ctda: brief introduction

The Connecticut Digital ArchiveServing Connecticut’s cultural heritage community since 2013

September, 2016

Greg Colati, AUL for Archives, Special Collections, and Digital CurationJennifer Eustis, CTDA Content Administrator

Cyberinfrastructure and the Human Record“Digital cultural heritage resources are a fundamental dataset for the humanities…… combined with computer networks and software tools, [they] now shape the way that scholars [and all interested people] discover and make sense of the human record… … [and] the way their findings are communicated to students, colleagues, and the general public.”

"The Report of the American Council of Learned Societies Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences." American Council of Learned Societies (2006)

The Dilemma of Modern Preservation

2016 2???

?

How do we insure that resources that support inquiry and research that exist in digital form today, will reliably exist and be discoverable in the future?

CTDAA state-wide program of the University of Connecticut Library that preserves, manages, and makes available permanently valuable cultural data and other records produced and collected by non-profit educational, cultural, and memory institutions based in Connecticut

CTDA Development• Phase I: Infrastructure

Building (2011- )• Phase II: Collection Building

(2013- )• Phase III: Connection

Building (2016- )

The CTDA in 2013• One institution: University of

Connecticut, Special Collections and Archives

• One collection: Thomas J. Dodd Nuremberg trial papers

• Approx. 20,000 digital objects: text documents of the Nuremberg trial team

• One presentation layer: archives.lib.uconn.edu

The CTDA in 2016• 40+ Institutions: Libraries,

Archives, Museums, Historical Societies, Higher Ed, K-12 Education, State Agencies.

• Hundreds of collections in a broad spectrum of subjects from Algae to Zulus

• More than 300,000 digital objects: texts, images, video, audio, data sets, and more …

• Multiple presentation outlets: 5 web sites, indexing in aggregators: ResearchIT (formerly iConn), DPLA (soon), links in connecticuthistory.org, and more

Zulu Circus Poster, Bridgeport History Center

Benthic Marine Algae HerbariumUConn

New LondonSearch for "New London"• 4,000 results• 6 different formats• 17 different institutions

Thames• 373 results• 5 formats• 9 institutions• 20+ place names• 20+ topics

Ft. Griswold• 45 results• 2 formats• 7 institutions

Hempstead HouseConnecticut Historical Society

Fort Trumbull•Landscape paintings, Lyman Allyn Museum

•Oral history transcripts from UConn

•Hurricane damage, 1938, CT State Archives

Submarines•Documents, Robert Simmons Papers, UConn

•Submarine Construction, Groton, 1958, Hartford Public Library

High Society• Broadside, CHS

• Thames Club house, 1890, Mystic Seaport

• NYNH&H Railroad Steam Car, UConn

A self-propelled rail car

Smoke talk: a social meeting accompanied by smoking (OED)

Famous Families•Nathaniel Shaw Correspondence, Connecticut Historical Society

•Shaw-Perkins Mansion, Mystic Seaport

CTDA Development• Phase I: Infrastructure

Building (2011- )• Phase II: Collection Building

(2013- )• Phase III: Connection

Building (2016- )

Thank you!Greg ColatiUniversity of Connecticut Librarygreg@uconn.edu

Jennifer EustisUniversity of Connecticut Libraryjennifer.eustis@uconn.edu

http://collections.ctdigitalarchive.org