I loved T. Mills Kelly's thoughts on Edwired about the museum taking in digital
objects of individual collectors into its collections. It generated so many
strange images in my mind, including whether the relationship between a donor
of a digital object and the museum would be exclusive. Mostly, though, I am
struck by the continued fetishization of the object in museums, as we discussed
at THATCamp. There is a kind of sacrilization of the "real" going on
in response to digital history. In some respects, this same sort of concern is
being expressed about landscapes as well. I am not sure that I disagree that
the physical universe--the artifact or landscape--are important. And, I think
the comments (by Jeff K of All that is Solid) are right on about that--notably that we have not quite figure
out how to render digital objects. But, I am not sure that we've done that
completely well with print items either.
Indeed, I am not sure that casting it is an either/or
proposition as so many museums continue to do is quite right. For example,
digital objects are different manifestations of the object, just as photographs
are. They are part of its descriptive
universe, not the entire universe.
Also, overstating the sacred qualities of the object
reinforces extant power relationships, between big and small institutions. The
digital universe—especially with the increasing availability of open-source,
free tools like Omeka—offers a way to break down the distinctions between
large/small and well-funded/modestly resourced institutions by creating a more
even playing field in terms of digital representation.
Many of the same the same challenges that face museums in
terms of digitization are also faced in studying three-dimensional landscapes,
which many argue need to be experienced in order to be truly understood. But, I
think that we can curate cities, much like we curate objects. Digital history
can contribute to the process of reshaping landscape history--which has
happened with our Cultural Gardens website. We've
had thousands of visitors in the past year--probably more than the actual
site--from over 70 countries, countless queries, contributions, and newly
created links/conversations about the Gardens. None of that has happened in
over twenty years, except among a small group of Clevelanders. We have not been
able to keep up. My sense is that this has happened for lots of our colleagues
studying landscape but also using the web creatively in museum contexts.
I am not sure, though, that libraries/archives are out front
in really digitizing objects, nor are their digital dilemmas really much different
than those faced by museums. Books, paper, maps and so forth *are*
three-dimensional objects in the same way that artifacts are. Both begged to be
handled and touched. For example, when we digitize Sanborn maps we lose a sense
of when/if they included "pasteovers"--those little features added
(by literally gluing new building details on top of the original map) later
that are visible because they are slightly raised. Likewise, even with photos
and pages, physical details can be critical. Either we have forgotten this
aspect of paper or over-stated the differences between books/paper and
artifacts.
Finally, I am not sure that I agree completely with Jeff’s
solution that large institutions help small institutions with digitizing and
cataloguing their collections. I work with lots of small institutions that fear
being subsumed by the catalogues of large institutions. They want to retain
their autonomy and often cannot afford the expensive cataloguing systems and/or
procedures taken by large institutions (which frequently cannot keep up with
their own catalogs.)
I like the sentiment, though. But, it seems to me that more
productive and helpful collaborations could be created by sharing preservation
resources, storage, and exhibition space (both way more expensive than digital
resource development). And, in fact, the large institutions might themselves
need to get out of their reliance on expensive/inaccessible archival systems
and adapt something more interactive—that dangerous “tagging” that our students
prefer to serious metadata.
Great conversation at THATCamp.
