[Themaintainers] New in JASIST: "Forensically reconstructing biomedical maintenance labor: PDF metadata under the epistemic conditions of COVID-19"

[James A Hodges]

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well in the sprint to finish out Spring Semester.

I recently published an article in JASIST that I think will be of interest
to many in the community. After the call went out over this list for
assistance processing iFixit's medical device repair manual collection last
spring, I volunteered for the project and used it as an opportunity to
study medical device maintenence manuals in greater depth.

Early access link:
https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/asi.24484

I can also provide a PDF for anyone who is so inclined-- just reach out via
email (or grab it from my Academia.edu/Researchgate pages).

Abstract:
This study examines the documents circulated among biomedical equipment
repair technicians in order to build a conceptual model that accounts for
mul-tilayered temporality in technical healthcare professional communities.
A metadata analysis informed by digital forensics and trace ethnography is
employed to model the overlapping temporal, format-related, and annotation
characteristics present in a corpus of repair manual files crowdsourced
during collaborations between volunteer archivists and professional
technicians. Thecorpus originates within iFixit.com's Medical Device Repair
collection, a trove of more than 10,000 manuals contributed by working
technicians in response to the strain placed on their colleagues and
institutions due to the COVID-19pandemic. The study focuses in particular
on the Respiratory Analyzer sub-category of documents, which aid in the
maintenance of equipment central to the care of COVID-19 patients
experiencing respiratory symptoms. The 40 Respiratory Analyzer manuals in
iFixit's collection are examined in terms of their original publication
date, the apparent status of their original paper copies, the version of
PDF used to encode them, and any additional metadata that is present. Based
on these characteristics, the study advances a conceptual model accounting
for circulation among multiple technicians, as well as alter-ation of
documents during the course of their lifespans.

Best wishes,
James

-- 

*JAMES A. HODGES, Ph.D.*
Bullard Postdoctoral Research Fellow
University of Texas at Austin
School of Information
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