Participatory archives

For Immediate Release
Mon, 11/18/2019

Contact:

Rob Christopher

Marketing Coordinator

ALA Publishing

American Library Association

3122805052

rchristopher@ala.org

CHICAGO — From managing copyright and ownership to dealing with orphan works, open data access to heritage representations and artifacts, and cultural heritage amateurs, the internet has created new challenges for cultural heritage institutions. “Participatory Archives: Theory and Practice,” published by Facet Publishing and available through the ALA Store, uses a selection of international case studies to explore these and related issues, demonstrating that in order for personal and community-based documentation and artifacts to be preserved and included in social and collective histories, individuals and community groups need the technical and knowledge infrastructures of support that formal cultural institutions can provide. Edited by Edward Benoit, III and Alexandra Eveleigh, this book explores:

  • participants in the preservation of cultural heritage, exploring heritage institutions and organizations, community archives, and groups;
  • challenges, including discussion of giving voices to communities, social inequality, digital archives, and data and online sharing; and
  • solutions, discussing open access and APIs, digital postcards, the case for collaboration, digital storytelling and co-designing heritage practice.

Benoit, III is assistant professor at the School of Library & Information Science at Louisiana State University. He is the coordinator of both the archival studies and cultural heritage resource management MLIS specializations. He is the founder and director of the Virtual Footlocker Project, which examines the personal archiving habits of the 21st-Century soldier in an effort to develop new digital capture and preservation technologies to support their needs. Eveleigh is Collections Information Manager at Wellcome Collection in London, UK. From 2014 to 2016, she held academic positions in Information Studies and Digital Humanities at University College London and the University of Westminster respectively, following her PhD research at UCL in collaboration with The National Archives entitled "Crowding Out the Archivist? Implications of Online User Participation for Archival Theory and Practice" (2015). She was awarded a 2008 Winston Churchill Fellowship in connection to her work on born digital archives.

Facet Publishing, the commercial publishing and bookselling arm of CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, is the leading publisher of books for library and information professionals worldwide. ALA Store purchases fund advocacy, awareness and accreditation programs for library professionals worldwide. Contact us at (800) 545-2433 ext. 5052 or editionsmarketing@ala.org.