Access and Public-Facing Pedagogy in Digital Archival Production

Abstract

The conversations around digital archives, whether born-digital or digitized, is often predicated on the deeper issue of access. Specifically, who is able to access these digital objects and what does this mean for the restrictions usually placed on engaging with archival materials? Or, is it beneficial or detrimental to the preservation of the archives that we broaden access beyond the material archive? Having engaged with various digital archival projects, I have noticed an increasing imperative for accessibility and public-facing pedagogy in the study, dissemination, and maintenance of the archive. In an increasingly digital age, institutional resistance to public-facing pedagogy—access to research which is both widespread and intelligible to non-specialists—is becoming rapidly less feasible (Looser). Consequently, I am interested in the specific space of the digital (or digitized) archive and how through this space we may, or must, engage with “a range of broader publics around and through our work” (Fitzpatrick 4). I began working with digital archival objects in a purposefully limited digital space, digitizing a typescript from a Canadian author’s fonds for access in an undergraduate course. This developed, in a subsequent course, into digitization and metadata production for a university-based platform. Both of these experiences maintained the Access and Public-Facing Pedagogy in Digital Archival Production