WEBINARS
Preserve This offers free webinars on current topics related to the library/archives/museum field. Webinars are 60-minutes in length: 45 minute presentation and 15 minute Q and A session at the end.
Webinars are recorded and all registrants will receive a link giving them the opportunity to watch the recording.
UPCOMING WEBINARS
High Fidelity Web Archiving with Browsertrix
DATE: Wednesday Mar 19, 2025 at 3pm ET/ 2pm CT/ 12 pm PT
PRESENTER: Camille Lawrence
REGISTRATION LINK: Register Here
DESCRIPTION:
Nearly 30 years since the web's inception, archiving the web remains a challenge for many institutions and organizations. The Webrecorder team has been building web archiving tools to archive modern websites for over 10 years, culminating in Browsertrix, our latest offering. In this hands-on webinar, users will be able to explore the power of high-fidelity web archiving with Browsertrix, capturing content behind paywalls, archiving social media and replaying your archived items. Attendees will gain insight into how Browsertrix supports workflows, enhances collections, and aids in preservation, making web archiving more accessible and effective for organizations of all sizes!
Attendees will also be able to leave with their own web archives that they can download and take with them, if they choose.
WEBINAR AGENDA:
- Being aware of web archiving challenges
- Learning web archiving workflows
- How to archive social media
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Understanding quality assurance in web archiving
PAST WEBINARS
Low and No Budget Web Archiving
DATE: Monday, Dec 2, 2024 at 1 pm ET/ 12 pm CT/ 10am PT
PRESENTER: Leah Constantine
DESCRIPTION:
In today’s digital world, web archiving is essential for preserving online content that may otherwise be lost over time. However, many institutions and organizations face budget constraints that make large-scale, high-cost archiving solutions impractical. This webinar will explore cost-effective and low-budget strategies for web archiving, equipping participants with the tools, resources, and techniques needed to start or improve their web archiving practices without breaking the bank. Whether you are working in a small library, museum, educational institution, or nonprofit, this session will provide actionable insights and resources to help you preserve valuable online content affordably and sustainably.
WEBINAR AGENDA:
- Understanding Web Archiving and Its Importance
- Free and Open-Source Tools for Web Archiving
-
Strategies for Low-Cost Web Archiving
A Quick Guide to Creating or Updating A Collection Management Policy
DATE: Wednesday, March 6, 2024 at 2pm ET/ 1pm CT/ 11am PT
PRESENTER: Andrea Squeri
DESCRIPTION:
A Collections Management Policy is one of the five core documents listed by the American Alliance of Museums that cultural institutions utilize to ensure they are holding to the highest legal, ethical, and profession standards they are expected to maintain as public entities. Cultural institutions’ collections are held in trust for the public and are made accessible for the public’s benefit. The Collections Management Policy outlines the scope of a collection, explains how the collection will be cared for and how they will be made available to the public. It also clearly defines the roles of the parties responsible for managing the collections.
WEBINAR AGENDA:
This webinar will focus on creating and/or updating a cultural institution’s Collection Management Policy. We will examine the purpose and function of this policy, including how collections are acquired, managed, maintained, used, and deaccessioned.
Participants will learn the purpose and function of a Collection Management Policy, including how it guides collection care, growth, and access.
Triage and Your Tape Collection
DATE: Wednesday, June 28, 2023 at 2:00 PM CT
PRESENTER: Paul Grippaldi
WEBINAR AGENDA:
- A brief history of magnetic tape.
- Learn the difference between oxide-based and evaporated metal-based tapes and why that is important.
- Digitizing your tapes in order of urgency
- When and when not to "bake" a tape before digitizing
-
The quality difference that playback machinery makes
Audiovisual Media Preservation: The Smithsonian and Beyond
DATE: Wednesday June 21, 2023 at 2pm CT
PRESENTER: Siobhan Hagan
DESCRIPTION:
The Smithsonian Libraries and Archives’ (SLA) Audiovisual Media Preservation Initiative (AVMPI) is a centralized resource that supports the overall need for individual Smithsonian Institution (SI) units to catalog, preserve, and provide access to their audio, video, and film collections. At the current rate of preservation, the Smithsonian is facing an estimated loss of 190,000 audiovisual assets by 2034. To help stem the tide of irreparable loss, generous funding from the National Collections Program is enabling AVMPI to build out internal preservation transfer capacity, as well as to send out the most at-risk items to external preservation vendors. There will be several AVMPI transfer suites built across SI units, with specialists hired to stabilize, describe, and transfer the Institution’s audiovisual collections. In this presentation, the AVMPI Coordinator will discuss how AVMPI developed the facilities and workflows for these transfer stations, along with AVMPI plans to become an audiovisual preservation educational and research resource for those outside of and beyond the Smithsonian.
