• Hacking heritage: understanding the limits of online access

    Author(s):
    Tim Sherratt (see profile)
    Date:
    2018
    Group(s):
    Archives, Digital Humanists, Library & Information Science
    Subject(s):
    Archives, Library materials--Digitization, Archival materials--Digitization, Libraries, Museums
    Item Type:
    Book chapter
    Tag(s):
    access, hacking, RecordSearch, search, Trove, Collections, Digitisation
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6XW0G
    Abstract:
    As cultural heritage collections become available online they carry the promise of ‘access’ – new audiences, new uses, new understandings. But access is never simply open. Limits are imposed, structures are defined, categories are created. Decisions are made about what gets digitised and why. This chapter will describe a series of experiments within online cultural heritage collections to investigate the meaning of access. What happens, for example, if we invert the usual processes of discovery and focus on records in the National Archives of Australia that have been withheld from public view? What does our history look like if we restrict our gaze only to resources that have been digitised? By manipulating the contexts of cultural heritage collections we can start to see their limits and biases. By hacking heritage we can move beyond search interfaces and image galleries to develop an understanding of what’s missing.
    Notes:
    Preprint of a chapter submitted for publication as part of The Routledge International Handbook of New Digital Practices in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Heritage Sites.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 years ago
    License:
    Attribution
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