Archiving an Early Web-Based Journal: Addressing Issues of Workflow, Authenticity, and Bibliodiversity

Abstract

SWITCH is a journal of new media art that has been published in an online-only format since 1995 by the CADRE Laboratory for New Media at San José State University (SJSU). The journal is distinctive in its commitment to presenting scholarship and criticism on new media art in a visual format that reflects and enhances its engagement with the subject. This approach, which includes the practice of redesigning the journal’s platform and visual presentation for each issue, raises significant challenges for the long-term preservation of the journal, as well as immediate issues related to indexing and discovery. This article describes the initial stages of a collaboration between the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library and the CADRE Laboratory at SJSU to archive and index SWITCH and to host a copy of the journal on SJSU’s institutional repository, SJSU ScholarWorks. It will describe the process of harvesting the journal, share scripts used to extract metadata and modify files to address accessibility and encoding issues, and discuss an ongoing curricular project that engages CADRE students in the process of augmenting metadata for SWITCH articles. The process reflects the challenges of creating an authentic version of this journal that is also discoverable and citable within the broader scholarly communication environment. This effort is part of a growing multi-institutional project to archive the new media art community in the Bay Area in a 3D web exhibition format.