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Summary

CRITICAL DISCOURSE SURROUNDING the use of digital technology within archaeology has tended to portray the discipline as a consumer of preexisting technology and has rarely seen itself as an agent of technological development or innovation (Huggett, 2015). Increasingly, however, as barriers to participation in software development have fallen, archaeology has played a small but significant role in the development of digital technology (Wilson and Edwards, 2015; Beale and Reilly, in press). Of equal significance to technological development has been the focus within archaeology upon the development of digital practice in response to the specific social, cultural and political conditions within which archaeological work takes place (Jeffrey et al., 2015; Perry and Beale, 2015).

These developments have been of particular significance within community archaeology where archaeological practice can be a nexus for identity formation and the recasting of the relationship between people and places (Smith, 2006). The shape of practice, and the role of technology within it, can have a powerful influence on the experience of the archaeologist. The meaning, function and perceived value of technology are dictated to a significant degree by the conditions of use and the preconceptions of users. This is complicated still further by the asymmetrical power relationships which have been an endemic feature of the archaeological research community and which have resulted in the privileging of specific ways of working and thinking about archaeological practice (Collins, 1999; Conkey, 2005; Hamilakis, 2007). As we move towards the development and recognition of increasingly diverse research communities it is imperative that we understand technology not only in terms of perceived (abstract) affordances but in terms of their use and their impact within specific social, political and cultural scenarios.

In this chapter we describe the latest developments in the Re-reading the British Memorial project, a University of York-based research project which aims to enable the use of open source and low-cost technologies by community groups involved in the archaeological and historical study of burial space in the United Kingdom. This project responds to the urgent need to re-engage communities in the use and management of burial space. A range of social and environmental factors have created a situation in which burial spaces are at risk as heritage assets and as community resources (Ray et al., 2014; Jones, 2016; Mytum et al., 2015).

Summary

IN THIS CHAPTER I discuss the challenges that arise when well-funded institutions engage in the collaborative production of cultural heritage with marginalized communities. Ten years of university-led research on this topic in the United States shapes this discussion. Based on this experience, I articulate how social inequalities condition these partnerships. I also identify particular techniques that lessen the social inequalities that contextualize this type of work. This work is important because cultural heritage institutions around the world – including libraries, archives and museums – struggle to create and support socially just and inclusive representations of the past (Silverman, 2011).

Marginalized communities seek autonomy over their cultural heritage through diverse and evolving tactics. Recognizing and supporting these tactics requires (1) deep community engagement and (2) a commitment to supporting community leadership. Sensitivity to the diverse rhythms of community life leads to a more participatory heritage infrastructure across social divides.

This discussion is organized around three heritage projects. All three involved universities and marginalized communities. In the United States, community engagement projects emanating from universities are quite common (Driscoll, 2008). This tradition of university-led community engagement contextualizes these projects. In the first project, I worked with a small Black Arts museum in East St Louis to inventory and preserve the documentary holdings of the museum. Like other predominantly African- American communities in the United States, East St Louis has been severely affected by loss of jobs as a result of deindustrialization in the 1960s and 1970s. I found that the museum's board struggled to maintain its autonomy in relation to larger, external institutions, which in various ways also shape the museum. In the second project, I worked with diverse institutions and individuals in a local African-American community to create a digital library on local African-American heritage. I found that members of that community increasingly use social media as a semi-autonomous platform for cultural heritage production. The third project focused on helping a local librarian to create a digital library on African-American history in her community. I found that leaders of marginalized communities are ready and eager to direct cultural heritage projects. Recognizing and supporting community leaders takes time, but can also lessen social inequalities.

Summary

DIGITAL ARCHIVE PROJECTS often face challenges, from financial constraints to technological problems, from legal and ethical issues to specific challenges from organizational context (McKay, 2003). When it is a multi-institutional project, challenges can include different cultures, levels of engagement, methods of communication and many others. There are additional issues if the main entity conducting the project is not the one holding the materials. The No Gun Ri Digital Archive project aims to create a digital platform for the memory of the No Gun Ri massacre. The project team comes from three different universities in two countries (University at Albany in the US and Chung-Ang University and Chun-Buk University in South Korea). No one is directly associated with the No Gun Ri Museum or any survivors. This project received limited funding from the Korean National Research Foundation. In this situation, the No Gun Ri Digital Archive Project has an interesting research process and challenges. This chapter will discuss some of these challenges and some insights learned from them.

No Gun Ri Massacre

The No Gun Ri massacre was a mass killing of refugees during the Korean War. The massacre occurred during four days, from 26 to 29 July 1950, in the middle of a refugee evacuation operation by American soldiers, and hundreds of people were killed.

Refugees became the main victims of the Korean War because of suspicions of guerilla infiltration. The US military adopted a policy of allowing lethal weapons to be used against South Korean refugees who approached US lines. This policy was decided in a meeting among the highest officials of the US Army on the day before the No Gun Ri killing (Conway-Lanz, 2005). There are many military documents from army units near No Gun Ri that describe orders to fire on approaching civilians. There are some other factors identified by researchers working on No Gun Ri, such as the lack of sufficient training for soldiers (Kuehl, 2003; Ryoo, 2001) and unfamiliarity with the Korean people and their culture (Cumings, 1990, 690–1). The connection between the war situation and refugee casualties is described thus in Encyclopedia Britannica: ‘weakened by inadequate weapons, limited numbers, and uncertain leadership, US troops were frequently beset by streams of refugees fleeing south … These produced unfortunate attacks on Korean civilians’.

