Sustaining MedArt: Assessing the Persistence and Longevity of a Pioneering DH Project

Langmead, Alison; Quigley, Aisling

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/73731 Copy

Description

Title

Sustaining MedArt: Assessing the Persistence and Longevity of a Pioneering DH Project

Author(s)

• Langmead, Alison
• Quigley, Aisling

Issue Date

2015-03-15

Keyword(s)

• digital humanities
• knowledge management
• sustainable computing

Abstract

This study takes contemporary user analysis of historical digital objects as a central component of a responsible digital preservation strategy. The direct object of inquiry is a scholarly website, “Images of Medieval Art and Architecture” (http://www.medart.pitt.edu), created in 1995 at the very dawn of the World Wide Web. This site continues to serve a global community of scholars who investigate the art and architecture of Western Europe between the eighth and fourteenth centuries, and has become the de facto reference standard for study images for this period. Although the web presence has benefitted from some minor updates, the digital object has remained more or less untouched for the past two decades, a period of drastic change in the surrounding digital environment. Using a usability analysis survey that examines the intellectual, aesthetic, and technical elements of this important digital humanities project, this early-stage study reveals the ways in which contemporary functional and aesthetic interactions can identify important preservation criteria that need to be addressed when designing long-term preservation strategies.

Publisher

iSchools

Series/Report Name or Number

iConference 2015 Proceedings

Type of Resource

text

Language

English

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/73731

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Copyright 2015 is held by the authors. Copyright permissions, when appropriate, must be obtained directly from the authors.

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