Announcing the “Pitch a Collection” Contest Winners

November 16th, 2018

by Mary Haberle, Web Archivist for Archive-It

We are excited to introduce the winners of our first ever Pitch a Collection contest! The selected collections are as diverse as our partners and will ensure the preservation of online content from a variety of under-represented subject areas. Stay tuned for blog posts about these new collections once they are up and running. Thanks to everyone who pitched in!

Interactive Fiction Web Archive

Submitted by: Paul Kelly, Digital Curation Librarian at DC Public Library

Twine is an amazing tool that allows anyone to create a text game, and place it online. This collection will curate a “best-of” HTML text games. Since its launch, DIY developers have used Twine to infuse the alt. games space with the spirit of zine-making and have created personal experiences that not only challenge preconceived notions of who developers are, but also who games are for. From queer love stories to horror tales and from feminist art to choose-your-own-adventure fairy tales, they each have one thing in common: the communication of an idea directly to an audience with no mediator. These games are worthy of preservation because doing so will document a means of expression that, without the web, would not exist.

Archives of Beer and Brewing and Beer Bloggers Archive

Submitted by: Erin Lawrimore, University Archivist and Associate Professor at UNC Greensboro

Beer history is American history. It’s a story of community engagement, entrepreneurship, community building, and cultural change. Crawling the sites of craft breweries across the United States will capture a snapshot of the range of breweries, the changing landscape of American brewing, and the ways in which these breweries are affecting and being affected by their communities.

Beer bloggers and writers are a crucial part of the brewing industry as they connect brewers and consumers, yet there is no systematic collection of these blogs. Beer blogs demonstrate changes in the production and marketing side of an American industry that is today in a massive boom period. By archiving the work of the beer bloggers and writers who are documenting this industry and the changes taking place within it, we can better understand how the beer and brewing industry is evolving over time.

Mission History

Submitted by: Cecilia Figliuolo, Archive Technician at Presbyterian Historical Society

The Presbyterian Historical Society exists to collect, preserve, and share the story of the American Presbyterian and Reformed experience, but there is a gap in our collection. The personal papers and photo albums that once came to our physical collection have largely been replaced by online content that we do not currently have the means to preserve. We plan to capture blogs, social media, and other sites relating to contemporary missionaries and missions. It would be a new direction within the Mission History collection, that will cover missionaries in parts of Africa, Asia, South America, Europe and even at sea.

Human Rights at the California-Mexico Border and San Diego Refugee Collection

Submitted by: Ashley Toutain, Records Manager & Processing Archivist at Copley Library, University of San Diego

The Human Rights at the California-Mexico Border collection will feature websites of organizations centered on the California-Mexico Border that are supporting human rights and documenting violations. Websites will include Naciones Unidas Derechos Humanos México, Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos, Comisión Estatal de los Derechos Humanos Baja California, and United Nations Human Rights reports and news about Mexico. Through these sites we can look at current California-Mexico border human rights work and also go as far back as 1994 through the United Nations News Archive.

The San Diego Refugee collection will preserve stories of the local refugee experience. The collection will feature prominent refugee community organizations such as the Nile Sisters Development Initiative and the San Diego Refugee Forum. It will also include stories coming from sites such as Refugee.org, Voice of San Diego and KPBS First Person, and individuals like Meb Keflezighi who are sharing their stories. The refugee experience is part of our local and national history that needs to be preserved to ensure that the valuable work of advocacy organizations and the experiences of individuals will be remembered.