Summary

PARTICIPATORY HERITAGE COULD be thought of as a space, a space in which individuals engage in cultural activities outside of formal institutions for the purpose of knowledge sharing and co-creating with others. Those engaged with participatory heritage collaborations tend to place more importance on content and less importance on medium, process or professional expertise; thus they acknowledge a diversity of expertise and operate from a premise of shared authority. The collaborations are bottom-up in nature, as they emerge from connections among individuals rather than organizations.

Participatory heritage activities do not necessarily interact with cultural heritage institutions, which are governed by policies and procedures and are hindered by legal and budgetary constraints. These institutions employ information experts who guide practices and innovation in information organization, access and use. They typically do not employ community experts and increasingly are employing fewer subject experts (Gerolimos, Malliari and Iakovidis, 2015). Participatory heritage draws individuals together around content, and expertise in and knowledge of that content. These individuals have a strong desire to engage with heritage content in order to gain, share and create new knowledge. While this sounds like the sort of activity heritage institutions are designed to support, this contrast of focus creates a mission mismatch between participatory heritage groups and heritage institutions, and raises the concern that heritage institutions will lose their connections to those very persons they are trying to serve if they do not engage in the participatory heritage sphere.

The do-it-yourself (DIY) movement, strong in many professional domains, is well represented in archives and other heritage activities. The power of digital connectivity and the ease of content creation fuels participation. Local and family historians, craftspeople, artists and many more groups are participating in collection building and memory making outside of formal heritage institutions. The breadth of participatory heritage space will continue to expand and, in doing so, create a more inclusive shared heritage.

Without links to formal heritage institutions, issues of scalability, capacity building and long-term and equitable access arise. Ideally, the participatory heritage space will evolve to include means for community-based heritage groups to partner with heritage institutions to the benefit of both.

If participatory heritage groups value shared expertise, dynamism and bottom-up approaches and heritage institutions value formal credentials, guiding policies and top-down approaches, how could the linkage between the two be improved?

Summary

New alternative narratives

WHEN MUSSOLINI INVADED Ethiopia's capital in May 1935, he forced its Emperor, Haile Selassie I, into exile. The Emperor arrived in the city of Bath, England, in October 1936, and lived in a property called Fairfield House with his family, government advisors and Orthodox priests. After returning to Ethiopia in 1941, the Emperor gave the house to the city of Bath as a gift to be used by aged citizens. This chapter explores the legacy of this period in Bath's history and what it means for the people living and visiting there today. I will discuss attempts to introduce this alternative historical narrative into the fabric of Bath's identity and beyond, discussing reflexively through my experiences of working in a voluntary capacity with Fairfield over a period of 17 years.

To understand the modern-day impact of this Ethiopian Emperor living in Bath, it is important to state that Haile Selassie I is viewed as a deity by members of the Rastafari faith. Whilst it is not only Rastafari that are interested in this history and recognize its importance (as will be discussed below), it is undoubtedly Rastafari that have most kept the name of Haile Selassie alive in public consciousness, especially through lyrics in reggae music and the use of the Emperor's face on items such as clothing, flags and other tributes. The complexity of feelings towards the legacy of this history is summed up by the Rastafari High Priest for the South West UK region, Honourable Ras Bandele Selassie:

It makes me feel sad, and it makes me glad, because the reason for His Majesty to be here is through the sadness of his heart. If the sadness never occurred, then the gladness of me being here today would not have occurred. The gladness of … the elderly being looked after here would not have occurred. The gladness of Rastafari having celebrations here would not have occurred. Many things that are happening in Bath now … the love that we feel would not have occurred. So for that, whilst I am sad I am glad.

This notion, that the memory that sites hold acts as a source of both pain and comfort, positions Fairfield as an embodiment of what historian Olivette Otele refers to as a ‘reluctant site of memory – a seen or unseen space that owes their very existence to brutal European colonial conquest’.

Summary

Introduction

So how do libraries acquire their Special Collections? In this chapter, we consider:

Summary

This is not the first book written about data librarianship, and hopefully it will not be the last, but it is one of very few, all written within the past few years, that reflects the growing interest in research data support. Academic data librarians help staff and students with all aspects of this peculiar class of digital information – its use, preservation and curation, and how to support researchers’ production and consumption of it in ever greater volumes, to create new knowledge.

Our aim is to offer an insider's view of data librarianship as it is today, with plenty of practical examples and advice. At times we try to link this to wider academic research agendas and scholarly communication trends past, present and future, while grounding these thoughts back in the everyday work of data librarians and other information professionals.

