Project Description
Documentary Focus
It is a scientific fact that every human eats. Every day, in order to live, humans eat meals in the morning, noon, and night. Food takes up a lot of our lives as we constantly think about what we're going to eat, and we ask ourselves the daily question, "What's for dinner?" Due to food having such a significant presence in people's lives, our Univesity of Michigan HIstorical Campus Recipes archive has dedicated its focus to sharing University of Michigan recipes.
At first glance, recipes may seem simplistic in nature, but the recipes and the meals they create tell a story. These recipes that are presented here in our archive can invoke memories of times past spent at the University of Michigan, whether by just looking at them or even going the extra mile and cooking them yourself! Our goal is to provide a story of the University of Michigan told through food and to strengthen communal culinary memory. The dishes in this collection cover multiple occasions, whether a home-cooked breakfast or a buffet table fit for a tailgate. Who knows, maybe you'll even find your next favorite dish on this site!
Criteria for record selection
In order to be considered for use in this collection, the materials must be included in a cookbook published or distributed by an organization affiliated with the University of Michigan. The materials may include either individual recipes or menu recommendations. Recipes within these cookbooks had to be created by individuals, whether they be staff, students, faculty members, or organizations of the University of Michigan. Individual recipes were chosen for variety and representation of different ingredients and meal occurrences. There was no criteria to exclude any recipe based on any dietary restrictions, cooking methods, or time invested in the cooking process. While there was no specific criteria for it, the likelihood of inclusion was increased for recipes with alliteractive names or ingredient combinations modern tastes might consider "strange." The collection does not include any recipes from sources outside those affiliated with the University of Michigan.
Consideration of archival concepts and practices
One significant consideration we had during the making of this archive is the legality of showcasing recipes not of our own creation online. One legal requirement that must be kept in mind when collecting and presenting the recipes used in our digital archive is copyright laws. According to copyright law, the written list of ingredients that comprise a recipe does not violate copyright restrictions. However, according to the U.S. Copyright Office, any accompanying written text, such as preparation instructions, photographs, and videos, fall under copyright protection since we are in the digital age. What is more, when it comes to a collection of recipes, like a cookbook, even if a particular recipe within it is in the public domain, the collection is still protected by copyright (Copyright Protection in Recipes, 2020). This is important to know since most of our digital archive project comprises individually attributed recipes within cookbooks.
So, knowing this, how will my group stay in accordance with the law? From the course reading of Katherine Fisher’s article Copyright and Preservation of Born-digital Materials: Persistent Challenges and Selected Strategies we learn that while archives and libraries, as well as students, can be exempt from copyright laws under section(s) 107 and 108, which state the rationale of fair use and preservation for exemptive purposes, such exemptions still fall within a legal gray area (Fisher, 2020). Our digital archive falls under the fair use law, but to avoid copyright infringement, my group will strive to stay with material to which the Michigan Special Collections owns the copyrights and ask for permission from them to use on our site. We will also follow the correct institutional procedures that the university’s Special Collections has in place regarding taking photographs of the original recipes and publishing them online. We will make sure to give the Special Collections proper attribution to them and, as well as note the cookbook and recipe authors.
Another significant consideration we had during the making of this archive is the ethical issue of intellectual property rights. As Fisher mentions, it is our ethical duty to “act within the prescribed law when it comes to making decisions about copying… and to respect intellectual property rights and advocate balance between the interests of information users and rights holders” (Fisher, 2020, p. 260). When it comes to our digital archive being comprised of individual recipes, we fall under this ethical dilemma of intellectual property. While the University of Michigan may own the rights to the cookbooks the recipes were found in, most recipes are the intellectual property of the individual creators. As individuals, they have a right to privacy, which Hudson (2004) highlighted in her article In Secret Kept, In Silence Sealed: Privacy in the Papers of Authors and Celebrities. While these individuals might not be celebrities or famous in the ways that Hudson’s article focused on, they still have the right to privacy and confidentiality as we, as archivists, strive to promote free and open access to the material their intellectual property resides in.
Target user group
The primary users of our archive are Univesity of Michigan alumni, current students and staff interested in the university's culinary history, as well as researchers who have interest in the University of Michigan. As users we hope that they would use and see our digital archive as informational as it revolves around and provides insight into the social memory and culinary history of the food created and served by past Wolverines. We also hope our archive will have a symbolic use for our users as these recipes can be symbolic of the time they spent as a student or staff member at the university. Finally, users who are mayby from/work for the university themselves can utilize this archive and see it as evidential as the preserved recipes serve as organizational memory for the culinary sector of the school.
The secondary users of our archive will be the family and friends of the primary users who are exposed to the recipes found on this digital archive. We hope that our primary users will be inspired to recreate the dishes showcased here and feed them to their social circle so that more people can be reached by what is shared here.
Overall, our target user group are those who love food! Be it University of Michigan alumni, current students of the University, or even researchers interested in the culinary history of this school, we hope that our primary audience learn and be exposed to new and interesting recipes!
Perspectives
This collection expresses the perspectives of past students, as well as former and current staff. This demographic only represents the University of Michigan, however, not all of these recipes come from the Michigan region. This collection includes dishes from around the world, with the common perspective of all of them coming together in the University of Michigan community.
What we are missing are actual accounts from the people who made and donated these recipes for inclusion in university cookbooks. Without knowing the person behind the text, we lose their unique cultural context. This is important to keep in mind while viewing the collection. Questions like, how did international recipes make their way to the University of Michigan come to mind with little to no answer. Also, since these recipes have be collected into specific cookbooks, we lose the perspective of when these recipes were actually created or if the author the recipes are attributed with are the actual authors are people who just had this recipe in their collection that they deemed to share with the authors of the cookbooks.
To counteract this issue, we have created as "Recipe Submission" page where people can submit their recipes or food memories from their time at the University of Michigan. Flinn and Shepard state, "Accounts ...indicate not only the importance of ‘minority voices’ being heard and included... but also of enabling that inclusion by the recognition that many more things ... need to be included and understood within the archival heritage" (Flinn et al., 2009). We hope to give a voice to those who have not yet been represented in the recipes already presented within this archive through the submission of food memories and additional recipes. The university has a diverse population from people all around the globe and it's a shame if they can't be heard.
Click Next to explore the "Authors" page