting existing collections. Failure to address this undermines the representation of LGBTQ experiences and hinders our understanding of online LGBTQ life. By examining extant initiatives, specifically the LGBT + web archive of the National Library of the Netherlands, this article demonstrates the potential of studying queer internet histories through web archives. Such endeavours enable diachronic research and the application of computational methods like hyperlink analyses, revealing the interconnected nature of queer online cultures. Ultimately, this article advocates a collaborative dialogue between queer archival and librarian studies, web archive studies, and LGBTQ internet studies—which must lead to pressing steps to preserve and comprehensively examine LGBTQ online heritage.

Internet Archaeology: SEADDA Collection

The COST Action Saving European Archaeology from the Digital Dark Age (SEADDA) was established to mitigate the loss of primary archaeological data by developing common understandings around data stewardship, building new best-practice networks to support the preservation and open dissemination of archaeological data, and the creation of more inclusive research partnerships. Marking the end of the SEADDA project, this collection brings together all the publications released over several years and over several issues into one place.

Digital Archiving in Archaeology: Assessing the State of the Art

The Saving European Archaeology from Digital Dark Age (SEADDA) COST Action (CA18128) is funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union and aims to create a network for archaeologists and digital specialists to build capacity for the long-term preservation of digital data for archaeology. More than 20 countries are involved in SEADDA, and have undertaken surveys, publications, workshops, STSMs (Short Term Scientific Missions) and other activities carried out to increase awareness and share expertise. Within the scope of the project, Internet Archeology 58 2021, titled "Digital Archiving in Archeology: Assessing the State of the Art", and then Internet Archeology 63 2023, titled "Digital Archiving in Archeology: Additional State of the Art and Further Analyzes" were published. This article will give a brief introduction to SEADDA but will focus primarily on what we are learning from Internet Archaeology 58 and Internet Archaeology 63, how it is helping us to understand digital archaeological data around the world. In this study, 37 articles from 31 different countries were examined, according to three main categories: administrative structure, physical and digital archives for archaeological data. In the light of the data obtained, it is difficult to generalize about archaeological data processes and management; however, different countries and regions are applying different methods to create repositories. Legislation, budgets, and human resources are all factors which affect these processes for preserving digital archaeological data for future generations. But, all countries need to share expertise, and engage in capacity building, especially around legislations, human resources, standards and guidelines, whilst financial support needs to be prioritized.

The Impact of the SEADDA COST Action

The Saving Archaeology from the Digital Dark Age (SEADDA) COST Action ran from 2019 to 2023 and produced a wide range of publications, opportunities for capacity building and knowledge transfer. This paper will discuss the less tangible forms of impact resulting from the work of the SEADDA members working within and across their own networks. These impacts include the new avenues of communication and collaboration created through the data stewardship and management focussed National Workshops held in Norway, Serbia, Portugal, Turkey, France, Romania and Ireland. Each workshop took a different form to be suit the needs of their community, but all resulted in progress towards ensuring the long- term persistence of digital archaeological data. This paper will describe the impact of each of these National Workshops. SEADDA made and strengthened connections across a range of different areas of collaboration, primarily through work with members of the European Archaeological Council, the Digital Preservation Coalition, and the ARIADNE Infrastructure for archaeological data. Each of these connections has resulted in closer ties, ongoing collaboration and other forms of impact that would not have been possible without SEADDA. SEADDA was also committed to ensuring participation of non-EU countries which participate in the COST, and supporting doctoral students and early career researchers, and the impacts of these commitments will also be highlighted in this paper.

Archiving Digital Archaeological Data - Evaluation of a Survey in Germany

Archiving of digital research data based on established standards and methods is an important part of the research data lifecycle. It guarantees the long-term transparency and reusability of research results. In the case of archaeological data, this is of particular importance for the preservation of unique and irreplaceable cultural heritage. To gain insight into the current state of affairs regarding long-term archiving in Germany, the SEADDA (Saving European Archaeology from the Digital Dark Age) COST Action (1) and the Commission on Archaeology and Information Systems in the Association of German State Archaeologists (2), with the support of the IANUS Research Data Center of the DAI (3), conducted a survey in spring/summer 2021. This article presents the results of the survey together with recommendations for further and supporting measures targeted at improving the long-term archiving of digital archaeological data in Germany.

