Electronic Café Archive
Planning Grant Report
Draft #1, 7/12/99
Introduction: The Electronic Café Electronic Archive
Overview
On (date), Electronic Café International (ECI) was awarded $30,000 from the Getty Grant Program to
support the planning phase of an electronic cataloguing project. (See Appendix A: Planning Grant
Proposal.) Designed to make our collections accessible to the general public, the cataloguing project will
ultimately document ECI's 25 year history of Electronic Telecommunications Art, and the origins of
Live Telecollaborative Art forms.
The following document is a summary of the tasks accomplished by ECI during its planning phase. The
detailed result of this effort will submitted as part of an implementation grant proposal on September 1,
1999.
Goals of the Planning Phase
Electronic Café International (ECI) is a global network of public venues dedicated to creative
telecollaborations and the exploration of creative uses of real-time, human-to-human multimedia
telecommunications. Our collections hold more than 3,000 hours of video, optical disks, audio
recordings, as well as thousands (??) of computer back-up media, text, drawings, paper documents,
photos and other types of images, most of which we hope to make available on-line for researchers,
scholars and casual browsers.
The goal of the planning phase was to identify standards and best-practices of electronic cataloging and
digital archiving that were appropriate for such unique and non-traditional materials, and to use this
knowledge to create an archiving and preservation strategy that was interoperable with other systems. In
addition, we hoped to collaborate with other collections to break new ground in the archiving and
catalog of conceptual, performance and electronic arts, an area of contemporary arts which is in deep
need of further development and articulation.
Under the guidance of reknowned imaging and archiving expert Howard Besser and a team of
consultants, we set out to examine our collection, to understand its ramifications, and look at it in the
context of the larger whole of art history and criticism. We sought to develop an access strategy that was
useful to both scholars and artists as well as students of multimedia, telecollaboration and the Internet.
As much of the seminal Electronic Café work prefigured the rise of the internet and the evolution of
electronic collaboration spaces, we felt that much of this work and its artifacts would be of interest to a
wider audience than the traditional art scholar so our goal was to create something that was thoroughly
navigable, accessible and useful to as broad an audience as possible.
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Although we are, in many respects, a non-traditional institution, we wanted to work as closely as
possible with traditional cataloging and indexing schemes in order to keep our work accessible and
assure its proper context in the larger world of digital access to works of art. As an organization
dedicated to experimentation in global telecommunications, we see this project as an excellent
opportunity to extend accepted organizational and access methods and techniques to new types of
material, requiring revised guidelines and extensions to existing standards (such as the AAT). We also
see this as a uinique opportunity to offer our findings and conclusions to a wider community in the hope
of furthering efforts for better capturing and communicating the history of electronic and intermedia arts
in a standard, interoperable, and holistic way.
Unique Properties of the Collection
There are a number of properties of the ECI collection that pose particular challenges to the pre-existing
practices of archiving and cataloging art and its artifacts. In fact, virtually everything about the
collection challenges a number of basic assumptions that exist within most existing art cataloging
standards. In particular, characteristics unique to the ECI collection and archiving project include:
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Collaboration: Most art cataloging standards begin with an assumption of individual auteurship.
Because ECI is an organization of artists, not an individual artist, and because each of its projects
involved groups of people collaborating at various levels, our collection forces a broadening of the
traditional notion of "artist."
Role of Artifacts in Conceptual and Performance Art: In most art cataloging schemes, it is
assumed that the individual item or object being cataloged is a work of art, a version or precursor to
a work of art, or documentation related to a specific object or work of art. As with most conceptual
and performance art, ECI works are temporal events that took place at a fixed point in time, in
specific locations, and in a transient social and historical context. All that survive of these works are
documentation and ancillary or support materials, essentially forensic in nature, providing an imprint
or record. Although each of these items can be viewed as its own individual work of art, it is more
accurate to say that it is the aggregate of these items that have survived to represent the occurance of
the work. As such, they have value, but not in the traditional sense that value is attributed to an art
object.
Project vs. Object Based Archiving: Unlike other archives, the collection is not a collection of art
works, but a collection of forensic evidence of art works which no longer exist. The art works
themselves are absent from the collection, which poses a philosophical restructuring of the role and
function of an archival collection. The fact that all the items in our collection are associated with
specific projects (e.g., events, installations, performances and temporal occurances), and that some
of these items are associated with multiple projects, requires a significant rethinking of the structure
of a digital archive. Indeed, the multiple association challenge can only be relaistically addressed
digitally, through a multi-dimensional, interactive relational database. This is therefore an ideal
application of digital access since it cannot realistically be achieved in any other form.
