This presentation for the Video Round Table at the ALA (American Library Association) Annual Meeting provides librarians and researchers with guidance on social and technical issues involved in preserving and sharing videos created for academic and scientific research purposes. Options for annotating videos and projects as well as creating access copies are discussed, with recommendations as to the role of academic librarians and a potential workflow for evaluating the curation and sharing of research videos.

1. Video as Research Data
CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS IN VIDEO DATA PRESERVATION
JAMIE WITTENBERG & CELIA EMMELHAINZ

2. Types of video
data:
Field observations (ecology and
ethnographic)
Laboratory or educational
observation
Life history, oral history,
community history
Performances
Zulu Woman at a reconstructed traditional village in South Africa rolling clay for pottery making, by John Atherton https://www.flickr.com/photos/gbaku/2355358070/

3. Social challenges
Ethics: confidentiality
Ethics: informed consent
Legal issues: Ownership
Legal issues: Copyright
Contextual information
Village Focus Group, by CIFOR, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/cifor/34742000210/

4. Technical challenges
File size: Research data repositories often have a 2GB upload
limit
Playback: Most repositories do not support playback
Access copies: Increases storage costs and may be less useful
Preservation formats: Must be in formats useful to the end
user and the library
Packaging: Video data should be bundled with other
documentation

5. Archival
storage &
cost

7. The need for
context
Transcription*:
Berik: Oh, Celia will show this in America! [laughs]
Dauren [waves fan]: Yeah, say he's making
shashlik.
Celia: Yes, yes.
Oleg: It's a video?
Dauren: Will you show this in America? [grins]
[pans to Berik]
*pseudonyms

8. Metadata

9. Session-level description for research videos:
Session: “Cooking Shashlik,” June 2014, Haileybury Astana, men cooking lamb
kebabs for a school staff party in Kazakhstan.
Project: Ethnography of Libraries in Kazakhstan, semi-structured interviews and
observation.
Content: Food preparation, unscripted, researcher in observation mode,
controlled (workplace) environment, end-of-year teacher celebration, face
to face, in Russian language.
Actors: “Dauren,” young Kazakh, fanning meat on skewers, “Oleg,” Russian male
from Kazakhstan, turning skewers, “Berik,” older Kazakh man observing.
Conversation is in Russian. Ethnographer, Celia Emmelhainz, is offscreen
recording with a handheld camera.
Resources: Transcript available at [link].
References: [link to other sessions, related publications.]
Sample session-level metadata in IDMI

10. Principal investigator. Celia Emmelhainz, Kent State University
Title: Research and Information use Among Social Science Faculty and Students in Kazakhstan.
Funding sources. None.
Project description. Research interviews to better understand how faculty and students in Central Asia undertake research and use information in the
university setting. General ethnographic data on gender, workplace, and culture in Kazakhstan was also collected.
Sample and sampling procedures. Snowball sample of faculty, students, and librarians at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan; a related questionnaire
uses a snowball sample of government librarians at the National Academic Library in Kazakhstan.
Substantive, temporal, and geographic coverage of the data collection [Dublin Core -- Coverage]. Libraries and librarianship, 2011-2014, Astana,
Kazakhstan.
Unit(s) of analysis/observation. Individual librarians, faculty, and students.
Variables. N/A, qualitative research. Topics covered with students include major, department, steps in research, hard/easy information to locate,
professors’ assistance, attendance at library instruction, resourced used at the library. Topics covered with faculty include learning to research, current
projects, process for finding literature, resources used at the library, impact of region on research, projects assigned to students, teaching information
literacy to students, databases used.
Technical information on files. .rtf and .doc for text, .jpg for images, .mp4 for video.
Data collection instruments. Partial interview questionnaire: 1. Can you tell me about your studies? Which year are you? In which department?
Prompt: why did you choose that department/major? 2. Have you done any research projects that involve looking for information? [ . . . ]
Coding instrument. Interviews were coded in Atlas.ti and on paper for themes. Emerging themes included preferences for print vs. ebooks, challenges
in accessing and interpreting information, the need for training on critical thinking and citing materials, challenges of location, student tendency to
google or ask friends, and creative workarounds for faculty accessing information.
Sample project-level metadata in DDI

11. Enabling
meaningful
access

12. EVIADA: Sharing Access Copies Maleševsko (Mалешевcко) dance clip from EVIA: https://media.eviada.org/eviadasb/displaysegment.html?id=9-S0452

14. Role of
librarians
 Engaging partners
 Developing policy
 Recruiting content creators
 Enhancing metadata
 Stewarding collections
 Raising awareness

15. Workflows for librarians & partners
Evaluate
sensitivity
Check rights
Enhance
metadata
Ensure
accessibility
Engage
liaisons

16. Contact
JAMIE WITTENBERG: JVWITTEN@INDIANA.EDU
CELIA EMMELHAINZ: EMMELHAINZ@BERKELEY.EDU