METRO’s Studio @ 599
The last time I wrote about the METRO Studio at 599 11th Avenue it was just a twinkle in my eye. A bunch of computers in utero. Well, a lot has happened since then.
To review, Studio 599 is like a makerspace for digital libraries. It’s equipped with new and legacy media that we encounter in knowledge management work. Our media run the gamut from common, practical pieces of equipment (the Epson scanners) to more rare, specialty technology (the Forensics Recovery of Evidence Device, a.k.a. the FRED). The Studio plugs into different stages of the information lifecycle, from content production → digitization → organization → preservation → access (not necessarily in that order). Situated smack in the middle of our open office floor plan, Studio 599 puts the media and technology of digital library work on display, making visible some of the hack-y, material realities that librarians and archivists confront in their efforts to get control over digital content that is produced quickly, en masse, across a variety of different software and hardware formats.
In the past 11 months we’ve installed five working stations: 1) Audio Booth; 2) AV Media Transfer; 3) Image Digitization; 4) Media Migration + Recovery; and 5) Vinyl Cutter. We’ve tested out our equipment through a series of pilot projects, working with individual and institutional members of the METRO, both new and old. People have come in to record audio, to transfer VHS and miniDV and U-matic and beta and audio cassette tapes, to scan hand-drawn dance choreographies, to digitize slides, and to print out stickers and signage. And we hosted a pretty stellar launch party. So I figured it’s time for an update.
The Pilot Projects
In many ways, Studio 599 is an experiment. While library makerspaces certainly aren’t new, METRO is kind of a hybrid, meta organization, and our studio reflects that. We aren’t a public library with makerspaces (like DCPL Labs) or a sandbox for remixing digital collections (like LC Labs). So we knew from the outset that there was no exact model for us to follow, and we were going to have to do some user testing to figure out what would work for us.
That’s when we opened our doors and invited in new and old members of the METRO community. Over the course of four months, we conducted a series of pilot projects that helped us test out our equipment, documentation, booking, and staffing processes. Everyone who came in was a gracious, patient, and helpful guinea pig. They helped us identify problems and pain points, they edited our documentation, and they spoke words of encouragement as I jiggled and cajoled cables into place.
We started small, testing out our equipment with individuals who had small projects. Grad students from Pratt’s School of Information and Columbia University came by to transfer VHS and miniDV tapes. Freelance podcasters came by to record episodes in the audio booth.
Then we moved on to some larger scale projects. Our most significant pilot was with the Magnum Foundation. We knew that in order to test the AV Transfer rack that the XFR Collective installed (it’s been a beautiful partnership) we would need to find a partner who has many tapes, in lots of different formats, so that we could text all of the various tape decks and workflows. Helen D. Wall, an archivist at the Magnum Foundation, and two interns, Rebekah Velazquez and Sarah Norman, brought over two boxes of over 30 tapes in mid-December 2017. Over the course of four weeks, they successfully transferred five audiocassette tapes, two 1/4” audio reels, five VHS tapes, and two beta tapes. We had some issues with our U-matic deck, which we have since replaced.
Some notable tapes that they transferred included a copy of 60 Minutes with Dan Rather that profiled “The Magnum Photos” from September 11, a series of small format video documentaries from the early 1990s called “The Magnum Eye,” three videos of “The Sidewalk Santas” by Elliott Erwitt on Volunteers of America training homeless men, and Waiting for Madonna by Peter Marlow on paparazzo Dave Hogan’s quest for celebrity shots.
The Magnum Foundation plans to make the digitized files accessible to researchers and add them to a virtual timeline of audiovisual materials outlining the history of Magnum and the work of its members.
Helen Wall provided the following thoughts and feedback about the pilot:
While it’s important to know the condition of analog media before digitization, most of us don’t have the equipment to test this out. Even labels and notes on tapes don’t always fully describe the content. Fortunately, the METRO transfer station handles many formats and we were able to assess the various materials in our pilot test. Since transfer happens in real time, it’s useful to check the length of the media so you can hit “stop” before including a lot of dead air space.
Moving on from the AV Transfer station to image digitization, we ran two pilot projects with our scanning equipment, which some of you may remember from METRO’s Knight-funded Culture in Transit project.
Katie Martinez is the Archives Manager for the Trisha Brown Dance Company. (You might remember Katie as one of METRO Fellows in our inaugural cohort, along with me and Karen Hwang.) She came by with some amazing large-format, hand- drawn sketches from Trisha Brown’s personal collection that she wanted to scan for preservation purposes. The documents were a bit large for our large Epson scanner (the V800, which scans documents up to 12.0" x 17.0”), but luckily Katie is a Photoshop pro and was cleverly able to scan the images in two parts and stitch them together. If you want a sprinkle of her Photoshop magic, I encourage you to take the Working in the Digital Art Landscape workshop on April 5th.
Then Brett Dion, the Archivist and Special Collections Librarian at the Bank Street College of Education, came by to scan 42 medium-format negatives and 80 slides that his mother recently discovered when she was cleaning out her home in preparation for a move. Brett scanned most of them in pairs using our Epson V600 scanner as a digital lightbox. Brett, who has taught a workshop in METRO and helped give advice on our audio booth setup, wonderfully wrote up his experience as a guide to using our scanners as a digital lightbox, which we are now including in our studio documentation.
Scheduling
At first we were handling scheduling through Airtable forms that people could access on our website. I would get pinged with an email every time someone filled out a form requesting to book an appointment, and then I would reach out and handle scheduling and invoicing on a case-by-case basis. It was effective, but high-touch.
Since we are trying to make everything about the Studio as seamless and automated as possible, we’ve spent the past 3 months selecting, procuring, and implementing an online reservation and payment system. We ended up going with Planyo because it offered really flexible, extensible plugins with a lot of the other services that we already use, like Google Calendar and Zapier. Planyo’s flexibility meant that the process of setting it up was very labor-intensive, but Laura Forshay embraced the challenge and made it her mission to automate all the things. So far it’s worked pretty well, with a couple hiccups here and there.
Now you can book time online at the Audio Booth (bit.ly/MetroAudio), the Vinyl Cutter (bit.ly/MetroVinyl), the AV Transfer Station (bit.ly/MetroXfr), and the Digitization Scanners (bit.ly/MetroDigitization). We are still testing out the documentation for the Media Migration & Recovery Station, so that one’s not live yet.
Moving Forward
The dream is for Studio 599 to be a relatively DIY space where people can come in, book time, and learn by doing. We are working on providing detailed, user-friendly documentation for each of our stations. By following the steps we’ve laid out in the documentation, I want our clients to be able use technology with which they have no prior experience. Librarians and archivists are generally a resourceful group of people who are eager to learn — that’s part of the reason I think this will work.
We are constantly evaluating and updating the media (we just got RE20 microphones and a MOTU 4pre digital audio interface for our recording space), so if there’s anything you’d like to see us update, please reach out to me at mschwartz@metro.org.
METRO’s mission statement is to be a place where the libraries and archives of New York come together to learn, share ideas, and collaborate. Hopefully Studio 599 can be a place where that happens.
