 Wonderful. And now I have some other wonderful news. Marissa has joined us. So we are all going to get to hear from her. Welcome. I'm so glad to see you. I'm so grateful for you to join us. Let me make some very quick introductions and I'll get out of your way. So our closing invited presentation is from Marissa Parham. Marissa is currently a visiting professor at the University of Maryland. She is in English and digital studies and also has academic affiliations with a whole series of additional departments. You can find her full bio on her, well not her full bio, but a much longer bio on her website. She is the chair of the new commission funded by the Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities on fostering and sustaining diverse digital scholarship, which is undertaking an issue of just core importance to the humanities. And I've invited her to tell us about the plans, vision, and objectives of the commission and how those of us here might be able to help. I do want to also note that one of the other wonderful things about her is that she is deeply involved in digital humanities in her own right. While at Maryland she is directing the African American Digital Humanities Initiative and serving as associate director at MIF, Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, and also co-directing the Immersive Reality Lab for the humanities. So she is actually deeply involved in the creation of many of the innovative kinds of scholarship that the commission is struggling with the sustenance of. So I'm delighted you're here. Thank you so much for joining us, particularly at this hour and I'll turn it over to you. Thank you for that very kind introduction. I'm sorry to be running in but a lot of chaos and thank you all for your patience. I'll keep my remarks sort of within time and I think we should be fine. And yeah, thank you for asking me to be here today and I've been thinking a lot about the work of the commission, the ACLS commission. As many of you know, if we're thinking back over the last, oh my god, at this point 30 years, maybe more of digital humanities work and the numerous ways in which so much of that work for so many years was deeply tied to the work of digitizing, right? So the idea of thinking about cultural heritage, as we know, thinking about library collections, thinking about different kinds of archives, and the real sort of robust kinds of opportunities that digitization made possible and sort of rise out of that in many ways. A lot of what we think of today is digital humanities work, right? Because we decide digital humanities as thinking about sort of computation and computing in relation to humanities. And then we also have digital humanities in relation to thinking about sort of, again, cultural heritage. And I think where we are today in a lot of the work of the ACLS commission is thinking about what's at stake in a moment when we've invested not just, you know, at this point into the millions of dollars, but have also invested millions of hours, right? And I'll circle back to that in a moment. But thinking so much about the very intense time that's been put into the work of digitization. So what the ACLS commission, a lot of what we're thinking about is the real question of how we, in fact, produce collections that will stand the test of time. So I kind of stuttered when I said the sentence, because of course, one thing we're wrestling with is that this thing we're working so hard toward very likely isn't possible. And so realizing that in many ways, thinking about the future of what it would mean to sustain digital collections also means thinking somewhat differently about what any kind of future of anything might look like, which hopefully didn't sound too vague, right? But if you're thinking about the kinds of issues and matters that arise in our group, so thinking not just, for instance, about, you know, if you all are familiar with some of the work of earlier digital preservation, right? You understand some of the stuff, for instance, around, you know, if you want to maintain object B, digital object B, you have to also maintain the system, the computer on which was created, or the computer system for which it was produced, if you want to be able to get to those materials later. But instead of thinking more robustly about what it means to produce digital collections that are flexible, that change, and thinking about what it means, one, in relation to the very question of heritage itself, right? And also thinking about this in relation to a new emergent field, which I work very heavily in, or not newly emergent, but I think newly, sort of more centered in digital humanities, which is the real problem of foreign digital scholarship, foreign digital work, right? Because if we're thinking about a digitized record, you all know this better than I do, we're thinking of very often a physical record that, or a physical object has been reproduced as a digital record, and there's still a reference point, right, in the physical object. And so if you're even thinking about the question of flexibility, right, you're thinking about the numerous ways you might encode that physical object towards the future. When you're thinking about foreign digital, where very often the form the thing is the content of the thing, the question of flexibility becomes even far more complex. And so part of what we've been thinking about with the commission is really taking seriously not only the onus put on so many organizations to make sure that the diverse digital heritage collections of different institutions are maintained, but also more broadly thinking about the idea of diversity in relation to the numerous origin points of digital objects, and particularly with an eye to in many moments thinking about digital objects that are again born digital. Because again, there's a different kind of sense sometimes of loss in relation to the idea of what happens to born digital collections. So this is a very long way of saying we've bit off a very large chunk of work. And I think where we are now in our work is really working with this really fabulous collection of over 20 different digital workers. So we have people who work as professors, people who are head librarians, people who work on the ground with community collections. For instance, we're working with members of documenting the now, which has taken up the really complex question of how we archive and collect social media, right? If you're thinking about so much of the work of politics, so much of the work of social protests right now, you're talking about what we usually think of as fundamentally ephemeral digital objects, right? We're one the ethics of collecting those objects. What if someone tweets a thing in the moment, but in its public, but it's not actually being produced for