{"id":5428,"date":"2014-11-19T11:15:05","date_gmt":"2014-11-19T16:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/?p=5428"},"modified":"2024-11-13T15:02:33","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T20:02:33","slug":"future-historical-collections-archiving-the-2014-ebola-outbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/2014\/11\/19\/future-historical-collections-archiving-the-2014-ebola-outbreak\/","title":{"rendered":"Future Historical Collections: Archiving the 2014 Ebola Outbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Christie Moffatt ~
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"USAIDImage:<\/a>
Courtesy USAID<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When future researchers look back at the current Ebola outbreak, what resources will they want to explore?\u00a0 What will they want to know?\u00a0 Of the news and information about Ebola that is created and shared digitally over the web, what will remain to be examined one, ten, or even fifty years from now?\u00a0 Public health information, first hand experiences, and news about the disease are shared moment by moment on websites, blogs, Twitter, YouTube, and more, documenting the personal, national, and international response to the outbreak.\u00a0 This content is in a constant state of change and at high risk for loss.\u00a0 The original intent of these resources is to share news and information\u2014and reaction to this news and information\u2014about the crisis in real time, but it is also likely that this content will have enduring value as historical resources for the future study and understanding of the 2014 Ebola outbreak.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Colorized TEM image of an Ebola virus virion.
Photo Credit: Frederick Murphy<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On October 20, 2014 the National Library of Medicine (NLM) announced<\/a> a new initiative to capture and preserve selected born-digital content documenting the 2014 Ebola outbreak. This collection, part of a broader web archive collection on Global Health Events<\/a>, is guided by the NLM Collection Development Guidelines<\/a>, with valuable input from NLM\u2019s Disaster Information Management Resource Center (DIMRC) Ebola Outbreak 2014 Information Resources<\/a>. The collection includes websites and social media from Government and non-government organizations, journalists, healthcare workers, and scientists in the United States and around the world, with an aim to collect and preserve a diversity of perspectives on this unfolding health crisis. Selection of content for NLM’s Global Health Events collection is ongoing, and will grow to include resources documenting not only the 2014 Ebola Outbreak, but other major global health events and initiatives.<\/p>\n

Looking at the Ebola Outbreak collection now, here are a few examples of what NLM has selected so far:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a>
Doctors Without Borders\/M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF). “Liberia: ‘My Son is MSF’s 1,000th Ebola Survivor” in Voices from the Field blog<\/a>, October 21, 2014.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Image<\/a>
United States Agency for International Development (USAID). “I’ve Never Had A Job Like This”: Life inside and Ebola Treatment Unit” in IMPACTblog<\/a>. On the Front Lines of an Epidemic: The Battle Against Ebola. October 21, 2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tweets from the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Tom Frieden:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Official News Releases from agencies involved in control and prevention of Ebola outbreak:<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “CDC Team Assisting Ebola Response in Dallas, Texas<\/a>,” October 1, 2014.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0World Health Organization (WHO). “WHO declares end of Ebola outbreak in Nigeria<\/a>,” October 20, 2014.<\/p>\n

As with more traditional library and archive collecting, we cannot know for certain what future researchers will want to explore, and what they will want to know.\u00a0 Selection is and will continue to be a challenge, made even more challenging by the volume of born-digital material and the Library\u2019s ability to acquire this complex and changing content.\u00a0 We can only wonder at how the content captured now will be used.\u00a0\u00a0 These “future researchers” are a dynamic entity themselves, of course, and the value and use of content will most certainly evolve. By saving this born-digital web content now\u2014the primary source material for future research\u2014we support this future research and provide future generations, who will have what unknowable crisis of their own, with access to the experiences, challenges, and responses of today to the Ebola Outbreak and other significant global health events.<\/p>\n

The NLM Global Health Events collection is available at https:\/\/archive-it.org\/collections\/4887<\/a>.\u00a0 Selections from this collection, including the content featured in this post, are also available on Pinterest at http:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/NLMHistory\/ebola-2014-a-web-archive-collection\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Christie<\/a>Christie Moffatt is Manager of the Digital Manuscripts Program in the History of Medicine Division at the National Library of Medicine and Chair of the NLM Web Collecting and Archiving Working Group.<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of the information about Ebola on the web, what will remain one, ten, or even fifty years from now?\u00a0This content is at high risk for loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19605840,"featured_media":18815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Future Historical Collections: Archiving the 2014 Ebola Outbreak - An initiative to capture and preserve web content http:\/\/wp.me\/p3xcDk-1py","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42333869,12763,103],"tags":[12080,1006599,136219,25639,28006,668,531406,238214791],"class_list":["post-5428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives-manuscripts","category-collections","category-news","tag-archives","tag-ebola","tag-epidemic","tag-epidemiology","tag-public-health","tag-research","tag-web-archiving","tag-web-collecting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/ebola-CDCimage_feature.jpg?fit=900%2C401&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3xcDk-1py","jetpack-related-posts":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19605840"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5428"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45727,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5428\/revisions\/45727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}