47 Association of Research Libraries Research Library Issues 296 2018 noticed how much information they communicated via these informal platforms and the significance of these communications to their research discipline at large. Recognizing that these communications serve the same purpose now as letters did in the past, these researchers reached out to special librarians with a variety of skills, myself included, for help preserving these communications for posterity. In order for this project to start up successfully, we needed to understand the researchers’ desires and vision for the preserved material. Questions such as “How important is the look and feel of the original?” and “Are comments part of a work?” were workshopped collaboratively by information professionals and researchers. This led to a general formation of an ideal output and workflow. The curation of the material ingested into the preservation platform would be carried out by expert domain researchers, and facilitating this curation was a key requirement for success. Considerations such as supporting either an “opt out” or “opt in” option, as well as the writing of a disclaimer, were considered as alternatives to a formal donor agreement, because of the challenges inherent in establishing consent, terms, and conditions for automatically ingested digital media. As these conversations continued, the librarians researched options for capturing, curating, documenting, and preserving this material. From this research they connected with several tool builders and service providers who could help with the development of webhooks to deliver content to different social platforms and development of automated description for preservation platforms. After making some initial decisions as a group, the researchers and the librarians separately put together ideas and proposals for possible workflows. As an unfunded, complex project, the development of this project continues slowly, but the work remains collaborative, allowing for the Each individual’s expertise and perspective was needed in order to develop a successful radical collaboration.
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