Category: Museum Studies

Accessible Zines

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January 16, 2020

9:08 pm

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Art, Coding and Programming, English Composition, History, Library and Information Studies, Museum Studies

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A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published unique work of minority interest, usually reproduced via photocopier. – University of Texas at Austin Library

Although zines defy definitive categorization, certain elements set zines apart from other printed publications. Zines tend to be handmade paper publications with small print runs, are sold at or slightly above cost, and are intentionally nonprofessional. Authors write, edit,and publish the material themselves, which makes the material unique and personal to the author. This also means zines are complicated ephemeral materials for library collections—their authors are often hard to track down, issues come out irregularly, they often contain no bibliographic information, and they come in various paper sizes. Almost nothing about zines makes them easy for librarians to codify, yet dedicated zine collections are on the rise in libraries and archives across the United States.

Hays, A. (2018). Zine Authors’ Attitudes about Inclusion in Public and Academic Library Collections: A Survey-Based Study. LibraryQuarterly, 88(1), 60–78. https://doi.org/10.1086/694869

Zines are a popular DIY print format, but mainly only visually accessible. The Nashville Feminist Collective’s Zine Accessibility Workshop project draws on the methods of multi-modal critical design, collective image description, and collective access to reorient the zine genre (and in some cases, to reinvent it). 

Here is the workshop handout on how to transcribe and convert zine’s into different formats to broaden their accessibility.

Projects example: Esoteric Zine (December 3, 2016)

Building the African American Civil War Soldiers Database

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January 3, 2020

8:29 pm

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English Composition, History, Learning Objects, Library and Information Studies, Museum Studies, Statistics

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The African American Civil War Soldiers is a Zooniverse is a crowd-sourcing transcription project. It is a collaboration between historians, social scientists and the African American Civil War Museum.

The stated goals of the project are to “improve our knowledge of the African Americans who fought for freedom in the American Civil War, to provide descendants of the soldiers with access to information on their ancestors, and to present students of history with primary documents from a pivotal moment in African American history.” To create this database they are using the platform Zooniverse to gather information on an estimated 200,000 soldiers who formed the United States Colored Troops (USCT). The completed database will be placed on African American Civil War Museum website, allowing teachers and students to explore African American history, present them with interactive maps and a searchable database of all the soldiers. The database will help users to identify ancestors who fought in the Civil War.

While not one of their stated goals, by transcribing the scanned, pdf non-accessible images of their records, users are creating accessible documents which can be accessed using assistive technology and by people with disabilities.

Describe It! Alt-text assignment

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January 1, 2020

8:10 pm

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Art, Coding and Programming, Computer Science, English Composition, ESL, Museum Studies

Describe It! is a Zooniverse project created by The Frick Collection and Frick Art Reference Library. In this project, online volunteers write short descriptions for works of art in the Library’s Photoarchive collection. In order to obtain a variety of descriptions, each image is described three times before it is retired. Once an image is retired, the submitted descriptions are evaluated by library research staff who select the best description for each image. Each of the descriptions are then converted into alt-text (alternative text) which make its collections accessible to all users. Volunteers can help anonymously or create an account. The project includes a tutorial, instructions, tips and detailed metadata information about each work of art.

  1. Art History classes can use it to teach art and how to write concisely about art.
  2. Museum Studies courses could use the project to reinforce the need for alt-text and accessibility in museums.
  3. Computer Science classes could participate in Describe It! as a way to teach about alt-text.
  4. Disability studies courses could use the project to teach how to write concise alt-text.
  5. ESL classes could participate in this project as a way students could work on their English writing skills by describing art.
  6. English composition courses could use the project as a way to practice writing short concise sentences.