Building a sustainable future for anthropology's archives: Researching primary source data lifecycles, infrastructures, and reuse

人类学家创造出有价值的、独特的、不可替代的数据。它们经常记录复杂的人类生活、语言和文化社区，比以往任何时候出版的形式都要详细得多。实地笔记、信件、照片、声音和电影记录以及其他文件包含研究人员利用的数据，以发表新思想，增进我们对人类生活过去和现在的了解，并有助于文化振兴和反思。尽管它们在人类学内外都很重要，但最近由美国国家科学基金会资助的研究表明，这些未出版的档案材料往往既不数字化，也不能通过网络搜索找到。该研究项目建立在这些发现的基础上，以开发和测试各种格式的原始数据归档的最佳实践。该项目具有直接的应用意义，在研究人员和档案机构之间建立伙伴关系，改进跨学科和协作的研究生培训方法，并加强人类学的研究基础设施。对于广大公众，该项目将人类学档案作为主要来源，为K-12教师和学生、系谱学家、艺术家等提供服务。它培养研究生和本科生。这项拟议的研究调查了以下问题：1)什么障碍阻止了原始来源数据随着时间的推移而被重复使用？2)人类学和相关领域如何可持续地适应新兴的关联数据基础设施，以支持广泛获取文化研究数据？研究人员开展焦点小组讨论，以了解人类学档案信息基础设施的当前活动和未来最佳做法，评估新的开放获取平台上的测试收集，为人类学家和数据馆长开发两个培训模块，并主办一个虚拟研讨会。该项目有助于围绕通过各种格式共享原始数据的方法以及与之相关的好处和限制进行重要辩论。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Anthropologists create data that are valuable, unique, and irreplaceable. They often document complex human lifeways, languages, and cultural communities in far greater detail than ever becomes available in a published form. Field notebooks, letters, photographs, sound and film recordings, and other documentation contain the data researchers draw on to publish new ideas, advance our understanding of human life, past and present, and contribute to cultural revitalization and reflection. Despite their importance within and beyond anthropology, recent NSF-funded research has shown these unpublished archival materials are often neither digitized nor findable via web searching. This research project builds on these findings to develop and test best practices for archiving original data across a range of formats. The project has immediate applied implications, builds partnerships between researchers and archival institutions, improves interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches to graduate training, and enhances anthropology’s research infrastructure. For the broad public, this project makes anthropological archives available as primary sources to serve K-12 teachers and students, genealogists, artists, and more. It trains graduate and undergraduate students. The proposed research investigates the following questions: 1) What barriers prevent primary source data from being reusable over time? 2) How can anthropology and related fields sustainably adapt emergent linked data infrastructures in support of broad access to cultural research data? The investigators conduct focus group discussions to understand current movements and future best practices for anthropology’s archival information infrastructure, evaluate test collections in new open access platforms, develop two training modules for anthropologists and data curators, and host a virtual symposium. The project contributes to important debates surrounding the methods by which and the benefits and limitations associated with the sharing of raw data across a variety of formats.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.