public consumption over time, right? And also again, how we think about that as a different kind of foreign digital object. So to summarize, much of what we're doing with the commission is again, taking very serious to the notion of diversity both in relation to form, but also in relation to the numerous kinds of communities and circumstances out of which digital work arises. In terms of method, we're essentially working now to really hone in on and to really focus on where from our various different perspectives, again, where professors, where different kinds of cultural workers, where different kinds of librarians and archivists, really thinking about where we identified the sticking points in the work we do, number one, and number two, where the commonalities of sticking point. What is the problem of social media archiving, for instance, that might really actually intersect with real problems of what it means to work with sensitive archives, right? When you're working with collections by communities or people, did the work of Makutu, for instance, if you're working with the collections of people who don't actually want to share widely, but want to share very robustly over time, right? The robustness of survival set against the idea that the purpose of robustness is greater dissemination. That's a real tension sometimes, right? So in thinking about diversity, again, we're thinking about content and we're also thinking about origin. One thing I really appreciate also about the work of the commission is that we're trying to take very seriously the idea of difference. We find that by centering difference, it gives us an occasion to, again, really identify sticking points. Otherwise, and I found this in my own work in the past, and I just have to assume that numerous of you have also come across this real problem, where so much of the work of sustainability often operates on a logic of repetition for one, and also a logic of reproducibility, so not repetition, but more reproducibility. So what happens when reproducibility is not even necessarily on a little side of ethics a go? What happens when reproducibility is just not possible because of the difference in form? Again, give an example of foreign digital. What happens when reproducibility is not the answer? And so I think by centering these kinds of real questions of difference, we're finding that we're able to strangely identify the spaces where we can actually make intervention, if that makes sense. And I think this has been quite surprising to many of us as well, but that by in fact focusing on what makes us different, what makes our problems different, what makes our concerns different, we're actually finding I find more robust ways of thinking about how we can actually help each other. Another thing I should say about the constitution of the committee of the commission is that because we're coming from such different perspectives, we're really trying to think very hard, obviously, about the places where our different backgrounds can actually bring something to the table. So that was way too vague. But to give you an example, you know, for instance, we've been talking a lot in our last few conversations about infrastructure. And something that emerges in the infrastructure conversation is how profoundly differently we're thinking about it, given where we're coming from. The way a software engineer who's producing, for instance, the metadata systems through which collections can be accessed and also archived is talking about infrastructure in a very different language from someone who's taking the community archives perspective on the numerous ways in which the production of an archive is actually the work of memory versus the work of history, for instance. What infrastructure means to those two people can be quite different. And so by really surfacing that difference, we're better enabled, again, to imagine where we would, in fact, be able to work together. I realize, as I'm saying all this, that there's a kind of Pollyanna sort of thing is like by embracing our differences, we come together. But I'm also, again, noting what it means to take seriously the notion that if you're producing a committee, a commission, that's actually constituted by people from different academic walks of life, that's actually constituted by different communities actually constituted by people come from places with deeply different concerns, that perhaps this is a reasonable way to move forward, rather than assuming that we can somehow mediate our problems, right, that we could just find the right technological form, that we could just find the right sort of widget that we'll be able to solve these problems. So I think by moving away from the widget perspective and moving closer to a holistic human perspective, we find ourselves better enabled to find the places of intervention. One reason I should also say why I'm speaking so vaguely about the work of intervention is simply because we're a process, right? We're in progress. We're probably not even halfway through our process right now. But we have found that by really, again, embracing how we might do this work differently, we're enabled, we hope, to ask better questions. And by asking better questions, more honest questions, more painful questions, more complex questions, we're able, therefore, to think better or in more robust ways about outcomes. So I'm going to go ahead and stop there. I don't know if we have time for questions or if we should be moving on, but you can always pop anything you want to ask me in the chat, or I'm very easy to find on the line. But let me stop there. We have plenty of time for questions. I think some of us, particularly after hearing that marvelous description, will stay as long as you're willing to stay. I thought that was just tremendous. And perhaps I could start off with just one dumb question while everybody else is getting their questions together, which is what can the community that's represented here do to be of help in your work? To be honest, contacting me or James Shulman at ACLS or anyone else affiliated with the commission, again, it's very easy to find the information online, sounds corny. But what we're working with right now or really like with each other is this real thing of like, tell me your problems. Where are you struggling? What's just not working, right? And this is actually going to be very fruitful. So again, we know that, and I'm a technical digital person as much as many people here, and we're thinking about the problems of sustainability, we're thinking about software, we're thinking about iteration, we're thinking about all these things. But the number one thing that began emerging these conversations around sustainability was the real problem of how so many of these archives, even in academic spaces, are often