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

人类学家创造的数据是有价值的，独特的，不可替代的。它们经常记录复杂的人类生活方式，语言和文化社区，其详细程度远远超过出版形式。现场笔记本，信件，照片，录音和电影记录，以及其他文件包含研究人员利用数据来发表新的想法，促进我们对人类生活的理解，过去和现在，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NSF资助的研究表明，这些未发表的档案材料通常既没有数字化，也无法通过网络搜索找到。该研究项目以这些发现为基础，开发和测试归档各种格式原始数据的最佳实践。该项目具有直接的应用影响，建立研究人员和档案机构之间的伙伴关系，提高跨学科和合作的方法来培养研究生，并加强人类学的研究基础设施。对于广大公众，该项目使人类学档案可作为主要来源，为K-12教师和学生，系谱学家，艺术家等服务。它培养研究生和本科生。拟议的研究调查了以下问题：1）什么障碍阻止主要源数据随着时间的推移而可重复使用？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？研究人员进行焦点小组讨论，以了解人类学档案信息基础设施的当前动态和未来最佳实践，评估新开放获取平台中的测试集，为人类学家和数据管理员开发两个培训模块，并举办虚拟研讨会。该项目有助于围绕各种格式的原始数据共享的方法以及与之相关的好处和限制的重要辩论。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

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 Despite their importance within and beyond anthropology, recent NSF-funded research has shown these unpublished archival materials are often neither digitized nor findable via web searching.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.