Inside HistoryIT: Strategy, Metadata, And True Digital Preservation The Dead Pixels Society podcast

Inside HistoryIT: Strategy, Metadata, And True Digital Preservation

29d ago 29:42

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What if your archive could fund your mission? We sit down with HistoryIT founder and CEO Kristen Gwinn-Becker to reveal why most organizations are far less “digital” than they think—and how a smart strategy can turn dusty boxes, dying tapes, and scattered drives into a living, searchable asset that powers storytelling, alumni engagement, and real fundraising results.
Gwinn-Becker walks us through the essentials: Start with strategy, not scanners. We delve into why PDFs are not a reliable form of preservation, how master files and standards safeguard against obsolescence, and why metadata is the engine that makes evidence discoverable. From NFL teams to fraternities and historical societies, she explores how unified metadata lets users click a single name and surface photos, plaques, film clips, and documents in seconds. The result is access that feels magical—and measurable. Hear how one membership organization achieved a 791% jump in its day of giving by making history personal and instant.
In this conversation, we also tackle the hard choices. Should you decide what’s “important” before digitizing? Gwinn-Becker explains the risks of guessing, the urgency of preserving magnetic tapes and obsolete formats before “last play,” and the real role of AI in accelerating metadata without surrendering quality control. We share practical steps to future-proof born-digital content: define owners, formats, intake checklists, and routine ingestion so the next twenty years don’t become another rescue project.

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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
Edited by Olivia Pageau
Announcer: Erin Manning

Chapters

1. Welcome And Guest Introduction (00:00:00)

2. What HistoryIT Does (00:00:47)

3. Founder’s Journey From Tech To History (00:02:04)

4. Why Strategy Comes Before Scanning (00:03:35)

5. Translating Between IT, Archives, And Fundraising (00:06:42)

6. Metadata As The Engine Of Discovery (00:09:02)

7. The Trap Of Cheap Scans And PDFs (00:12:12)

8. What To Preserve And Why It’s Risky To Choose (00:15:08)

9. Future-Proofing Today’s Content (00:18:15)

10. Handling Unusual Artifacts And Unified Metadata (00:21:05)

11. Degrading Media And True Preservation Formats (00:23:13)

12. ROI: Alumni Engagement And Fundraising Wins (00:26:10)

13. Evidence First: Access Over Interpretation (00:29:02)

245 episodes