Artists vs. Institutions: Where most electronic archiving projects are being done by institutions,
such as museums, libraries or universities, it is very unusual for the artists themselves to create a
publicly accessible archive of their own work. This affords us the opportunity to provide not only a
critical survey of the work, but also provide a variety of "insider" data about the experimental
intention of the work, as well as extensive narrative analysis of the results. This will provide an
additional layer of value to our archive that we have seen in few other cataloging efforts to date: the
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qualitative insight and narrative explanation of the work as told from the artist's point of view. <<we
should be careful here; some reviewers might get queasy about the artists’ intentions replacing the
supposedly “neutral” view of the curator. Maybe try to stress that this is IN ADDITION TO a
supposedly neutral view, rather than REPLACING it?>>
No Existing Catalog: Unlike many other art institutions, ECI does not have an existing archive or
catalog. Most other institutions are converting existing schemes into digital form, and upgrading
records into a standard format as part of this process. We have the unique opportunity to create a
digital archive from the ground-up, which enables us to build from scratch a totally interoperable
system based on the latest professionally accepted archiving and cataloging standards.
Other Institutions: Because, unlike other institutions, we are not saddled with legacy systems and
can take full advantage of recent and emerging standards, we have been able to act as the lead
institution in a collaboratory effort among a consortium of museums working on developing
standards for cataloging and access to collections of electronic, conceptual and media arts. As part of
this collaboratory effort, we have benefited from the background and experience of these museum
personnel, and they have benefited from both using our collection as an unencumbered testbed, and
from the cataloging and indexing experts that we have enlisted to help on this project.. Furthermore,
the rest of the field will benefit from all of our work in extending standards to cover this emerging
field of contemporary art.
Process: Planning Grant Activities
The following describes the process that we underwent to arrive at the conclusions that will be
presented in our implementation grant proposal on September 1. This section will conclude with
a brief summary of results, which will be included in more detail with the implementation grant
proposal.
Adopting, Extending, Contributing
The basic philosophy of our approach is one of adopting, extending and contributing:
 Adopting existing standards where applicable.
 Extending to meet our own unique requirements.
 Contributing to the larger art and archiving community in hopes that our efforts will provide
valuable insights for future development.
Archiving and Cataloging Standards
 Goal: To develop a preliminary ECI cataloging system.
 Process
 Working with Howard Besser, Natalie Cole, a Library Science Phd. From UCLA, and
Celia Pearce, our project manager and a multimedia expert and author, we reviewed
and analyzed a variety of electronic archiving standards, including Dublin Core,
VRA, CIMI, EAD, REACH and CDWA.
 Due to their flexibility and adaptability to the special requirements of conceptual and
performance art, we concluded that REACH extended by CDWA would be the best
standard to use as a jumping off point in cataloging our collection. Where necessary,
we would add our own fields, as much as possible within the flexible parameters the
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CDWA framework. We will use the EAD finding aid framework and EAD catalog
record encoding for interoperability.
 Although we could not find any similar collections, we were able to locate some
comparable collections within the Getty Research Institute's files, specifically the
Inventory of Experiments in Art & Technology (E.A.T.) Records, The Inventory of
the Carolee Schneeman Papers, and the Cha (Theresa Hak Kyung) Archive. Through
examining these archives, we determined that the use of a Finding Aid would help to
create a framework that would allow us to place the collections in the larger context
of the projects they represent. The technique of using a Finding Aid to catalog
projects is used to varying degrees in both the Cha and the E.A.T. Archive, and we
propose to develop this technique further to create a multi-levelled finding aid which
integrates finding aid level records with hotlinks to a relational database of cataloged
items.
 In addition to the more factual and scholarly information contained in traditional
archives, we have also added a qualitative layer. This includes narrative elements
describing the intent and outcome of the work, as well as commentary on both
projects and objects within he collection. We felt this layer of discussion was
necessary because the artifacts and documentation in and of themselves are not
always adequate to "tell the whole story" of an event or experience.
Results: As the result of this effort, we created a preliminary conceptual overview,
sample finding record and sample item cataloging record which are currently under
review by the CIAO. This material and preliminary CIAO comments will be included as
an appendix to the implementation grant proposal.
