Representing the Absent: The Limits and Possibilities of Digital Memory and Preservation

Smiljana Antonijević; Jeff Ubois

doi:10.2298/FID2202311A

Authors

Smiljana Antonijević Illinois Institute of Technology
Jeff Ubois Lever for Change

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2298/FID2202311A

Keywords:

digital preservation, memory, big data, context, personal digital archiving

Abstract

Digital preservation has significantly expanded over the past few decades, renewing old and creating new challenges related to provenance, integrity, completeness, and context in memory and preservation practices. In this paper we explore how, perhaps counterintuitively, a more extensive digital historical record offers greater opportunities to misrepresent reality. We first review a set of concepts and socio-cultural approaches to memory and preservation. We then focus on the multiplicity of digital memory and preservation practices today, examining their limits, possibilities, and tensions; specifically, we explore the challenges of decontextualized data, personal versus institutional preservation, and “outsider” digital collections that are willingly and/or forcibly excluded from official accounts. Through these discussions, we review examples of what we consider good digital memory and preservation practices that take new approaches to context and collaboration. Lastly, we explore the optimism inherent in seeking to preserve human knowledge over the long term and to make it accessible to all.

References

Anderson, Monica (2017), “6 Key Findings on How Americans See the Rise of Automation”, Pew Research Center, October 4, 2017; available at https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/04/6-key-findings-on-how-americans-see-the-rise-of-automation/

Appadurai, Arjun (1981), “The Past as a Scarce Resource”, Man 16 (2): 201–219.

Asimov, Isaac (1982), “Lest We Remember”, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, February 15, 1982, Davis Publications

Badash, Lawrence (2005), “American Physicists, Nuclear Weapons in World War II, and Social Responsibility”, Physics in Perspective 7 (2): 138–149.

Benoit, Edward III; Eveleigh, Alexandra (eds.) (2018), Participatory Archives: Theory and Practice, London, UK: Facet Publishing, The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.

Bentley, Tom (2015), Empires of Remorse: Narrative, Postcolonialism and Apologies for Colonial Atrocity, London, UK: Routledge.

Berners-Lee, Tim (2006), “Linked Data”, The World Wide Web Consortium, 27 July, 2006; available at https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html

Blouin, Francis (2004), “History and Memory: The Problem of the Archive”, PMLA 119 (2): 296–298.

Bornholt, James; Ceze, Luis; Lopez, Randolph; Selig, Georg; Carmean, Douglas M.; Strauss, Karin (2016), “A DNA-Based Archival Storage System”, SPLOS 16 April 2-6, 2016, ACM 978-1-4503-4091-5/16/04. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2872362.2872397; available at https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~luisceze/publications/dnastorage-asplos16.pdf

Derrida, Jacques; Prenowitz, Eric (1995), “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression”, Diacritics 25 (2) (Summer, 1995): 9–63.

Dourish, Paul (2004), “What We Talk about when We Talk about Context”, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 8 (1): 19–30.

Eliade, Mircea (1963), Myth and Reality, New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers.

Farge, Arlette (2013/1989), The Allure of the Archives, New Haven, London: Yale University Press.

Gibs, Frederic, G.; Owens, Trevor J. (2012) , “The Hermeneutics of Data and Historical Writing”, in Jack Dougherty, Kristen Nawrotzki (eds.), Writing History in the Digital Age, University of Michigan Press, Trinity College; web-book edition; available at: http://writinghistory.trincoll.edu/data/gibbs-owens-2012-spring/

Gibson, William (1981), “Johnny Mnemonic”, Omni: Penthouse.

Ham, Gerald. (1981), “Archival Strategies for the Post-Custodial Era”, The American Archivist 44 (3): 207–216.

Hoos, Ida Russakoff (1960), “When the Computer Takes Over the Office”, Harvard Business Review, July/August 1960: 102–112.

Huxley, Aldous (1962), “The Ultimate Revolution”, Speech in Berkeley, Calif. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WaUkZXKA30&list=PLUpmXACEjVm1LPRhf6JJVEzV0nBnv6Z4 accessed June 14, 2022.

Kaufman, Peter B. (2018), Towards a New Audiovisual Think Tank for Audiovisual Archivists and Cultural Heritage Professionals, Beeld en Geluid. http://dx.doi.org/10.18146/2018thinktank01

Kaufman, Peter B. (2021), The New Enlightenment and the Fight to Free Knowledge, Seven Stories Press.

Ketelaar, Eric (2001), “Tacit Narratives: The Meanings of Archives”, Archival Science 1: 131–141.

Lee, Christopher Cal. (2011), “A Framework for Contextual Information in Digital Collections”, Journal of Documentation 67 (1): 95–143.

Lessing, Doris. (1998), Walking in the Shade, New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.

Little, Daniel (2017), “Philosophy of History”, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.); avaialble at https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/history/

Luraghi, Silvia (2003), On the Meaning of Prepositions and Cases: The Expression of Semantic Roles in Ancient Greek, Amsterdam, NL, Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Mitchell, Amy; Gottfried, Jeffrey; Barthel, Michael; Shearer, Elisa (2016), Trust and Accuracy, Pew Research Center; available at http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/07/trust-and-accuracy/

Poster, Mark. (1990), The Mode of Information: Poststrucutralism and Social Context, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Ricoeur, Paul (2004). Memory, History, Forgetting, Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press.

Sumagaysay, Levi (2020), “Life after Google: Ex-Employees Keep Speaking out as They Move on”, Protoloc; available at https://www.protocol.com/employees-life-after-google-activism

Summer, Rebecca; Dash Nelson, Garrett (2017), “Making Stories Significant: Possibilities and Challenges at the Intersection of Digital Methods and Historic Preservation”, Area, Royal Geographical Society: 1–9; DOI: 10.1111/area.12395

Tilly, Louise (1980), “Social History and Its Critics”, Theory and Society 9 (5): 668–670.

Williams, Raymond (1961), The Long Revolution, New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Winesmith, Keir (2017), “Against Linked Open Data”, Medium, June 29, 2017; available at https://drkeir.medium.com/against-linked-open-data-502a53b62fb7