Archival Education: Data Trails and The Culture Of Learning

“Heritage is not an artifact or site, it is a medium of communication [...] that includes the material, the intangible and the virtual.” (Ashworth, 2007) The intangibility of the internet and the developing digital heritage may compromise the tangible experience of the visitor by the virtual replacement of the original artifact. Nonetheless, there will be an opportunity to gain new interpretation in heritage preservation. However, the physical assets that compromise our tangible experiences of the historic environment are by definition non sustainable over the long term (Cowell, 2010). This paper will argue that the traditional interpretation of heritage has not diminished, but taken a new form of interpretation. There is a need for museums to maintain a link between themselves and the digital technology if it is to maintain and attract new generation of individuals, whilst still keeping its traditional values. This paper will list three key points, the tangibility of the internet experience; participation and preservation and the stereotype of the narrative. We are now in a digital age, increasingly reliant on technology. In 2013, 36 million adults (73%) in Great Britain accessed the internet every day (Office for National Statistics, 2013). The opportunistic value of digital heritage brings a new form of participation. In this instance, by adapting to this digital form, the objects that are exhibited online result in a new form of interpretation and engagement by the individual. By engaging in this new form of digital heritage, we, as a society, receive a difference of perspective in comparison to engaging with exhibits first hand. Over the past couple of decades, digitally created content has come to permeate all aspects of our lives and the life cycle of these objects is increasingly exclusively digital (Semantic Digital Archives, 2014). This new form of experience is an exchange in the enthusiasm of encountering exhibits first hand. Museums have adapted to this virtual form as this new age of learning is the only consistent way of preserving the past. The Institute of Conservation (ICONS) confirms that as a medium for public debates about heritage, the Web has both advantages and disadvantages, such as creating opportunities for participation and multivocality, but it is accompanied by the risk of producing fragmentation and a cacophony of viewpoints (Mason & Baveystock, 2009). Along with other institutions, the museum is no doubt the ideal place where one can imagine the creation of this "alternative heritage" especially when the original installation cannot be preserved (Barblan, 2007: 10). This matter of sustainability including the pervasiveness of digital data and documents has major consequences for this obsession with memory (Habert & Huc, 2010). Especially when one can argue that the main purpose of digital conservation of these artifacts is for that exact purpose. As a result of this, there is a risk of fragmentation in organisations. The ambiguity and fragmentation implied in modern distributed organisation is being increased even further by the growing use of modern digital technologies (Lorezo, 2010: 343). Therefore, the question of sustainability, in regards to digital archiving becomes apparent. Will digital archiving replace the original artifacts in its present form? Not entirely, unless improved ways of preservation are imposed, otherwise the artifacts will follow nature of physical decay at an increased pace. The variations of risk of these artifacts, range from those associated with neglect or unchecked physical decay (Cowell, 2010:34). Why adapt to this ‘new age of learning’, is it a need for the museums to update, itself? Museums have previously been associated as being boring, rather than lively, thriving and exciting (Davies, 1994), which is primarily the reason museums are following the ‘trend’. There has previously been a need to develop a new form of interpreting the artifacts as part of the establishment. As Garcia-Lorezo (2010) states: “The process of telling stories has always been mediated by technology [...] allowing us to reach new levels of innovation, creativity and personal development (p. 331). This new form of heritage, whereby the traditional values of museums, to educate and inform, is still being fulfilled whilst still maintaining its role as the main source of narrative. According to Dalbello (2011), the study of the role of digital tools in the transformation of writing, thinking, and teaching in humanistic fields is within the purview of ‘digital humanities’ (2011: 480). Whereas Kushla-Hulme and Traxler (2007) state that mobile technologies are particularly suited for supporting personalised, situated, authentic and informal learning (2007: 181). As an advantage, by updating itself as an