Il problema dell’eredità digitale nella trasmissione di archivi e biblioteche personali

The digital revolution that for at least a couple of decades has radically transformed every sector of society has not neglected to make profound changes also in the personal life of each one – which is becoming more and more ‘digital’ – and in the production and use of documents. Through personal computers, tablets and smartphones, we draw up documents, take notes and personal notes, write literary texts, develop studies and projects, take photographs, read books, interact on social networks, etc. In this way, many documents are created in digital format and many magazines and books are purchased and read in digital format as well. As a consequence, the digital part in personal archives is increasing more and more (and these are turning into “digital personal archives”); in the same way, personal libraries increasingly consist of digital books and magazines and therefore they are becoming ‘personal digital libraries’ too. In many cases digital material is stored on virtual spaces made available by cloud service providers and become accessible only to those who know (or have) the necessary credentials. But faced with this transformation, many people begin to ask themselves: what will happen to these personal digital fonds after the death of the producers or owners? Will the heirs be able to accommodate this legacy? To answer these questions, we need to face the problem of the transmission of the digital legacy, fully understanding the implications that derive from having entrusted personal fonds to systems often protected by inscrutable access mechanisms and trying to identify the solutions that could allow them to secure their future, avoiding falling into that ‘digital dark age’ that more than someone has already begun to foreshadow.

Saving us from the Digital Dark Age: the Austrian perspective

In Austria, archaeological research and excavation practice is shaped by a legislative framework and institutional actors. Besides the institutions, the role of private archaeological contractors has grown in the last decade and recently non-commercial associations have been founded. According to the Austrian Monument Protection Act, the Federal Monuments Authority issues permits for any archaeological excavation or survey activity. Documentation and preservation of physical material are regulated by the Monument Protection Act as well as by dedicated guidelines published by the Federal Monuments Authority. With the recent increased use of digital methods, the importance of preserving and disseminating digital data has risen. Although the Austrian government pursues a digitisation agenda including the promotion of Open Science, the availability of repositories suitable for long-term preservation of digital data does not meet the requirements arising from the ever-increasing amount of data.

Belated Measures - the Reality of Digital Archaeological Archiving in Poland

Archaeology in Poland, as in any other corner of the world, thrives on the application of digital technologies in fieldwork and subsequent analysis. Unfortunately, legal and administrative solutions have not been responsive enough to keep up with these changes. This article summarises the reality of archaeological digital archiving in Poland, shaped by a legally determined focus on paper documentation and the decentralisation of the state heritage service. The practice of digital archaeological archiving is illustrated by the results of a survey carried out among archaeologists from provincial heritage offices. It has revealed that, while they struggle with a lack of adequate technical measures and skills, they also opt for increasing the significance and proportion of digital archaeological archives and realise what should be done for this Digital Dark Age to end. On a more general level, the existence of digital documentation has already been recognised in laws on archiving and implementation of IT solutions. This article describes the actions taken at a national level to tackle these issues; namely, two state repositories: one for electronic documents and the other for digital resources of science and culture. It also presents current initiatives of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in this regard.

“This Title Is No Longer Available”: Preserving Television in the Streaming Age

This article examines several recent changes in the technological composition and market logics of television. It considers what these developments might mean for the medium’s preservational qualities and for our understanding of television history more broadly. By focusing on the growth of streaming, the increasing “datafication” of the TV industry, and the prominence of interfaces and catalogs, I demonstrate that the ephemerality of television is both intensifying and diversifying, creating a number of methodological challenges in the process. These developments are placed in a longer history of critical debates around the preservation of digital media and the prospect of a digital dark age so that we might learn lessons from the past that can be applied to the preservational challenges of the present. The article concludes by proposing a number of practical steps so that future television historians might be better equipped to avoid a “scholarly dark age.”

Aproximación a la preservación de objetos cartográficos y geográficos digitales

Los cortos plazos de vigencia de las tecnologías de la información y de sus soportes digitales exigen su renovación frecuente para prevenir su obsolescencia o deterioro con la consiguiente pérdida de la información almacenada. El término Digital Dark Age anuncia un escenario de práctica imposibilidad de acceder a la información digital debido a la obsolescencia del soporte físico, de los formatos y, en general, de los entornos informáticos que la soportan. En el ámbito de la información geográfi- ca y cartográfica, parece un deber inexcusable preservar los datos que han servido de base para la toma de decisiones y conseguir que éstos puedan ser utilizados en los sistemas de información del futuro. El artículo presenta los principales concep- tos relacionados con la preservación de dicho tipo de información.

