Giorgia Aiello and Tom Dobrowoky introduced us to urbanarchives.org a collection of media that captures the images, texts, and general experiences of public spaces in urban areas. Urban Archives houses a number of such student projects: a historical look at Aurora Avenue, an overnight report on Sunset Bowl, and an ethnography of two city bus lines (the 271 and the 7).
Our presenters shared the pedagogical utility of Urban Archives. By having (Communications?) students choose their own projects to contribute to the archive, the instructors showed them how to recognize their own interests as valid areas of academic inquiry. A student’s general interest in graffiti or a city district (e.g. the International District), under the coaching of the instructors, could be transformed into a valuable contribution to the Archive. Students discovered the resources that they had (finding insiders, etc…) and practice difficult tasks such as learning to write photo annotations that fit a descriptive genre. Photography for archival purposes, as another example, requires a particular mindset that is deliberate and reflexive. The photographer ought to be aware of context, a perspective that should be reflected in both the photos taken and the notes taken to accompany that photo.
The Urban Archive also acts as a bridge to the community. Giorgia and Tom relate how the community has often reconnected with the project: newspapers have reported on the site and artists of the archived works have contacted them (some with corrections to the annotations).
From an archival perspective, the project leaders, as editors, spoke of the future home for the Urban Archives: they want to contribute this to the larger University Library (I think). Quality of the photographs is another issue: the editors standards for a photograph require particular a particular resolution; this causes technical restrictions, for example, cellphone photography does not meet those standards. Meta-data and (quality) annotation is the major necessity that limits what materials enter the archive.
