David Allyn Bliss

Developing efficient, reliable methods davidallynbliss@gmail.com | davidallynbliss.com

to preserve cultural heritage responsibly ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6211-0967

Summary
My professional goal is to ensure long-term preservation of cultural heritage materials to facilitate their
continued use by researchers and creators themselves. My work is informed in equal parts by
contextual knowledge, ethical considerations, digital preservation standards, and the importance of
scaleable, efficient workflows.

Skills
Digital preservation – Scanning & Digital Imaging – Digital asset management – Workflow design –
Spanish-language instruction & technical support – Taxonomy & description – Web archiving –
Data manipulation and reuse – Project management – Spanish-language research & reference – Public
outreach

Education
University of Texas at Austin School of Information
Master of Science in Information Studies, May 2017
Archival Enterprise
Digital Preservation

University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

Master of Arts, May 2013
Latin American and Early Modern European History

Macalester College, St Paul, MN

Bachelor of Arts, cum la ude , May 2011
Major: History
Minor: Classics

Oxford University (Regent's Park College), United Kingdom

Non-degree coursework, October 2009-March 2010
History and Classics
Archival Experience (selected)
LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, the University of Texas at
Austin

Digital Processing Archivist July 2017-Present

• In support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation “Cultivating a Latin

American Post-Custodial Archival Praxis” grant.
o Developed post-custodial digitization and preservation workflows for partner
organizations in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and El Salvador
o Researched, purchased, and configured digitization equipment and software to
meet each post-custodial project partner’s needs individually. All equipment and
software was selected for ease of use, portability, Spanish and/or Portuguese
language support, imaging quality, cost efficiency, and preservation best practices
o Led week-long Spanish-language implementation workshop for Fondo Real de
Cholula (FRC) digitization project in Puebla, Mexico, teaching the digitization
and description workflows to the local project team. Adjusted metadata template
and digitization workflow on site in response to questions and feedback from the
team and archives staff
o Managed FRC project from June 2018 to May 2019. Answered technical and
logistical questions from the digitization team. Monitored digitization and
description progress with biweekly reports
o Managed physical transfer, ingest, quality control, processing, and preservation of
all digital objects received from post-custodial partners
o Advised on the implementation of an Islandora 8/Fedora 4 repository to house
Benson collection materials from post-custodial partnerships. Created website
wireframes. Devised collections structure using Fedora 4 native ontologies, to
accommodate the full range of post-custodial collection structures. Tested and
documented repository features and ingest process

• In support of the LLILAS Benson Digital Initiatives team

o Drafted policies for digital asset ingest and digital preservation for all Benson
special collections
o Established formal ingest and digital preservation workflows for all digital special
collections objects. Established robust documentation practices to track all
Benson digital assets across all network locations and platforms. These include
ingest and preservation logs, collection inventories, and UTL Digital Asset
Management System (DAMS) ingest tracking
o Inventoried digital backlog materials, including legacy digital media from mixed-
media collections
o Ingested, logged, and preserved Benson digital collections materials on behalf of
the Special Collections team
o Developed bespoke digital processing and preservation workflow for the
Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional (AHPN) digital collection, repurposing
SHA 256 hash algorithms to disaggregate different copies of the collection and
ingest updates approximately 97% more efficiently
 o Assisted Special Collections staff with EAD finding aid data manipulation,
extracting individually numbered manuscripts in the Genaro García Archive,
previously interspersed throughout the “Guide to the Latin American
Manuscripts” legacy finding aid. Updated finding aid available online:
https://tinyurl.com/yxf74nh7

• Web archiving
o Managed Archive-It subscriptions for the Human Rights Documentation
Initiative (HRDI) and LLILAS Benson web archives
o Ran quarterly web crawls of human rights-related websites to provide secure
backups of sensitive information for advocates and researchers alike
o Restructured LLILAS Benson Archive-It subscription, formerly used only for
the Latin American Government Documents Archive, to accommodate special
collections donor websites and legacy Benson webpages
o Reviewed crawl reports to resolve capture errors, ensure complete website
captures, and resolve crawler traps
o Advised on data budget needs for the project, reducing annual spending by
thousands of dollars each year
o Collections available online: https://archive-it.org/collections/1475 &
https://archive-it.org/organizations/61

Graduate Research Assistant June 2015-June 2017

Post-custodial and Digital Initiatives & Human Rights Documentation Initiative

• In support of the British Library Endangered Archives Programme

“Conserving Indigenous Memories of Land Privatisation in Mexico:
Michoacán’s Libros de Hijuelas, 1719-1929 (EAP931)” grant
o Designed workflow using Adobe Lightroom to efficiently digitize and name 192
fragile books, comprising roughly 93,000 pages
o Established project standards for file formats and digital preservation processes
in accordance with professional standards and British Library requirements
o Led Spanish-language workshop in Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico, teaching the
digitization process to the local project team
o Ingested digital files, verifying data integrity and running quality control. Drafted
quality control guide for future GRAs

• In support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation “Post-Custodial Archival

Development and Digital Scholarship: Learning from Latin America” grant
o Performed extensive quality control on thousands of images received from post-
custodial partners in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador
o Performed image cleanup and mergers as necessary in Adobe Photoshop
o Developed guidelines for tracking site visit statistics, using Google Analytics
o Drafted guide for the website to improve user experience
 • Digital audiovisual content management
o Managed five audiovisual collections using Glifos content management platform
o Ingested, described, and published materials related to the Salvadoran Civil War,
Syrian Jewish communities, the Mexican-American experience in Texas, and the
death penalty in Texas
o Edited audio files in Audacity according to digital audio preservation standards
o Edited and synchronized transcripts in Spanish, English, and Portuguese
o Met with partners from various postcustodial projects to establish workflow
agreements and responsibilities, based on mutual needs and capacity
o Managed Glifos user permissions to provide appropriate levels of control to
different project managers & protect collections

