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DTSTART:20260409T190000Z
DTEND:20260409T210000Z
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SUMMARY:Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms
DESCRIPTION:Please join us for a lecture by  Dr. Amelia Acker on her most 
 recent book\,  Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms!\n\nWhen: 
 3:00pm\, Thursday\, April  9\n\nWhere: Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library\, 
 120 St. George Street\n\nDescription:\n\nOur world is filled with data we 
 create but cannot access. We generate massive digital archives with every 
 click\, swipe\, and search—but corporations\, not individuals or 
 institutions\, control where this data lives and who can use it. When did 
 archiving become something that machines do automatically\, rather than a 
 deliberate act of preservation for the public good? And how did we arrive 
 at this arrangement with platforms?\n\n Archiving Machines chronicles the 
 hidden history of how data came to be structured and stored\, before it 
 could be streamed and automatically saved to the cloud. This lecture will 
 examine how data archiving\, the computational processes of storage\, 
 exchange\, and transmission\, have transformed memory practices and created 
 new regimes of asymmetric access. Drawing on archival fieldwork with 
 historic computing machines\, Dr. Acker traces how “archive” became a 
 verb in computing cultures\, and how this shift has enabled corporate 
 platforms to assert functional sovereignty over access to collective 
 memory. By examining moments of access in the history of data management\, 
 this work offers both a critical genealogy of our current condition and 
 grounds for imagining alternative futures for digital cultural memory.\n\n 
 \n\nBio:\n\nAmelia Acker is an Associate Professor in the School of 
 Communication & Information at Rutgers\, The State University of New 
 Jersey. Her research on data management and digital preservation has been 
 supported with funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services\, 
 the National Science Foundation\, the Sloan Foundation\, the Ford 
 Foundation\, and the ACM History and Archiving Fellowship. Acker’s 
 projects address the representation and loss of digital traces\, the 
 history of data management\, and the transmission of information through 
 time. She investigates how infrastructure and organizational practices 
 shape the preservation\, accessibility\, and governance of data\, with a 
 particular focus on the impact of platforms\, software\, and AI on archives 
 and digital memory. Acker is the author of Archiving Machines: From Punch 
 Cards to Platforms (MIT\, 2025).\n\n
LOCATION:Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library\, St. George (Downtown) Campus
ORGANIZER;CN="Rachel Beattie":MAILTO:rai.beattie@utoronto.ca
CATEGORIES:Fisher
CONTACT;CN="Rachel Beattie":MAILTO:rai.beattie@utoronto.ca
STATUS:CONFIRMED
UID:LibCal-4009386
URL:https://libcal.library.utoronto.ca/calendar/8054/acker
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