VRA Conference Minneapolis 2024

Visual Resources in the era of Virtual Reality: a Framework for Digital Primary Source Literacy
Colleen Hoelscher

Museums, libraries, and archives are ever-increasingly creating digitized versions of primary source documents from their holdings, making visual resources findable and usable by researchers around the world. These resources are a boon for those teaching in the humanities as they allow students to conduct primary source research beyond the confines of their university library and highly curated published primary source collections. In addition, the shift to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased use of and comfort with digital archival sources, including visual resources. Even as digital primary sources become more available, the process of critically evaluating them has become more daunting: “deep fakes,” deceptive editing via Photoshop or other means, AI creations, filters, misleading metadata, and curatorial bias can all deceive students. This paper will provide guidance to librarians, educators, and other cultural heritage professionals who engage in teaching digital primary source literacy. Drawing on the SAA/ACRL Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy, it proposes a framework of key competencies displayed by the digital literate working with online archival sources: the ability to locate and access digital primary sources, critically evaluate digital sources for authenticity and bias, and correctly cite digital primary sources.

The Human Touch: Copyright Protections for Works Created by Deities, Creatures, and Machines
Kiowa Hammons

The 2014 Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices: "only works created by a human can be copyrighted under United States law, which excludes photographs and artwork created by animals or by machines without human intervention" [1]. But can copyright law so easily discount creative content such as Monkey selfies, elephant oil paintings, songs written by religious deities, or pastoral landscape paintings by artificial intelligence? Particularly with the recent abundance of infringement cases regarding AI generated materials, how are the courts and we as users of AI systems (and owners of pets) come to terms with the value of non-human intellectual property?

Evaluating Digital Collections for Accessibility
Nora Davies

A presentation discussing methods for evaluating digital collections for accessibility. Begins with a breakdown of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and Universal design and ends with tips for evaluating digital collections and some examples of accessible collections. Attendees will learn the current standards for web accessibility and how to apply that to their own institutional collections or evaluate existing collections. This is especially relevant to attendees working with visual resources online who are interested in broadening the access of their collections.