Conference Agenda

“The future is already here, it's just not very equally distributed, yet” - William Gibson
In this session you will learn about a growing community of practice of independent yet interconnected projects whose work converges as an intervention to critically engage the practice of web archiving to be more inclusive in terms of what gets web archived and who gets to build web archives. These projects reimagine a future for web archiving that distributes the practice and diversifies the collections.

Presentation 1- Archiving The Black Web

Author/Presenter: Makiba Foster, The College of Wooster and Bergis Jules, Archiving the Black Web

Abstract: Unactualized web archiving opportunities for Black knowledge collecting institutions interested in documenting web-based Black history and culture has reached critical levels due to the expansive growth of content produced about the Black experience by Black digital creators. Archiving The Black Web (ATBW), works to establish more equitable, accessible, and inclusive web archiving practices to diversify not only collection practices but also its practitioners. Founded in 2019, ATBW's creators will discuss the collaborative catalyst for the creation and launch of this important DEI initiative within web archiving. In this panel session, attendees will learn more about ATBW’s mission to address web archiving disparities. ATBW envisions a future that includes cultivating a community of practice for Black collecting institutions, developing training opportunities to diversify the practice of web archiving, and expanding the scope of web archives to include culturally relevant web content.

Presentation 2 - Schomburg Syllabus

Author/Presenter: Zakiya Collier, Shift Collective

Abstract: From 2017-2019 the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture participated in the Internet Archive’s Community Webs program, becoming the first Black collecting institution to create a web archiving program centering web-based Black history and culture. Recognizing that content in crowdsourced hashtag syllabi could be lost to the ephemerality of the Web, the #HashtagSyllabusMovement collection was created to archive online educational material related to publicly produced, crowdsourced content highlighting race, police violence, and other social justice issues within the Black community. Both the first of its kind in focus and within The New York Public Library system, the Schomburg Center’s web archiving program faced challenges including but not limited to identifying ways to introduce the concept of web archiving to Schomburg Center researchers and community members, demonstrating the necessity of a web supported web archiving program to Library administration, and expressing the urgency needed in centering Black content on the web that may be especially ephemeral like those associated with struggles for social justice. It was necessary for the Schomburg Center to not only continue their web archiving efforts with the #Syllabus and other web archive collections, but also develop strategies to invoke the same sense of urgency and value for Black web archive collections that we now see demonstrated in the collection of analog records documenting Black history, culture and activism— especially as social justice organizing efforts increasingly have online components.

As a result, the #SchomburgSyllabus project was developed to merge web-archives and analog resources from the Schomburg Center in celebration of Black people's longstanding self-organized educational efforts. #SchomburgSyllabus uniquely organizes primary and secondary sources into a 27-themed web-based resource guide that can be used for classroom curriculum, collective study, self-directed education, and social media and internet research. Tethering web-archived resources to the Schomburg Center’s world-renowned physical collections Black diasporic history has proven key in garnering support for the Schomburg’s web archiving program and enthusiasm for the preservation of the Black web as demonstrated by the #SchomburgSyllabus’ use in classrooms, inclusion in journal articles, and features in cultural/educational TV programs.