Preserving Our Shared Digital Heritage
Research libraries and community archives play a vital role in safeguarding the digital heritage of our communities. By working together, these institutions can ensure that diverse narratives, perspectives, and experiences are captured and preserved for generations to come. However, collaboration between these groups has historically faced several challenges, hindering the creation of a more inclusive and comprehensive preserved record.
This article explores the barriers that have limited successful partnerships, and proposes actionable strategies to dismantle these obstacles. By fostering empathetic relationships, restructuring membership models, providing targeted training, and developing collaborative workflows, research libraries and community archives can forge mutually beneficial collaborations that empower local communities to safeguard their digital legacies.
Acknowledging Power Imbalances in Preservation
Recent advancements in archival theory have highlighted the inherent biases embedded in traditional practices of collecting, preserving, and interpreting records. Historically, archives have operated under the assumption of objectivity and neutrality, overlooking the ways in which power structures and dominant narratives shape the preserved record.
The rise of community archives, often established as a direct response to the exclusion of underrepresented communities, has challenged this notion of neutrality. These archives are deeply intertwined with political activism and social justice movements, offering powerful counter-narratives to mainstream historical accounts. Understanding the inherently political nature of these archives is crucial for potential collaborators and partners.
Initiatives like the Digital Archives and Marginalized Communities Project (DAMC) have adopted a participatory approach, ensuring that collection development and record appraisal are driven by the priorities established in conjunction with community partners. This shift recognizes that digital preservation is not a value-neutral endeavor, but rather deeply intertwined with questions of representation, equity, and social justice.
Dismantling Paternalistic Attitudes
Research libraries, built on centuries of established practices and the expertise of librarians and archivists, can sometimes exhibit paternalistic attitudes that hinder meaningful collaboration with community archives. This “epistemic asymmetry” manifests in a legalistic, rights-based framework that prioritizes legal accountability over the needs and perspectives of the record creators and community members.
Paternalistic approaches can lead to performative activities, such as the hasty digitization of Black collections without adequate description or metadata, or the perpetuation of archival practices that impede community access and use. By focusing on existing procedures rather than the specific needs and contexts of underrepresented communities, research libraries risk missing opportunities to transform their archives into truly community-centered spaces.
To dismantle paternalistic attitudes, research libraries must engage in critical self-reflection, challenging the colonial, technocratic, or white supremacist conventions that have shaped their practices. This requires adopting a mindset of appreciative inquiry, radical mutuality, and humility, as well as actively redefining structures that are often accepted without question.
Establishing empathetic relationships, built on trust and mutual understanding, is crucial. Research libraries should prioritize relationship-building over specific project deliverables, taking the time to listen, learn, and collaborate with community archives on their terms. Funding mechanisms and assessment frameworks must evolve to support these relationship-focused efforts.
Addressing Membership and Technical Barriers
Community archives often face challenges in meeting the requirements to participate in collaborative digital preservation initiatives, whether due to financial, technical, or content-related constraints. Membership fees and technical specifications designed with research libraries in mind can be insurmountable barriers for these smaller, resource-constrained organizations.
To address these barriers, digital preservation initiatives should explore flexible membership structures, such as tiered systems or equity-based models that account for the varying capacities of participating organizations. Fees and technical requirements should be assessed based on the specific characteristics and resources of each institution, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.
Additionally, research libraries can leverage their expertise and resources to provide targeted training and educational programs for community archives. Collaborative efforts, such as regional workshops or matching community groups with full-member organizations, can help skill up volunteers and staff, empowering these archives to meet the necessary technical and content requirements for digital preservation.
By fostering these capacity-building initiatives, research libraries can help community archives overcome the labor challenges they often face, while also recognizing this service as valuable professional engagement for their own staff. This collaborative approach can create a self-sustaining mechanism for preserving diverse digital collections.
Prioritizing Community Control and Collaboration
As experts in their own history, community archives should be recognized as the primary stewards of their digital heritage, not merely partners in a broader archival system. Collaborations with research libraries should occur on equal footing, with community archives retaining autonomy and their leaders regarded as professional colleagues.
This shift in perspective emphasizes community-driven collecting practices and prioritizes the acquisition and preservation of materials identified and valued directly by the community. Research libraries could intentionally choose not to collect materials curated by a community archive, instead focusing their efforts on elevating the visibility and accessibility of these local collections through joint exhibitions, research projects, and other forms of collaboration.
Building on this foundation of community control and collaboration, research libraries should actively listen to their partners, engaging in listening sessions to understand the aspirations, concerns, and needs of community archives. This approach creates space for the exploration of shared digital preservation goals, fostering a sense of mutual understanding and trust.
Addressing ownership and copyright concerns is another crucial step. By exploring alternative licensing mechanisms, such as perpetual licenses or Creative Commons, research libraries can help alleviate donor apprehensions and improve the overall understanding of how materials will be preserved and accessed.
Fostering Equitable Digital Preservation Workflows
While establishing comprehensive digital preservation workflows can be complex and resource-intensive, research libraries should embrace a “good enough” approach that acknowledges the limitations of smaller institutions and community archives. This doesn’t imply a disregard for best practices, but rather a recognition that every step, no matter how small, contributes to the crucial goal of safeguarding digital objects.
Collaborations between local institutions with established digital infrastructure and community archives can be highly beneficial. Programs like the Connecticut Digital Archive (CTDA) and the Digital Repository of Ireland’s Community Archive Scheme provide long-term preservation services and collaborative training environments, balancing the need for community ownership with the requirements of digital preservation.
By adopting flexible, user-friendly solutions, such as cloud-based storage platforms, research libraries can create accessible entry points for community archives to engage in digital preservation. This approach emphasizes the importance of empowering smaller institutions, rather than expecting them to conform to the technical standards and workflows designed for larger organizations.
Conclusion
Fostering collaboration between research libraries and community archives is essential for preserving the diverse narratives and perspectives that contribute to a comprehensive historical record. By dismantling paternalistic attitudes, addressing membership and technical barriers, and prioritizing community control and equitable workflows, these institutions can forge mutually beneficial partnerships that empower local communities to safeguard their digital heritage.
Through empathetic relationship-building, capacity-building initiatives, and a shared commitment to inclusive preservation, research libraries and community archives can work together to create a more accurate and representative preserved record that reflects the richness and complexity of our society. This collaborative approach is not only a moral imperative but also a crucial step in bridging the gap between academic scholarship and community-based knowledge production.
As the Stanley Park High School community, we have a vested interest in ensuring that the stories and experiences of our local residents are preserved and shared. By supporting the collaborative efforts of research libraries and community archives, we can contribute to a richer understanding of our shared history and foster a more inclusive and equitable future.
