Exploring the Participatory Archives

Exploring the Participatory Archives: Why, What, Who, Where, and Why
Kate Theimer
Society of American Archivists
August 25, 2011

Why are we talking about participatory archives?

Because participatory is sexy now

Because we’re increasingly surrounded by themeven if we don’t call them that

So, what does it mean?

Definition of “participatory culture”
Blah, blah, blah . . .
Create, not consume

Definition of participatory museum
“I define a participatory cultural institution as a place where visitors can create, share, and connect with each other around content.”
Nina Simon, The Participatory Museum, ii

One definition of participatory archives
“an archive implementing decentralised curation, radical user orientation and contextualisation of both records and the entire archival process.”
IstoHuvila, Archival Science, 2008

Proposed: a new definition
Participatory archives
An organization, site or collection in which people other than the archives professionals contribute knowledge or resources resulting in increased understanding about archival materials, usually in an online environment .

What and why are people contributing?
“knowledge or resources”
“resulting in increased understanding about archival materials”
NOT opinions, feelings or artistic creations
NOT to have fun, derive personal satisfaction or increase awareness of archives
Participation is different from engagement

Engagement is important

Ways of creating engagement
Story
Winning something
Conversation
Sharing and rating
Humor
Inspiring wonder or creativity

Participation requires a higher bar
Participation = contribution of knowledge or resources

Why that last phrase?
. . . usually in an online environment
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcwetboy/358566108/

So what’s new?
Online environment allows for distributed, remote, occasional participation
Harnessing “cognitive surplus” from an almost unlimited pool of people

Who is creating participatory archives? Who is participating?
Contributing knowledge

Contributing
knowledge

Contributing resources

Where is this happening?
Platform independent
In person and not

And back to why
Why is it important to have this definition?
Why is it important to have this discussion?

For Following up
kate.theimer@gmail.com
www.archivenext.com

http://archiv.twoday.net	3384
http://www.archivesnext.com	2750
http://archieven.blogspot.com	660
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	9
http://www.rambow.de	9
http://twitter.com	6
http://archive.feedblitz.com	5
http://translate.google.com	5
http://erichennekam.blogspot.com	3
http://archivesnext.org	3
http://shriek.twoday.net	2
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com	1
http://www.hanrss.com	1
http://failboatweb.appspot.com	1
http://www.feed2list.com	1
http://anonymouse.org	1
http://www.feedblitz.com	1
http://127.0.0.1	1

Exploring the Participatory Archives

by Kate Theimer on Aug 30, 2011

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Exploring the Participatory Archives — Presentation Transcript