Establishing Preservation Practices for Net Art and App-Based Works

Coral Salomón
The Electronic Media Review, Volume Five: 2017-2018

ABSTRACT

Over the years, efforts by libraries, archives, and museums to incorporate digital media artworks into their collections have grown increasingly complex. The vast amount of born-digital art output is changing traditional approaches to archiving, collection building, and preservation. The National Digital Stewardship Residency for Art Information (NDSR Art) is an IMLS-funded initiative created to address the challenges of digital preservation while fostering career development for new professionals.

Coral Salomón is the NDSR Art resident at the University of Penn­sylvania’s Fisher Fine Arts Library where she is focusing on the preservation of arts-related apps and websites, as well as providing repository recommendations for born-digital artworks. During this presentation, Coral will highlight some of the outcomes of her residency, focusing specifically on app and website preserva­tion. She will discuss tools, strategies, and resources needed to capture web- and app-based art. The presentation will include challenges encountered, lessons learned, and real world applica­tions of the recommended processes. It will also cover strategies for communicating the importance of preserving and providing access to this content to potential collaborators such as curators, gallery owners, and artists. This session is intended for individuals beginning to establish a web archiving program at their institu­tions, who are currently preserving this type of dynamic and ephemeral content, or that are interested in a walk-through of this subject matter.

Coral Salomón
National Digital Stewardship Resident in Art Information
University of Pennsylvania