1 / 9

Dr Andrew Flinn, Department of Information Studies, University College London

‘ “A frontal attack on professionalism, standards and scholarship”?. Democratising archives and the production of knowledge. Dr Andrew Flinn, Department of Information Studies, University College London Archives 2.0 Shifting Dialogues between Users and Archivists , Manchester, 19-20 March 2009.

smaclean
Download Presentation

Dr Andrew Flinn, Department of Information Studies, University College London

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. ‘ “A frontal attack on professionalism, standards and scholarship”?. Democratising archives and the production of knowledge Dr Andrew Flinn, Department of Information Studies, University College London Archives 2.0 Shifting Dialogues between Users and Archivists, Manchester, 19-20 March 2009

  2. ‘Ultimately, cultural institutions are special places; touchstones of the past, keepers of our collective memories, sites that enrich and places that inspire. Yet without fully embracing the challenges of diversity, these institutions cannot be the glue that helps to bind a city or a nation together. Without fully embracing diversity, they cannot be the safe places that help us to conceptualize our world and to visualize the possible’ (Lonnie Bunch, 2001)‘A shared national identity thus depends on the cultural meanings, which bind each member individually into the large national story … The National Heritage is a powerful source of such meanings. It follows that those who cannot see themselves reflected in its mirror cannot properly “belong”’ (Stuart Hall, 1999)

  3. ‘… archives in the community are as important to society as those in public collections’ (Archives Task Force, 2004)

  4. ‘… opens up the museum [or the archive] to the possibility that expertise exists elsewhere; and that the museum [archive] could benefit from the knowledge of many communities’ (Trant, 2006)

  5. ‘…professionals can only ensure that cultural institutions are relevant by changing their stance about the nature of their role; it is possible to contribute authenticity without demanding authority…demanding authority is an act, often of arrogance, that denies the contribution of others to the development of knowledge…within the rapidly developing environment of social computing, communities of practice are forming that could contribute significantly to the development of the museum. Historically we have acknowledged that specialists (and awkwardly often enthusiasts) have a better understanding of aspects of museum collections than the professionals charged with their care. There is an opportunity for this knowledge to converge with that of the museum’ (Trant, 2006)

  6. Community Archives & Identities: documenting and sustaining community heritage • 20 month UK Arts & Humanities Research Council funded research project, 2008-2009 • Dr Andrew Flinn, Dr Elizabeth Shepherd, Dr Mary Stevens • Project website: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slais/research/icarus/community-archives/ • Project blog on questions of archives & identities: http://archivesandidentities.com

More Related