Next Steps: The first part of our implementation phase will be to incorporate the first
phase of CIAO feedback, build a prototype database, and do a large-scale test of the
system with other institutions and end-users.
Vocabulary
 Goal: To do a preliminary inquiry into the use of controlled vocabulary adopted from a
universally accepted glossary of terms; to examine what would be need to create a set of
controlled vocabulary that would work for our collection.
 Process:
 As a first-step in exploring vocabulary issues, we ran a series of tests to see if we
adopt existing vocabulary from the Art & Architecture Thesaurus. In our initial
research, we found very little within the existing AAT which could be adopted as
controlled vocabulary for our archive.
 In absence of a source to adopt from, we begin to examine our options. We
understand that there is an opportunity to extend the AAT, but we also feel that this
must be done in conjunction with the broader community of art archivists and
catalogers. This will enable us to contribute to a universal language that can be
utilized by both artists and organizations to describe various non-conventional,
performance and media-based genres.
 Results: After contacting the CIAO, we were introduced to AMICO. Both organizations
have expressed interest in working with us to create proposed vocabulary for the ATT
which we could adopt for our archive. Our plan is to create our own internal glossary
linked to a standard set of terms developed with these two groups which will ultimately
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be submitted to the AAT for consideration. The aim is to make our terms easily
searchable and accessible, and link our own terms to the terms and definitions eventually
adopted by the Art and Architecture Thesaurus.
Preservation Planning
 Goal: We are very concerned with the problem of preservation since, due to the nature of
our work, much of our collection is in unstable and in some cases obsolete media
formats. As a result, we will need to undertake a comprehensive preservation effort in
order to achieve the longevity of these materials for posterity and future generations. The
goal of this effort in the planning phase was to examine the scope of the collection and its
preservation requirements.
 Process:
 Under the supervision of Howard Besser, we hired two graduate students from UCLA
who have undergone the video archiving curriculum there.
 One of our preservationists, Shelby Labazio, came to us with resident expertise and
experience in the preservation of paper and print materials. She also had experience
working with the Getty and we felt her familiarity with Getty standards and practices
would also be invaluable to us. Ms. Labazio examined the print collection and made
both short-term and long-term recommendations for preservation.
 Our second preservationist, Karen Gracey, is experienced in various issues of
archiving film and video collections. She has worked with the American Film
Institute and is familiar with various techniques and principles for both preserving
media and porting it over to more stable formats.
 In order to create a work plan and budget for preservation, we conducted a
preliminary inventory of the collection to determine the gross quantities of the
individual media represented so that we could estimate both labor and service costs
for our preservation effort.
 Results: Ms. Labazio and Ms. Gracey's recommendations were combined into a single
preservation plan, which will be included in the implementation grant proposal and
integrated with our inventory data to provide us with a preservation plan and budget.
Outside Organizations
 Goal: Identify an organization that we could use as advisors throughout our
implementation phase and whose mission was closely related to the mission of ECI>
 Process:
 We initially encountered CIAO (Conceptual and Intermedia Arts Online) as part of
our research effort in cataloging standards. Because their emphasis is on Conceptual
and Intermedia Arts, after reading their mission statement and the list of members, we
felt that they were the best-suited to advise us as to whether our archiving strategies
would fit into the larger context of art history and scholarship.
 We contacted Richard Reinhart of CIAO to ask if they would be interested in
reviewing our work. They were very excited about the prospect of using our project
as a prototype for a variety of the issues they have been grappling with both in terms
of archiving and developing standardized vocabulary for conceptual and intermedia
arts.
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As a result of this inquiry, we were invited to join CIAO as a full member and act as a
prototype for CIAO development in these areas.
Results:
 At the present time, the CIAO is reviewing our preliminary finding aid and cataloging
record documents, and the result of this review will be included in our
implementation grant proposal.
 The CIAO will advise us and work with us as a prototype project to further develop
both digital archiving and vocabulary standards for conceptual and intermedia arts.
Next Steps
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Implementation Grant Proposal
 The implementation grant proposal will be submitted September 1st and will include:
 Comprehensive plan for archiving and preserving the ECI collection.
 Itemized budgets and schedule for each of these efforts
 Overview of contributions we hope to make to the archiving community through our
role as a prototype project and our association with the CIAO and AMICO.
Participants & Roles
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(Brief biography of each member of the planning team)
Financial Accounting
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(See Jan)
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