establishment, museums are able to attract a new generation of audiences who have adopted this intangible form of digital heritage. As a result, a new form of engagement from the audience is created and a common bond is established with the digital generation (Mann, et al., 2013) With many museums currently working on the development of Digital Strategies, setting out how they will use digital technologies and channels to engage with audiences, share their collections and potentially open up new sources of income. (Collections Trust, 2012). The new practices of collection, interpretation and dissemination are required in order to show how history and heritage can be used to rethink the way in which people can approach future difficulties (Tait, et al., 2013; DeSilvey, 2012). As for the traditionalist, with these new practices the lack of contact time and the lack of experiencing objects for the first time is a detriment to the individual, as the original asset is not interpreted. In conclusion, heritage has a longer sustainability if it converts its artifacts digitally. Through this new age of learning, the museum has the ability to produce a narrative through a new form of digital heritage. Significantly, museums are not just for visitors who enter the door; they are also for the new generation of technologically adapt audiences who research mainly through the medium of internet. Through this medium, the museum is able to reach a wider-audience. The advantage of online archives as a source enables the artifacts to be preserved in its original state with no fear of physical decay. However, there is neither a back-up nor a guarantee that the survival of these archives if both the physical and the online artifacts have been damaged either through physical decay or technological fault. Bibliography Ashworth, G., 2007. 'On townscapes, heritages and identities', paper presented at Institute for Advanced Studies Colloquium on Urban-Rural: Flows and Boundaries, Lancaster University. [Online] Available at: www.lancs.ac.uk/ias/annualprogramme/regionalism/docs/Ashworth_paper.doc [Accessed 27 November 2014]. Barblan, M. A., 2007. Engineering Works and Scaled-down Models Or Industry Laid Bare. In: H. K. Vieregg, ed. Museology and Techniques Muséologie – Les techniques au Musée Museología y Tecnologías. Munich: ICOFOM. Collections Trust, 2012. Digital Strategy. [Online] Available at: http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/digital-strategy [Accessed 30 October 2014]. Cowell, B., 2010. Why Heritage Counts: Researching the Historic Environment. Culture Trends, 13(4), pp. 23-39. Dalbello, M., 2011. A geneaology of digital humanities. Journal of Documentation, 67(3), pp. 480-506. Davies, S., 1994. By popular demand. London: MGC. DeSilvey, C., 2012. Making sense of transience: an anticipatory history. Cultural Geographies, 19(1), pp. 31-54. Habert, B. & Huc, C., 2010. Building together digital archives for researc in social sciences and humanities. [Online] Available at: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00466352 [Accessed 20 November 2014]. Holmes, K. & Slater, A., 2012. Patterns of Voluntary Participation in Membership Associations: A Study of UK Heritage Supporter Groups. Nonprofit and Volutary Sector, 41(5), pp. 850-869. Kushla-Hulme, A. & Traxler, J., 2007. Designing for mobile and wireless learning. In: H. Beetham & R. Sharpe, eds. Rethinnking Pedagogy for a digital age: Designing and delivering e-learning. London: Routledge. Lorezo, L. G., 2010. Framing Uncertainty: narratives, change and digital technologies. Social Science Information, 49(3), pp. 329-350. Mann, S., Moses, J. & Fisher, M., 2013. Catching Our Breath: Assessing Digital Technologies for Meaningful Visitor Engagement. [Online] Available at: http://name-aam.org [Accessed 20 November 2014]. Mason, R. & Baveystock, Z., 2009. What role can digital heritage play in the re-imagining of national identities? England and its icons. In: M. Anico & E. Peralta, eds. Heritage and Identity: Engagement and Demission in the Contemporary World. New York: Routledge, pp. 15-28. Mason, R. & Baveystock, Z., 2009. What role can digital heritage play in the re-imagining of national identities?: England and its icons. In: M. Anico & E. Peralta, eds. Heritage and Identity: Engagement and Demission in the Contemporary World. New York: Routledge, pp. 15-28. Office for National Statistics, 2013. Statistical Bulletin: Internet Access - Households and Individuals, 2013. [Online] Available at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_322713.pdf [Accessed 30 October 2014]. Semantic Digital Archives, 2014. SDA Workshop Information. [Online] Available at: http://sda2014.dke-research.de/ [Accessed 30 October 2014]. Tait, E. et al., 2013. Linking to the past: an analysis of community digital heritage initiatives. Aslib Proceedings, 65(6), pp. 564-580.

