Hi Dennis, Roger--

On Jun 17, 2013, at 11:38 AM, Dennis Moser <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> librarians have, in fact, been trying to get beyond the idea that metadata is simply about "pages and spines." :) .... we are not your great grandfather's librarians.

Sorry if I didn't give librarians enough credit, as you're way ahead of most art documentarians. I understand that the leading libraries have gone beyond the first step of just capturing the files to the second step of capturing relationships.

My beef with almost every metadata standard today is that they don't continue to step three, namely documenting what to do when those relationships fail. And we damn well know they will.

> I was deeply appreciative of the Archivists Roundtable of Metropolitan New York and the symposium (2011) that addressed the issues surrounding artists' records in archival collections

I'd love to hear more. Are there any, er, records of this conversation?

On Jun 17, 2013, at 7:00 AM, roger malina <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> born digital art historians at the Leonardo Symposium on Arts, Humanities and Complex networks-
> http://ahcncompanion.info/

Shoulda remembered this, as I participated in it. Wetware failure :P

> i think we are seing the typical generational transition in institutions with
> the problem that unstable media may decay before the generational
> replacement !

Ha!

If only we could bottle those unstable media in time capsules to be opened by our grandchildren. But now that both artifacts and containers are digital, it's as though we've built solander boxes to hold flowers that are as fragile as the specimens they are meant to protect.

> DMA just launched a Museum Technology Program
> http://dallasmuseumofart.org/PressRoom/dma_485423

Looks like a good crew assembled for this project.

jon