(Publisher’s note: this is a first -person account written by Josh Jenkins.)
One of my favorite memories of my adolescence was to eat Saturday dinner in the kitchen while watching Star Trek: The next generation On the small TV that was seated at the top of our deep freezer in the corner of the dining room. My mother hated the show, but my father and I watched her every week without fault. I was born in the overhaul of Star Wars and myths surrounding the Skywalker family, but Star Trek gave me a more recent and cleaner vision of the future. The Enterprise crew could ask any information from the ship – not only on earth and its history but on all the details of the explored areas of the galaxy. What a fascination that a computer can contain as much information and make it easily available at any time.
The series has achieved my interest in science fiction, but it also wrapped my thirst for learning, expanding my perspectives and exposing me to new exciting aspects of life. The exploration of the galaxy with the company filled my proverbial bucket. It is not surprising that I have become such a book of Nerd and Travel – I credit it to Gene Roddenberry and to her classic science fiction universe.
It is not surprising that I finally became a librarian. My happiest moments as a student were spent crossing the shelves, discovering new interesting subjects to explore. As my career progressed, I recognized the need to sharpen my skills and stay at the forefront of information technologies. This achievement led me to continue a master’s degree in digital conservation and management at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. To my surprise, the skills that I acquired thanks to the program extend far beyond the traditional library work. While private and public institutions are expanding their digital resources, I saw the opportunity to fill the gap between old -fashioned libraries and the digital collection that I had admired once Star Trek. With enough time, efforts and resources, we could finally make information easily accessible on an almost without limit of subjects. The future had arrived.
Life under the big top: preserve a fleeing world
Before the rise of streaming television, multiplex cinemas and Broadway national tours, the circus was a major focal point of the American entertainment experience. While most people recognize names like Ringling Brothers, PT Barnum and the Bailey Brothers, many other shows have shot in the United States. Emissions such as the Al G. Barnes 3 animal circus 3, the Ring Circus American Victory 3 by Bud E. Anderson and the Pawnee Bill Wild Wild West Show have entertained crowds across the country. For many small towns, the arrival of the circus meant an impromptu vacation, schools and companies closing so that citizens can attend the biggest spectacle to go through their region.
While traveling across the country – and, sometimes the world – the circuits have kept detailed route books documenting each stop of their tour, major events at each place, that the artists were available and other notable events. These road books have become a circus recording for an entire year, offering a rare overview of the life of a traveling circus.
Digital curration: bring the past to the present
In addition to circus road books, the Milner Library of Illinois State University organized a vast collection of circus and allied arts. This collection has become an internationally recognized repository for circus enthusiasts and researchers. Some of the participations include:
• Original photographs
• Personal correspondence
• Commercial records
• Drawings and poster designs
• Artifacts
• Books
• Heralds and other advertisements
• Magazines and newspapers
The Wikidata project
As part of my internship in Illinois State University and the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, I work to extend the links of the digital collection of the Milner library to the Wikidata project. Wikidata, a branch of the largest Wikimedia company, is an open source collaborative database that serves as a centralized knowledge center for all Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia. Essentially, it allows users to create structured inputs that are linked to other Wikimedia resources, forming a large interconnected referential of human knowledge.
As an information specialist and librarian, my role is to extract data from the circus road books and create corresponding Wikidata entries. These registrations are returned to the original sources, guaranteeing the validity of the information and facilitating the exploration of researchers to explore the collection. Using the structured query format of Wikidata (triple: subject → predicate → object), researchers can do advanced research, such as:
• Find Italian circus artists from 1880 to 1920
• Filtering by specific circus companies or circus regions
• Identification of artists who have passed in Vaudeville
This level of research and interconnectivity brings us closer to the fictitious knowledge database of the Enterprise Starship– Except now, it’s real.
The future of the history of circus in the digital age
Although digital conservation is still in its infancy, it is revolutionizing historical research by making the archives more widely accessible beyond the walls of traditional libraries. Thanks to institutions such as the Milner Library, researchers and circus enthusiasts can now access many collections at a remote without cost.
However, digital conservation is not “free”. Many cultural heritage universities and foundations have invested funds to develop digital collections, but more private investments are necessary. Wikimedia tries to fill this gap by offering wider access to images in the public field, but continuous investment in the future of digital collection practices is essential to the preservation of our collective knowledge and our individual cultures.
Institutions always require funding for:
• Specialized staff
• Digital storage and backup systems
• Data preservation protocols
Without continuous investment, generalized access to the stories of circus artists and their communities could fade in darkness. Our work at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and Illinois State University helps ensure that their inheritances live, integrated into the Massive Global Knowledge Network for future generations.
Josh Jenkins is a graduate student in library sciences who studies digital conservation and management at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He finished a remote internship in special collections at the Milner library.