As part of Endangered Data Week, the Brooklyn Collection will host a panel discussion on the topic of Saving Local News on the Web. Brooklyn Public Library’s Archivist Diana Bowers-Smith will lead the discussion, and panelists will include Brownstoner’s Cate Corcoran and John Del Signore, former Editor-in-Chief of Gothamist.
The Brooklyn Collection, Brooklyn Public Library’s local history division, has been awarded a place in the Internet Archive’s Community Webs program, a grant-funded initiative to help public libraries start or expand their web archiving activities. Through this initiative, the Brooklyn Collection is starting an archive of local Brooklyn web content. Local news is a focus of this effort.
As the keepers of the records of the original Brooklyn Daily Eagle, as well as materials from many other local news sources, the Brooklyn Collection is experienced at preserving these resources in various analog formats. Born-digital news content, however, is a new frontier for Brooklyn Public Library and many other institutions, and such content is also in far more imminent danger of being lost, as was made painfully clear with the recent demise of Gothamist and DNA Info.
Through the lens of the panelists’ personal experiences in this arena, this panel will address the challenges of and strategies for preserving these rich sources of local information and history.
Contact: Diana Bowers-Smith