- Archivists’ Victory over Overbroad Copyright Claim A joint statement from Human Rights Watch, Mnemonic, and WITNESS, with lead authoring by Deborah Brown, Senior Researcher and Advocate on Digital Rights, and Gabriela Ivens, Head of Open Source Research, at Human Rights Watch. November 25, 2020 A decision by GitHub, a leading software development platform, to reinstate a popular free software tool for downloading videos, […]
- Tweet Chat: Archiving For Human Rights For Archives Month 2020, WITNESS Africa hosted a Twitter chat on archiving for the promotion and protection of human rights. In the chat, pertinent questions regarding the importance, practicalities and challenges to human rights archiving were put to Ayanda K of VIDERE and Yvonne Ng of WITNESS. Here is a recap of the chat on […]
- Ethical Wednesdays: Archives and Our Ethical Guidelines for Using Eyewitness Videos As archives start to collect, provide access to, and present social media collections, many ethical issues arise that need to be addressed.
- Self-Preservation through Personal Digital Archiving ‘Personal digital archiving’ is a movement that helps individuals take control of their digital files. A WITNESS Archivist shares her insights from a national conference, outlining gaps and solutions for human rights defenders.
- Join WITNESS For An Online Dialogue On Archiving Human Rights I'm excited to announce that starting today (May 16) through May 22 my fellow archivist Yvonne Ng and I will be co-hosting an online dialogue hosted by New Tactics in Human Rights titled Archiving Human Rights for Advocacy, Justice and Memory.
- Saving Human Rights Video from an Online “Deadpool” Perhaps serving as a reminder to video creators that video sharing platforms are not archival repositories for their media (nor do they claim to be), Google Video will be finally shutting down entirely next month. Starting April 29, videos hosted on Google Video will no longer be available for playback; after May 13, the videos will be removed. Google is encouraging content owners to download or migrate their videos to YouTube before the deadline.
- Sharing Truth Two weeks ago I participated in a remarkable event, called Sharing Truth, an international forum convened in Vancouver under the auspices of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada.
- Reimagining the Archive: Rethinking Archival Practice and Theory The tone was set on Friday evening with Rick Prelinger’s animated keynote presentation, in which he spoke about the dynamic nature of moving image archives as sites of creation, participation, artistic practice, and activism rather than as places where content goes to die.
- The Documentation Affinity Group: Embedding Archive in Activism The Documentation Affinity Group (DAG) is a small international peer-to-peer network of local action groups originally established by six NGOs in 2005 to consider the role of documentation in protecting and promoting human rights worldwide.
- Nelson Mandela, Archivist Activist You may have seen a recent 60 Minutes segment on the newest published memoir of Nelson Mandela, perhaps “the most admired man alive” in the words of correspondent Bob Simon. And if you are an archivist, chances are you are familiar with Verne Harris, of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, renowned in his own right, activist archivist sine qua non.
- Using Archival Description to Foster Accountability I first became interested in records documenting the Khmer Rouge period in Cambodia a decade ago, when I was working as the arts and culture web producer for the Asia Society Museum in New York. For the museum’s website, I interviewed the director of a troupe of classical Cambodians dancers who were touring the U.S.
- Archives for Change: Activist Archives, Archival Activism In recognition of Archives Month (October) and UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage (October 27), Archiving Human Rights will explore the theme of activism, in its myriad word forms and meanings, as it relates to archives and archivists.
- Human Rights Archives: Report from SAA, Part 1 Last week, I attended the annual conference of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) in Washington, DC. There were a number of sessions relevant to human rights archives and archivists this year, most notably the inaugural meeting of the new Human Rights Archives Roundtable, and the panel it organized with the Latin American and Caribbean Cultural Heritage Archives Roundtable, entitled "Silence No More! Archives Threatened by Political Instability."
- Forensic Anthropology, Video, and Archives In mid-April, an episode of NPR program "Speaking of Faith," featuring a representative of the Argentine forensic anthropology team (EAAF) aired. The guest spoke about how recovering the remains of victims of repressive regimes leads to healing, the re-writing of history, and the prosecution of justice.
- Thoughts on archives “fitting in”, and processing the Rainlake donation. I have had the pleasure of interning in the WITNESS Media Archive for the past semester. I chose this internship because I hoped to put my Masters in Human Rights Studies and my Masters in Library Science to work in the video archive.