We would like to tell you a little bit about ourselves as the authors, but first a word about you. We have two primary groups of readers in mind for this book: library and iSchool students and their teachers, and working professionals (especially librarians) learning to deal with data. We would be honoured to have this book used as an educational resource in library and information graduate programmes, because we believe the future of data librarianship (regardless of its origins, examined in Chapter 1) lies with academic libraries, and for that to become a stronger reality it needs to be studied as a professional and academic subject. To aid the use of this book as a text for study we have provided ‘key take-away points’ and ‘reflective questions’ at the end of each chapter. These can be used by teachers for individual or group assignments, or by individuals to self-assess and reinforce what they may have learned from reading each chapter.

Equally important, we empathetically address the librarian, academic, or other working expert who feels their working life is pulling them towards data support or that area of academic activity known as research data management (RDM).

Summary

Challenging assumptions about data

What is meant by confidential or sensitive data? In Chapter 2 we outlined some of the formats of common types of research data. The field is of course wide and may include datasets that are based on numbers, text or audiovisual material. Most of the time researchers will be interested in how they can manipulate these in order to address the goals of their investigations. Some researchers are interested less in the format than in what they consider to be fundamental problems of confidentiality or data sensitivity. They have concerns about managing the data securely while they are working with it – and are unsure what they are supposed to do. Others have concerns about the appropriateness of allowing preservation or re-use of the same material. Understanding what a researcher actually means when they state their data are confidential therefore becomes significant. This is a growing area of discussion and is demonstrated by the huge interest shown by researchers in training and awareness raising courses on this topic. Typical concerns include whether the data:

Summary

Introduction

The threats to Special Collections outlined in Chapter 1 harm collections over a period of years. This chapter discusses threats that can destroy collections or items within them very quickly: the timescale for effective action is much shorter, so prevention, planning and rapid response are essential. The chapter will cover:

Summary

Getting into Special Collections work

Special Collections work remains a popular career choice; new entrants are drawn to the mixture of fascinating material and varied opportunities. It is therefore a competitive sector, a problem compounded by low turnover (staff tend to stay in jobs they enjoy for many years) and lack of opportunities at senior level. As in all job sectors, prospective Special Collections librarians are advised to monitor the market, see and try to fill their skills gaps, reflect on their own practice and strengths, and produce high-quality applications. Engaging with the profession at events and via the listservs and social media will help. Many of the skills required can be developed in other aspects of library or other work, for example customer care and project management.

This book gives a flavour of the core skills for Special Collections work. Of course many Special Collections librarians have specialist roles, but this work needs to be informed by understanding of the basics, for example collections care.

The Special Collections sector is notable within the library profession as an area in which rapid technological change has not made traditional skills irrelevant. This means that new entrants need both the older skills from established areas of professional practice (cataloguing, collections care, historical bibliography) and newer ones for emerging areas of work (digitization, social media, outreach, augmented reality). This mixture of ancient and new endeavours is one of the elements that makes this work so rewarding.

Skills frameworks

The professional associations for librarians have produced skills frameworks to help Special Collections librarians and employers assess training needs.

CILIP PKSB. In 2012, CILIP launched the Professional Knowledge and Skills Base (PKSB), a structure listing areas of knowledge and skills. Ethics and values are core, along with generic skills and professional expertise, and the wider context. The PKSB is designed for librarians to rate their own skills and knowledge and decide in which areas they need to improve: it is highly unlikely that anyone will need to be expert in every single area! To help members analyse their skill sets, CILIP have produced sector templates for Rare Books and Special Collections (newly qualified and experienced staff), available via the CILIP VLE.

Summary

Introduction

In this chapter we discuss the essential first step in bringing Special Collections to users: cataloguing. Many Special Collections librarians have cataloguing responsibilities. All librarians working with such collections need to understand how the materials in their care have been catalogued, in order to help users and make effective decisions. This chapter will:

Summary

Introduction

Objects in Special Collections include any format that has ever been used for communication, from papyri to digital files. Librarians need to understand the objects in their collections to manage them effectively. Understanding the materials and construction of objects is essential to make the right choices in preserving Special Collections, while understanding their context and creation helps with acquiring, marketing and sharing them with readers. Roles in national or other large libraries are often specialist, calling for doctorate-level expertise in a particular format or historical period, such as medieval manuscripts, rare books or maps. Roles in smaller services are more generalist, and such services are less likely to own or acquire the widest range of materials.

This chapter introduces the formats that are the historic basis of Special Collections, as foundation collections or gathered by antiquarians and bibliophiles: manuscripts and early printed books. It also covers common modern formats with preservation issues.

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List of figures and tables

17 - New approaches to the community recording and preservation of burial space

Summary

10 - Social inequalities in the shaping of cultural heritage infrastructure

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Part 2 - Challenges

Frontmatter

11 - No Gun Ri Digital Archive: challenges in archiving memory for a historically marginalized incident

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Introduction: what is participatory heritage?

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Contributors

14 - Ethiopian stories in an English landscape

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4 - Acquiring and developing Special Collections

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Preface

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Index

References

8 - Dealing with sensitive data

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2 - Emergency planning for Special Collections

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Contents

Frontmatter

Appendix B - Skills for your Special Collections career

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5 - Cataloguing, description and metadata in Special Collections

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3 - Understanding objects in Special Collections

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