WEBINAR AGENDA:
Participants will learn about the best practices and standards for audiovisual media preservation and see it applied practically at the world's largest museum, education, and research complex. Attendees will also learn about the history of the Smithsonian Institution's audiovisual collections across the organization's 22 units, along with collections' preservation and access.
An Evaluation of a Rare Book Special Collection: Preparation for a Large-Scale Renovation Project
DATE: Tuesday, June 13, 2023 at 2:00 pm CT
PRESENTERS: Alex (Elisandro) Cabada, Leah DiCiesare
DESCRIPTION:
The Mathematics Library at the University of Illinois conducted an evaluation of its rare book holdings in preparation for a large-scale renovation project of its stacks facilities. This evaluation was also part of a larger project for the preservation of the collection to help stabilize and ensure the longevity of rare print items.
We will share our preliminary findings for the specific condition concerns of the print volumes, what environmental factors may have contributed to those issues, and what criteria was utilized to determine next steps for those items and finally how the overall evaluation was formulated.
WEBINAR AGENDA:
When universities began to close departmental libraries as scholarship was increasingly borne-digital and budgets were under strain soon after the 2008 financial crisis, the primary focus was on expediency. This limited the opportunity to collect sufficient data to evaluate and document the process in an effort to provide a case study for peers to employ at their institutions. While we are very much in the digital age of scholarship, there is still an emphasis on print collections, particularly for the humanities, arts, and for mathematics. Even without the pressure to reduce print stacks, it is our hope that participants will understand the benefit of evaluating their physical collections to determine how it is special and distinctive, as well as what a process would look like and what partnerships and steps might be necessary.
Inequality in Digitization: Pursuing Diversity in Digital Archives
DATE: February 17, 2022 at 1:00 PM CT
PRESENTER: Katie Dold
DESCRIPTION:
Digitizing records provides greater public access to archival materials; however, this access is not always equal. Despite best efforts, digital archives are still impacted by the outdated, exclusionary, or narrow viewpoints, effectively marginalizing the stories of other cultures and minorities. This exclusion is often not intentional, but awareness of this issue will help reshape digitization policies and practices.
WEBINAR AGENDA:
This webinar will discuss the societal and ethical implications of digitizing material, where archives are experiencing barriers to digital diversity, and how digital archives are working to be inclusive spaces. Emphasis will be on how archives are curating inclusive spaces and fighting for diversity in their digitization efforts- and how this all begins with cultural awareness.
5 Easy Ways to Advocate for Your Archive
DATE: November 10, 2021 at 1:00 PM CT
PRESENTER: Samantha Lawrence
DESCRIPTION: Archives can use advocacy to strengthen operations, develop resources, and build a community of supporters. In this webinar, you will learn why advocacy is essential for all archives and practical ways to begin advocating for your archive.
WEBINAR AGENDA:
- What archival advocacy is
- Why advocacy is essential for archives and archivists
- Practical ways to advocate for your archive, including:
1. Identifying internal advocates
2. Crafting an elevator speech for your archives
3. Engaging and informing users of the archives
4. Using media to promote archival activities
5. Strategically displaying archival material
Prioritizing Accessibility to Digital Collections
DATE: October 20, 2021 at 1:00 PM CT
PRESENTER: Eric Silberberg
DESCRIPTION: While digital collections can greatly expand accessibility for libraries and archives, they also create a different set of barriers. This webinar will identify the key laws that govern accessibility to digital collections and how libraries and archives can apply those laws to serve the needs of all researchers.
WEBINAR AGENDA:
- Rights and accommodations for people with disabilities.
- Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.
- Case studies of how libraries and archives can ensure accessibility to digital collections.