EVA Initiative

About

The Evolving Archives (EVA) Initiative at the University of Illinois Archives is an innovative model for a new approach to archives in the digital age.

The major goals of the EVA Initiative are twofold:

  1. We want to rethink how archives collect and provide access to relevant materials, in light of the increasing use of social media tools among campus community and alumni.
  2. We want to develop new ways of collecting and soliciting personal experiences and memories related to the University in the form of user-submitted photographs, informal oral histories and social media outputs like blog posts, tweets, or Facebook status updates.

In order to achieve these goals, we are working with individuals who are either currently or formerly members of the campus community to collect their memories. We will also work with campus units interested in developing similar projects to document their own histories.

The EVA Initiative promotes a collaborative, distributed model for managing digital archival holdings across the institution, working with other departments and initiatives like the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences’ Lincoln Hall Project Storyography and capitalizing on shifting trends in library and university technology profiles. This means that we will advise these units in the creation of their own projects with the intention of transferring their content to our managed digital repository at such a time as they will no longer need regular access to the materials. Our early involvement in this process will ensure units have the information and assistance they need to make these files accessible to researchers far into the future.

Interested in Participating?

For Campus Units: check out our Toolkit.

For Individuals: check out our Submission Facts.