21st century media pose challenges to preserving the historical record. Collecting institutions need guidance and new strategies in order to save selective cellphone video, GPS data, and video from surveillance cameras, drones, and police bodycams. In this Talk, Howard Besser will discuss how saving this type of material poses procedural, policy, and privacy issues. And he will demonstrate the ongoing tension between preservation and privacy. The presentation will include a case-study of preserving cellphone videos from the Occupy Movement, and a close look at police body cam videos.
Howard Besser is Professor Emeritus at New York University where he founded the MA program in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation. He has over 30 years of experience as an Information Studies educator, and has published scores of articles and conducted scores of workshops. In 2009 he was named to Library of Congress's select list of "Pioneers of Digital Preservation". He has taught courses in digital preservation and in surveillance video. He designed the “Policy” course for the Society of American Archivists Digital Archives Specialist Certificate Program. Besser is co-founder of the Library Freedom Institute, a nationwide project to train “Privacy Advocates” to teach digital privacy skills and advocate for enlightened privacy policies.
Sharon Strover is the Philip G. Warner Regents Professor in Communication and former Chair of the Radio-TV-Film Department at the University of Texas, where she teaches communications and telecommunications courses and co-directs the Technology and Information Policy Institute. Some of her current research projects examine local and statewide networks and broadband services; the digital divide; rural broadband deployment; telecommunications infrastructure deployment and economic development in rural regions; and Artificial Intelligence issues including social media-based disinformation as well as publicly-deployed technologies. Her most recent publications examine disinformation strategies associated with Russian Facebook ads; local broadband deployment strategies around the world; and the role of broadband in rural regions. Her current undergraduate and graduate teaching addresses communication law and policy, the relationship between technology and culture, and the ethics of artificial intelligence. She has had visiting appointments at several universities around the world including the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Westminster University, Stockholm University, the New University of Lisbon, Aarhus University, among others. Her research has been supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service, the U.S. Federal Communication Commission, the government of Portugal, the Center for Rural Strategies, the European Union, The Appalachian Regional Commission, several State of Texas Commissions and departments, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, Facebook, Google and others.