maintained by only one, maybe three people. And the real concern with, if I have an accident, what happens to all this labor? What happens to all this work? What happens to this heritage? And we only were able to really get to that place by starting from this real sort of entry point of like, just tell me what's not working for you. What's really troubling you? What actually keeps you up at night? And so that's a way of saying for this particular group of people, one thing that would be greatly helpful to us was simply to be able to hear from you and to really hear from you in ways that aren't trying to just from think from other experience of working across digital humanities organizations, hearing from people in ways that doesn't foreground sort of what we imagine the answer should be, if that makes sense. That's why I had a sort of rambling thing in the middle about reproducibility. There's a way in which we already presumed the kinds of answers we're supposed to be given to the question. Whereas what I would actually like to hear is, you know, I'm trying not to be so dramatic, but we've been very dramatic in our group, you know, which is again, what keeps you up at night? What are you worried about? What's not working? Where are the sticking points? Where are the complex labor questions? Where are the complex financial questions? Because again, we're a large group as you all are of experts, quote, experts in our little places, but we need to hear this from each other again so we can make an actual sort of robust image and picture of what's at hand. And when aspirational again, the best answer. I would note also that many of the individuals on your commission are people who are quite familiar with and to this community and part of it. So lots of ways you can get your thoughts into the committee. Other questions, comments? Yes, Rose. One of the things it struck me when you were just saying that it's only a handful of people maintaining the archive is actually being in a number of open source software communities that those archives rely on software that is maintained by one or two individuals. So you're, you know, we can all talk about that silly XKCD comic, right? Where it's like that little, that little peg holding up the entire thing. But I think too often that is the case, right? That there is that little peg holding up the entire thing. And I can think of so many, I can I can name humans that are that little peg and that we do not as a profession or as a society recognize that those individuals are propping up so much. Yep. So I just, I appreciate you going big, even though you said you went big and aspirational, but I think it's an important thing to have that conversation. So thank you for for raising that. Yeah, thank you for that. I can't say enough how heavily this has emerged. I mean, part of I mean, if I'm being honest, I should say that in certain ways our work really had to slow down. Because when we really started asking questions in this way, we found that so much of the sort of affective sort of work of stress and feeling really came to the forefront because a lot of people on the commission, like many of you are the peg. And it became very like, you know, someone tell the story of, you know, multi million dollar initiative, you know, all the things, you know, this kind of big university initiatives and just saying like, if I get injured or I have to leave, it's over. Right. I know that like, I have to always be preparing against not only sustainability in the sense of climate sustainability in terms of systems in terms of software, but what happens when we get the new provost, right. And I think just even what that stress means and how it impacts the work and how it impacts how you think about the work and how it impacts what you say about the work with something that I felt that everyone knows. I don't think I'm telling anyone anything new here, right. But it's like this thing that everyone knows, but no one's really talking about. Right. And if you particularly get to the ways that so much of this work again, focusing on digitization for a moment, the ways in which so much is work is grant funded and heavily grant funded. That's a space in which quite rightfully, you're required to speak in the most on the one hand aspirational, but also the most concrete don't worry, we'll get it done terms. And I actually think, you know, in many ways that's appropriate, all the things. But again, it brings another level of just sort of tension when it's set against the reality of like our human lives as people who get sick, who get tired, who etc. Right. So thank you for that. I swear we talk about happy things to the right. Do we have another question. I think you may have just blown everybody away with the the breadth of those aspirations. It's just wonderful to hear. I really hope you'll keep us posted as the work of the commission advances. And that you won't hesitate to reach out to our community if there's some help we can render at some point. That would be wonderful. Thank you. And again, I know I'm saying it, but I'm a true believer on the question. It's why I'm sharing the commission. I mean it. It's so helpful from our many members, the commission again, who are dispersed all throughout the world, which are also members just past concerns along to us. It's actually very critical. And also if you have creative ideas for dissemination of our findings, we've been struggling lately in our latest conversations of really thinking about what, in addition, or so for instance, white papers we could be producing. What is actually helpful? What do people actually need? And that's feedback we greatly need because there's a way in which, even though we're all from diverse backgrounds, different kinds of academic community backgrounds, there's no way we represent the whole, right? And so anything you all can give us would be super helpful. So I'm also here to beg. I'm late on begging, but it's real. All right. Well, we've kept you late. I thank you so much for doing this and I'm seeing lots of virtual hand clapping taking place. So I really appreciate you joining us for this and we'll stay in touch. Of course. Thank you guys. All right. All my best. Thanks. And with that, I think we've brought the virtual meeting to just an amazing conclusion. I'm so looking forward to hearing more of the work of that commission. It's really doing all the asking all the right questions. I just want to take a moment to thank all of our presenters yesterday and today to thank our team, especially Diane and Paige, who've been just making all this work like magic. And to thank you for joining us. We will be putting the videos up as soon as we can. And I hope I'll see some of you in San Diego next week. So thank you again for joining us and everybody take care. Bye-bye.