On Sunday, T.A.P.E.'s Collections Working group organized a collective cataloging day in an effort to bring together the catalogs that T.A.P.E. volunteers have been working on for the past year. So on Sunday we compiled separtate catalogs into a giant spreadsheet, labeled each tape with a barcode, and affixed a status label so we'd be able to track the status of our work.
In two short hours, we affixed barcodes, transcribed existing barcode numbers, and affixed status stickers for 218 tapes.
Earlier this month, the T.A.P.E. Collections Working Group met to establish a plan. One of the biggest needs we identified was to organize a collective day to get tapes in our collection barcoded & ready for access. Internally, we have spreadsheets with rich metadata about our collection, and we needed to refine and combine them into something that we can easily import into our circulation library interface, Tiny Cat. The goal is for our collection to be of great artistic and entertainment use, and to extend access to rare and important material on VHS through physical and digital circulation. We have an archive in use, a collection in motion.
The first step in our collections access project was combining all of the disparate spreadsheets into one unified page. Done by T.A.P.E. volunteer and Collections lead Russell, the unified spreadsheet is a springboard for concatenating all of our collections. The reason we have separate spreadsheets is because the provenance (origin) of the tapes is different - some come from the Echo Park Film Center, the Iota Center via the Museum of Jurassic Technology, others from private collectors such as Viva Video (major video distributor in the Philippines) or even fished from the trash!
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| Summary powerpoint ft. cats by Franny, review of cataloging efforts led by Franny and Alohie |
The next step was to assign each tape a unique identifier (UID), *usually* a string of numbers that corresponds directly to a singular physical or digital item. If you have two VHS copies of Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), one would have a UID of 00012, while the other may have been brought into the collection later and is 00300. The UID helps us distinguish between the two copies that may be similar or even identical. A UID also assists in digitization, as we can understand the intellectual link between a physical VHS tape and its digital file in the form of an MKV preservation file or an MP4 access copy. Lastly, as we gear up to rent the physical tapes in our collection, we will use the UID as a tracking system for checking items out and returning them.
Our UIDs come as a barcode from TinyCat, our library system. A barcode is a UPC (Universal Product Code) that turns numbers into a scannable symbol. That way, we can read the UID with our eyes, but it can also be read by our extremely adorable cat-shaped barcode scanner, providing multiple modes of access into the catalog. Barcodes are not infallible - because they are on paper, the barcode is subject to damage, so multiple checks of barcodes and cataloging is critical. In fact, there are profound parallels between digital videotape (like MiniDV) and barcodes as they are both digital information encoded on physical mediums vulnerable to damage and decay.
In the collections committee, we wanted to make the collective cataloging process easier and more accessible to new volunteers. A large part of that was creating a physical label that would indicate the status of the individual tape - whether it had been cataloged, digitized, its digital record imported into TinyCat, or if the tape was good for circulation. Collections Committee Admin Lee created stickers which allow us to easily visually identify the status of each tape. The new sticker allows for greater unity in our cataloging work across many people and long periods of time.
We also performed metadata cleanup. For tapes not cataloged, we quickly added them to the spreadsheet. Using Open Refine, we identified duplicate entries in our cataloging to remedy errors. We will continue this work of metadata clean up so ensure the best and most consistent records for internal and circulation use!
Past volunteers have diligently worked to catalog tapes in the T.A.P.E. Collection for the past eight months. This has included manually transcribing the written descriptions on the tape and its case, which often includes rich descriptive text. Much of this work we've done in other languages, including Russian, German, Spanish, Tagalog, and more. Volunteers have also identified the format, brand, and recording mode - technical metadata that is critical for digitization. And we have also initiated a robust collections assessment to identify items in our collection that are neither circulating on physical media nor online. For tapes that are highly rare, we are beginning a process of duplication, so a non-circulating preservation tape can live with T.A.P.E., and patrons can still watch the content on a physical or digital access copy. We have also begun a process of de-accessioning, a term that means taking things that do not apply to our collection scope out of our collection. We've de-accessioned tapes for content that is freely available online to make room for future collections in urgent need of preservation. This collective effort has occurred at desk shifts at T.A.P.E. through the passion, knowledge, and skill of dozens and dozens of T.A.P.E. volunteers.
Collective cataloging days are a remarkable process that we aim to continue. It allows us to create and refine our standards collectively, in conversation with each other. We also get to prevent the problems associated with backlogs, particularly loss of institutional memory about the collections. Our first cataloging day in March, 2024 allowed us to get a massive jump start on cataloging hundreds of tapes in our collection.
The idea is a springboard from Sydney Kysar, whose work with collective cataloging has served as an empowering model. Syd organized a collective cataloging day with the Bob Baker Marionette Theater where they also volunteer, and led the cataloging of 500 books in their library in one day. Further, they've organized collective cataloging days with Access Books, who collaborate with school librarians to vital services that enliven school libraries, including refreshed book donations and murals (Syd is the lead mural program coordinator). After learning that school librarians work for 2-3 years to catalog their entire library, Syd organized collective cataloging days where volunteers cataloged those same books in 2-3 days. It's radical work and we are delighted to have Syd contributing to our efforts!
Our next steps in our project include
- Drafting a collection policy on what we do & do not collection
- Writing a collection overview document which outlines the source of our collection
- Creating genre labels for easier identification for library circulation
- Performing a digital audit of our hard drives
- Uploading catalog records to TinyCat
- Creating a preservation plan & catalog for T.A.P.E. produced items
- Improving workflows & documentation