The Longevity of Musical Works for Instruments and Electronic Music in the Digital Era

Until the mid-XXth century, classical music relied on a range of stable practices that guaranteed its survival : the written score ; the notion of interpretation ; lutherie instrument making ; oral (in particular) and written teaching traditions ; institutions (conservatories, ensembles, orchestras etc.). The advent of digital technology in musical creation from the 1970s onwards perturbed this landscape, forcing us to rethink these practices, particularly all those concerning the endurance of the new kinds of works that have emerged over the past thirty years – especially works for traditional and electronic instruments. Furthermore, the digital arts - though scarcely established - were soon in danger through the proliferation and fragility of digital standards and formats (cf. the “ Digital Dark Age” phenomenon). If contemporary music has the ambition to prolong the classical music tradition, it must find the techniques, modalities and practices to ensure its survival despite the instability of digital technology.

Geonetdigitizer: Open source code to digitalize information given in Wulff and Lambert nets

The article carries out the theoretical basis, the usefulness, and validation of the computational program geonetDigitizer (licensed as an open-source code as BSD-2) in order to apply as a toolbox for the programming language MATLAB©. The program geonetDigitizer was designed for the digitalization of plots expressed in the spherical projections Wulff and Lambert, which is of extensive use in structural geology and geomechanics. The reasons of presenting the program as an open code has the purpose to recover historical data presented in those projections, as also to recover old and modern information presented in that projections. All of these will reduce the possible phenomenon known as Digital Dark Age. To validate the code, it is presented here two examples, where real known values are compared with their corresponding values obtained by the process of digitizing. Finally, in the appendix is presented two application examples.

Data Curation Needed to Avoid a Digital Dark Age

An increasingly recognized need for digital cura­tion, or the active selection of digital files and taking steps toward preserving them, has been a natural evolution in an environment where vast amounts of intellectual and cultural content is born digital and may not be represented in tangible form. Desirée Butterfield-Nagy explores the measures that individuals and organizations need to take to ensure we avoid a Digital Dark Age.

A new Digital Dark Age? Collaborative web tools, social media and long-term preservation

This paper examines the impact of exciting new approaches to open data sharing, collaborative web tools and social media on the sustainability of archaeological data. The archiving, reuse and re-analysis of data is often considered intrinsic to archaeological practice, not least because of the destructive nature of excavation. The idea that the pace of adoption of new digital technologies can outstrip the development of the infrastructure required for sustainable access to its outputs, ultimately leading to the loss of data, is sometimes referred to as the ‘Digital Dark Age’ problem. While strenuous efforts have been made to address this issue, the recent rapid uptake of a new wave of tools to enhance access, promote wider dialogue and gather data has the potential to recreate this problem. This is particularly true because of the volatile technical, legal and commercial contexts in which much of this work takes place. This paper explores these problems, discusses potential changes in the nature of archaeological dialogue and information sharing, and posits solutions that might mitigate a second ‘Digital Dark Age’.

Too many photographs? Photography as user generated content

Las fotografías ahora saturan el mundo virtual de una forma que se puede comparar con la ubicuidad que adquirieron en el mundo moderno en los siglos XIX y XX. En el contexto de la Web 2.0, la fotografía se ha convertido en parte de una economía de la información. La fotografía popular e instantánea puede entenderse como un precursor de una de las principales características de la Web 2.0: el contenido generado por el usuario. La fotografía fue también el medio que inundó el mundo con imágenes a una escala sin precedentes y desde su creación desafió la capacidad de la sociedad de clasificar, ordenar y gestionar sus ingentes cantidades. Ahora, en su forma sobrealimentada digital y en red pueden convertirse en parte de un exceso, una inestabilidad y crisis de información; una Era Oscura Digital. Al adoptar esta perspectiva, se nos alerta de una historia olvidada en la que la distancia entre el ordenador y la cámara se reduce aun cuando vemos cómo la fotografía entra en nuevos contextos y nuevas relaciones entre la cámara, los cuerpos y las prácticas en evolución. A la luz de esto, planteo la cuestión de cómo debemos valorar la fotografía popular en la actualidad.