East Austin Digital Archive, St. Edward’s University

Graduate Volunteer Fall 2016-Spring 2017

• Metadata and Taxonomy project

o Described 7,000 digital image files and 40 digital books, documenting the process
of gentrification in East Austin over the course of several years
o Developed taxonomy based solely on the file structure and naming conventions
of the collection
o Extracted descriptive metadata automatically using command line functions and
OpenRefine, including extensive use of regular expressions and GREL, with
minimal data cleanup required
o Established naming guidelines for future class submissions to the archive, to
make metadata cleaner and more consistent, and to facilitate reliable geotagging.
o Advised on expanding the archive to accommodate community user submissions
and contributions of other formats from other classes

Women’s March on Washington Archives Project

Co-coordinator, Austin, TX march Winter 2016-Summer 2017

• Oral history and photography documentation project

o Coordinated team of volunteers systematically documenting the January 21st,
2017 Women’s March on Austin through oral histories and photography
o Established oral history standards, led oral history team on the day of the march,
and selected and described recordings for the archive
o Co-wrote photography guidelines which were adopted by the entire national
effort
o Uploaded materials to the national project’s online repository
o Secured a home for the materials at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American
History at UT Austin
Austin History Center
Graduate Volunteer Fall 2015

• August Watkins Harris Records and Drawings

o Processed archival collection as member of a class group. Created EAD finding
aid for the collection.
o Finding aid available online: http://tinyurl.com/zkwm26p

Publications
Alpert-Abrams, Hannah, David A. Bliss, and Itza Carbajal. "Post-Custodial Archiving for the
Collective Good: Examining Neoliberalism in US-Latin American Archival
Partnerships." Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 2 (March 03, 2019).
https://journals.litwinbooks.com/index.php/jclis/article/view/87.
Butler, Matthew, and David A. Bliss. "Digital Resources: The Hijuelas Collection." Oxford
Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, September 2018.
doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.618.

Conference Presentations
2019 Society of American Archivists annual meeting – “Means of Production and Selection:
Capitalist Frameworks in Archival Contexts” Presentation and panel discussion
64th Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials conference (SALALM),
2019 – “Fostering a Latin American Post Custodial Paradigm: Reports from the Field”
Presentation and panel discussion
2019 Texas Conference on Digital Libraries – “The Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional
Digital Preservation Project at UT Libraries” Poster presentation
2019 UT Digital Preservation Symposium – “Massive Data Disaggregation for Efficient
Digital Preservation: The AHPN digital collection” Lightning talk
Haverford College Archives and Historical Memory in Guatemala Symposium, April 12
2019 – “Digitizing Human Rights Archives in Latin America” Presentation and panel
discussion
2018 Texas Conference on Digital Libraries – “Post-Custodial Praxis at LLILAS Benson:
Lessons in Digitization, Access, and Community Partnerships” Presentation and panel
discussion
2018 UT Digital Preservation Symposium – “Preserving the Archivo Histórico de la Policía
Nacional: Scaling preservation for massive datasets” Lightning talk
2017 Society of American Archivists annual meeting – “Documenting the Women’s March
on Austin, January 21st, 2017: Assembling a professional-quality archival documentation
effort on short notice” Poster presentation
2017 Texas Conference on Digital Libraries – “Designing and implementing a digitization
workflow for post-custodial initiatives at the Benson Latin American Collection, UT Austin”
Poster presentation
2016 UT Digital Preservation Symposium – “Using Glifos to Preserve and Present
Audiovisual material” Lightning talk

Classroom Presentations (UT Austin)

LAH/HUM 350 Treasure Hunt in Campus Archives, spring 2017, 2018 & 2019 – “Digital
archiving, web archiving, and human rights archives”
HIS 386L/LAS 386 Modern Central America: Digital Archives, spring 2018 – “Web
Archiving at the Benson and HRDI” and “Radio Venceremos and working with AV
collections”
INF 389S Introduction to Archival Enterprise II, spring 2018 & 2019 – “Human Rights
archives at the HRDI and Benson Latin American Collection”
J 395/MAS 392 Oral History as Journalism, spring 2017 – “Describing and transcribing oral
histories in Glifos”

Professional engagement and service

Digital Library Federation Assessment Interest Group (DLF AIG) Cost Assessment
working group – Member, October 2017-present
Breaking Library Silos for Social Justice (BLS4SJ) collective – Web design, February 2019-
present
2018 UT Digital Preservation Symposium – Conference planning committee
Society of American Archivists-UT Austin student chapter (SAA-UT) – 2016 President
Dr. Michelle Caswell visit to UT-Austin, April 2017 – Co-coordinator
• Organized visit by Dr. Michelle Caswell, a leading scholar in archival ethics and
community archives. Secured several institutional sources of funding for the event
on behalf of SAA-UT.
• Dr. Caswell presented a lecture titled “Archives Against Annihilation: Imagining
Otherwise” and led a workshop titled “Identifying and Dismantling White
Supremacy in Library and Information Science.”
Awards received
Digital Library Federation – Student and New Professional Fellow, 2017
Philip A. Metzger Scholarship for the study of rare books, manuscripts, and special
collections - 2015-2016 academic year, 2016-2017 academic year
Alice Duggan and David Caldwell Gracy Endowed Presidential Scholarship - 2016-2017
academic year
UT Libraries David O. Nilsson Fellowship - Fall semester 2016

Software and technical proficiencies (selected)

Windows & UNIX command line – OpenRefine – BagIt – File Information Tool Set –
AccessData FTK Imager – SQL – Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, InDesign, & Premiere –
Audacity – LaTeX