Vision Meeting about the On-Line Archive

This week, the staff of the Shambhala Archives met to discuss the upcoming
meeting, or mini-conference, Monday, November 13th, to envision an on-line
component to the Shambhala Archives. In addition to the Archives staff (Ben
Moore, Departmental Director; Gordon Kidd, Technical Director; Chris Levy,
ARP Technician; and Sandra Kipis, Archives Assistant) we were joined by
Lynn Friedman, a long time programmer, now a Systems Engineer and Manager
who is directing the Feasibility Study of the project; and Amanda Housman,
Young Canada Works student who is assisting with the feasibility study.
Lynn is graciously volunteering her time to head up the study, adding to an
already demanding day job as the managing director of a large project in
Halifax.
We talked about people's expectations, their concerns, the menu for lunch,
and how to make the most of the limited time we will all have together.
Alan Schwartz is coming all the way from California to discuss his vision
and view of implementation for this project. He has an extensive background
in working with systems development and implementation. We will also be
joined by several self-described computer geeks, who have a lifetime of
experience in the computer and online worlds. (I don't have the lingo down,
but just wait until after the meeting and I'll use some impressive cyber
vocabulary on the blog.) Our guests on Monday include Mark Szpakowski, John
Gorman, Howard Harawitz, Martin Janowitz, Larry Mermelstein, and Joanne and
Walter Fordham. It will be quite a full house. Several of those attending
have related projects that would interface with the online Archives. We
also hope that Helen Bonzi, who heads up the Great Transcription Project,
may be joining in.
The day will begin with a tour of the Archives collections and work room.
The Archives currently has a project to digitize more than 2,000 lectures
and other audio "events" recorded by Chogyam Trungpa. Digital libraries of
this material are going to 30 centers both within the Shambhala mandala and
several closely connected groups. Each group is offering financial
assistance to the project. In addition to making material available, the
libraries will become mini-archives in their own right. If we think in
terms of centuries rather than decades, having copies of archival material
in different locations is an important archival strategy. It is a little
bit like creating time capsules all around the world. The ARP digital
libraries will in fact be located on 4 continents.
Next week: a report from the On-Line conference.