¿Demasiadas fotografías? La fotografía como contenido generado por el usuario

Photographs now saturate the virtual world in a way that bears comparison with the ubiquity they accrued in the actual world across the 19 th and 20 th centuries. In the context of Web. 2.0, photography has become part of an information economy. Popular and snapshot photography can be understood as a forerunner of one of the Web 2.0’s key characteristics: user generated content. Photography was also the medium that flooded the world with images on an unprecedented scale and from its inception challenged society’s ability to classify, order, and manage their vast numbers. Now, in their supercharged digital and networked form they may become part of a surfeit, an instability and crisis of information; a digital dark age. In taking such a perspective we are alerted to a neglected history in which the distance between the computer and the camera is reduced even as we see photography entering new contexts and new relations between camera, bodies and practices evolving. In the light of this, I raise the question of how are we to value popular photography now?

Avoiding a Digital Dark Age for data: why publishers should care about digital preservation

ABSTRACTThis paper provides an overview of the needs and threats for digital preservation and summarizes the findings from project PARSE.Insight. This project, co‐funded by the EU, contains one of the first large worldwide surveys about digital preservation including most players of the STM information chain: researchers, libraries, data managers, publishers, and research funders. One of the conclusions is that in the present data deluge, it is extremely important that all players in the information chain work together on proper digital preservation of all research output, to ensure its future usability, understandability, and authenticity. This poses a new role for publishers who can ensure better discoverability and citability via good linking and integration of data and publications.

Digital Conservation and Access: Saving Humanity's History in the Petabyte Age

We are at a unique point in history, the cusp of a Digital Dark Age, where cultural heritage professionals must work to care for the physical past while assuring that there will be a digital Rosetta Stone for future generations. This contribution describes the state-of-the-field in digital preservation and access, and is a call to action for individuals and institutions alike to work beyond our comfort zones and competitive boundaries in order to help define a sustainable digital future. Defined as an “hourglass of participation”, I describe a method where knowledge producers, curators and consumers interact and actively work to make content born-archival and long-term viable, semantically managed and ready for reuse and public dissemination

Preservation DataStores: New storage paradigm for preservation environments

As the world becomes digital, we are in ever greater danger of losing business, scientific, artistic, cultural, and personal assets. The threat of such a digital dark age stems from the fact that-- unlike physical records that may survive decades, centuries, or even longer without advanced planning--digital records will not survive without planning and diligence. Everything needed to keep digital records viable will become obsolete, including hardware, software, processes, and formats. Consequently, digital preservation environments are needed to ensure the ability to access valuable digital records decades from now and, more significantly, to ensure the interpretability of the records once accessed. We describe Preservation DataStores, an innovative storage architecture that facilitates robust and optimized preservation environments. It is a layered architecture that builds upon open standards, including Open Archival Information System, XAM (Extensible Access Method), and Object-based Storage Device. We also describe the integration of Preservation DataStores with existing file systems and archives and discuss some design and implementation issues. We are developing Preservation DataStores as an infrastructure component of the European Union CASPAR (Cultural, Artistic and Scientific knowledge for Preservation, Access and Retrieval) project, where it will be used to preserve scientific, cultural, and artistic data.

Challenges of Archiving Electronic Records: The Imminent Danger of a “Digital Dark Age”

Modern society is faced with the glaring possibility of a future ‘digital gap’ where the electronic records preserved from yester years could not be retrieved due to a number of technical and policy factors. Chances are that there will not even be any paper surrogates for those electronic records as the practice has lately been the substitution of paper records with electronic ones without due consideration of the longevity of the latter. Computer users who normally look at the current use of electronic records without necessarily considering the preservation issues that need to be considered if these records are to be available for future use have accelerated this practice. This paper looks at the challenges that are likely to face the archivists in their endeavour to preserve electronically generated records. It also suggests issues that the archivist may consider in the preservation of these records. Archivists around the world have been giving warnings that computer files may survive long but the equipment to make sense of them may not. This era could become a “digital dark age” - a part of its collective memories forever lost. ESARBICA Journal Vol.23 2004: 82-92