The MIT Press eBooks, 2007

Papers presented at the conference in Tartu, 14

Information, Communication & Society, 2011

Proceedings of the Fifteenth International ISKO Conference 9-11 July 2018 Porto, Portugal, 2018

This presentation aims at expounding on the importance of information and communication technology (ICT) and of digital heritage in strengthening the bilateral relations of and the interaction between civil society and its collective cultural heritage, as well as their role in the recognition and understanding of the particularities and the importance of the history and accounts of these constructed sets. By following this approach, I intend to address the subject of digital technology, highlighting its ever-increasing importance and leading role as an instrument for the study and preservation of cultural and architectural heritage assets. The latter aspect is particularly vital in understanding cities as living entities and physical embodiments of the collective memory, so as to create a database and a set of various highly significant types of knowledge, which can potentially be universally accessed and shared. The use of ICT, providing new forms of accessing and organizing knowledge, has become an increasingly central and essential process in the field of digital heritage. The management of content disseminated through ICT acts as a basic element in the overall communication and sustainability of knowledge. ICT not only broadens the scope of research but also serves to disseminate it to a wider and more diverse audience in an interactive manner. On the other hand, the implementation of research projects in the field of digital heritage – based on history of art and history of architecture – leads to the exploration of approaches with the aim of recovering, analysing and interpreting lost or otherwise invisible/transformed heritage assets within the urban landscape. By extension, they allow us to not only question how these strategies are used to reinsert the absent/transformed historical city in its multiple layers within the contemporary environment but also to assess the connection of civil society with its (in)visible legacy. In conclusion, the multidisciplinary nature of this approach is the key focus, an approach that effectively combines digital humanities, history, history of art, architecture and information technology.

2015

The present article questions the construction of 'the contemporary' in digital cultural heritage archives as specific strategic articulations between past and present with regard to the future. A historical exploration of the discourse of cultural heritage presents three strategic axes supposedly executed by the archive. Via a fourfold problematisation of the notion of the contemporary these axes are further developed with regard to W.J.T. Mitchell and Georges Didi-Huberman's respective readings of Warburg's Atlas Mnemosyne and Malraux's Musée imaginaire. The article finally questions the possibility of ascribing inherent epistemological, existential, empirical and geopolitical force to a given technological archival order. FCJ-174 fibreculturejournal.org FCJ-174 Constructing the contemporary via digital cultural heritage ture and Development-Summary Version.

PAD Journal, 2023

Archives, on the other hand, are the main players in the process of digitisation and digitalisation of past documents, sources and artefacts to be then studied, preserved and transmitted to future generations as cultural and human heritages in a virtual form as an alternative, duplicate or substitute of the original ones. Fragments potentially dispersed, even if not almost lost, perishable, hidden to be preserved or otherwise forgotten, are translated in a new paradigm of existence to be further passed down, discovered again, and brought to new lives. Alternatively, vice versa, entire collections are progressively remastered through digital formats, devices and tools and reconfigured thank the opportunities-in terms of languages and interactions-offered by the technology revolutions in a planned and progressive process of transmission, transduction and migration, to complex communication ecosystems aimed to translate information into experience, communication into storytelling and implicit knowledge in accessible understanding. Digitisation, considered as an opportunity to indefinitely preserve documents and artefacts otherwise ephemeral, perishable, fading or missed-surviving just through indirect sources-is facing a possible questioning phase (Ferraris, 2009) if not an actual crisis according to Vincent Cerf's statement referred to the morality of contemporary digital photographic heritage (Sample, 2015). The concept of heritage itself is deeply connected, on the one hand, to the idea of the past, i.e. memory, and on the other hand, to the idea of unknown, foreseeable, possible, probable or desirable future experiences, which is still in a potential and developing dimension of human exploration/time.

Transforming Culture in the Digital Age, pp. 187-193, 2010

2007

All rights reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically those of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, broadcasting, reproduction by photocopying machines or similar means, and storage in data banks.