On a Mission to Scan: Visibility, Value(s), and Labor in Large-Scale Digitization by Melissa K. Chalmers A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Information) in The University of Michigan 2019 Doctoral Committee Professor Paul N. Edwards, Chair Associate Professor Paul Conway Professor Greg Downey, University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Lisa Nakamura Melissa K. Chalmers [email protected] ORCID id: 0000-0003-1424-9707 Ó Melissa K. Chalmers 2019 Acknowledgements I would first like to extend a warm thank you to my interlocutors for this research, the hardworking librarians, project professionals, and volunteers who welcomed me into their workplaces over these past few years. I hope that my respect for both their time and willingness to engage with me are evident in the dissertation. My advisor and dissertation chair, Paul N. Edwards, has been a mentor to me since my first days in the Ph.D program, and under his guidance I have learned a tremendous amount about being a scholar and writer. Paul’s confidence in me has never wavered and has often exceeded my own confidence in myself, and I remain endlessly grateful for his investment in my growth and success. I particularly appreciate Paul’s gentle yet persistent efforts to dissuade me from turning dissertation writing into an opportunity for nine- dimensional chess, even if I haven’t always been able to heed his sage advice to save me from myself in the moment. Checkers, it turns out, is in fact interesting enough, especially when it’s online team checkers played by technically illiterate seniors. I have drawn inspiration, guidance, and support from the members of my dissertation committee. Paul Conway’s insights and enthusiasm have been instrumental in animating the many issues surrounding cultural heritage digitiZation at scale for me over many years, and I am very thankful for our many generative conversations as well as his continuing engagement with and support of my work. As a disciplinarily undisciplined graduate student, I was fortunate first to encounter the work of Lisa Nakamura (in feminist digital studies) and Greg Downey (in infrastructure studies) and second to work with them as dissertation committee members. While they work in different fields and on different topics, Lisa and Greg each attend closely and thoughtfully to politics, ethics, and labor in their research and writing in ways that have critically informed my approach. Within UMSI, Beth Yakel has provided invaluable mentorship over the last several years. My Ph.D program colleagues and friends Andrea Barbarin, Padma Chirumamilla, LiZ ii Kaziunas, and Adam Kriesberg continue to inspire me with their sharp analytical skills and willingness to take time and energy to problem solve matters big and small. I would also like to thank the late Bob Frost, the first humanist and certainly most human faculty member I met when I came to UMSI as an MSI student. Through this dissertation research I have thought a lot about work. But in my many years as a Ph.D student I have learned as much or more about invisible work—and care work, not surprisingly—from participating in and drawing from a network of inspiringly strong and smart women friends. Their support has included productivity checks, happy hours, dog and child care, and endless hours of conversational support. I have laughed, cried, commiserated, listened, and navigated my life with them. And I am certain that each of them could see pieces of themselves and this support network reflected in my writing, should they read through the many pages that follow. I would therefore like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Sarah Barbrow, Liaa Raquel Cruz, Elizabeth Cain Toth, Kara Cuoio, Veronica Falandino, Carly Groves, Carolyn Kreple Hill, Simone Jenkins, Catriona Macardle, Roxanne McCarley, and Clare Sandling. In particular, I am certain that Caitlin Holman’s steady presence was essential to making it through the Ph.D process. From her deep empathy to her razor sharp editing skills to her endless reserves of enthusiasm for my research when I grew frustrated with it, I remain immensely thankful for our friendship. My family—my parents, Lindsay and Julie Chalmers, and my sister, Courtney White—certainly belong at the core of that network of care. They have supported my path through graduate school (and life more generally) at every turn. They deserve so much more than a thank you for welcoming Mina into their home for hours and days and weeks while I researched and wrote, driving carpools and sending me necessities, providing perspective—and laughs, and just generally showing up for me any time I needed it (and times when I didn’t even know I needed it). I could not have done this without them. I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my daughter, Mina, a piece of my heart somewhat improbably walking around in human form outside my body. She has been and continues to be a smart, funny, caring, sweet, and keen observer of the world we have built together. If I can support her as she grows older and explores her interests and passions as much as she has supported me in getting to this point, I will consider my life to be a great success. iii Finally, I would like to respectfully and enthusiastically submit this dissertation for consideration of membership to the Society of People Interested in Boring Things (Star 2002), should such an entity come to exist again. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................................................. ii List of Tables .............................................................................................................................................................. vi List of Figures .......................................................................................................................................................... vii List of Acronyms ................................................................................................................................................... viii Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................................ ix Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 Producing ‘‘One Vast Index’’: Google Book Search as an Algorithmic System 14 Chapter 3 FamilySearch Books Research Design ............................................................................. 38 Chapter 4 FamilySearch Books: Institutional Perspective(s) ..................................................... 61 Chapter 5 Labor (1): Constructing DigitiZation as Work Anyone Can Do .......................... 103 Chapter 6 Labor (2): Constructing Digitization as Meaningful Work .................................. 146 Chapter 7 Synthesis and Conclusion .................................................................................................. 183 Appendix Research participant codes ....................................................................................................... 216 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................................... 217 v List of Tables Table 3-1 Data collection .................................................................................................................................... 46 Table 4-1 FamilySearch book scanning sites ............................................................................................. 65 vi List of Figures Figure 2-1 Hands scanned by Google (New York, 1862) ...................................................................... 14 Figure 2-2 System for optically scanning documents (Lefevre and Saric, 2009) ..................... 21 Figure 2-3 Imaging a tiny book (Thomas & Shakespeare, 1945) .................................................... 26 Figure 2-4 Moire and color aliasing (Giberne, 1908) ............................................................................ 27 Figure 2-5 Grayscale rendering, Chinese text on rice paper (Zhang & Kangxi, 1882) ........... 28 Figure 2-6 Bitonal rendering of Chinese text on rice paper (Zhang & Kangxi, 1882) ............ 29 Figure 2-7 OCR produced from page images of Mother Goose's Melody (Thomas & Shakespeare, 1945) .............................................................................................................................................. 30 vii List of Acronyms BYU Brigham Young University CSM Church-service Missionary FHC Family History Centers (LDS) FHL Family History Library (Salt Lake City, UT) FS FamilySearch organiZation; family history wing of the LDS Church FSB FamilySearch Books FTM Full-time Senior Missionary GBS Google Book Search GSU Genealogical Society of Utah IA Internet Archive LDS Latter-day Saints; “LDS Church” is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints OCR Optical Character Recognition OLIB FamilySearch library catalog viii Abstract As an often overlooked piece of internet infrastructure, print media digitiZation at scale is pervasive yet elusive; its output is widely accessible but its transformative processes are largely invisible. Easy access to scanned media objects thus obscures important questions about the work required