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International Conference on Information

iConference 2020: Sustainable Digital Communities pp 638–648Cite as

An Exploration of Contributor-Created Description Field in Participatory Archives

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12051))

Abstract

Participatory archive initiatives are an emerging phenomenon in the archives field. These initiatives are defined by the participation of the individuals that archival materials are created by or about. This often includes the description of materials by their creators. However, participatory archival description brings forth several questions: What knowledge and insights can be gained about items in a digital collection when they are described by their record creators and contributors? And what risks are there when the data values for are not created in a standardized format? To answer these questions, this paper examined the outcome of participatory archival description – i.e., free-text description metadata field created by participatory archives’ contributors. Using the Boston Harbor Islands Mass. Memories Collection Dublin Core-based description metadata records, contributor-created Description field length and attributes were analyzed through a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analysis methods. Study results show that data value of contributor-created description metadata was dominated by utterances that provide contextual information regarding archival objects, particularly about the individuals and physical environment that contributors associate with the items, while item content itself can be under-described.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://openarchives.umb.edu/digital/collection/p15774coll6.

  2. 2.

    https://www.europeana.eu/portal/el/collections/migration/collection-days.html.

  3. 3.

    https://www.dri.ie/documenting-1916-rising-through-public-memorabilia-collection-days.

  4. 4.

    https://harveymemories.org/news.

  5. 5.

    https://www2.archivists.org/standards/DACS.

  6. 6.

    https://www.dublincore.org/specifications/dublin-core/dces/.

  7. 7.

    https://www.dublincore.org/specifications/dublin-core/dcmi-terms/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of North Texas, Denton, TX, 76207, USA

    Ana Roeschley, Jeonghyun Kim & Oksana L. Zavalina

Authors
  1. Ana Roeschley
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  2. Jeonghyun Kim
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  3. Oksana L. Zavalina
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ana Roeschley .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

    Anneli Sundqvist

  2. OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

    Gerd Berget

  3. University of Boras, Boras, Sweden

    Jan Nolin

  4. OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

    Kjell Ivar Skjerdingstad

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Roeschley, A., Kim, J., Zavalina, O.L. (2020). An Exploration of Contributor-Created Description Field in Participatory Archives. In: Sundqvist, A., Berget, G., Nolin, J., Skjerdingstad, K. (eds) Sustainable Digital Communities. iConference 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12051. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43687-2_54

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43687-2_54

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-43686-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-43687-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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