Materiality looms large in the world of archives, whether in storage, conservation, shape or materials of the records. Increasingly records are created digitally on a hitherto unimagined scale. How do born-digital records transform our understanding of the materiality of the archive? How do digital techniques provide new insights into the materiality of older archives? Archival Materialities in a Digital Age contains a series of authoritative studies by archivists and researchers who are grappling with these issues on a daily basis. The research presented in Archival Materialities in a Digital Age shows how these challenges are causing a reconsideration of archival theories and precepts while at the same time offering a huge range of opportunities to investigate archives in new and innovative ways.
Materiality looms large in the world of archives in storage, conservation, and shape or materials of the records. How does this materiality change in the digital age? The way digital techniques and materialities transform our engagement with archives is highlighted and explored throughout Archival Materialities in a Digital Age.
Introduction
Conceptualising Digital Materiality in the Archive
1: Valerie Johnson: Exploring the Digital Analogue Archive
2: Alison Wiggins: Digital Materiality and Early Modern Archives
3: Katy Mair: Losing Touch? Changing Experiences of Archival Materiality
4: Alex Green and Tom Storrar: Intangible Materiality
5: Thorsten Ries: Digital History and Born-Digital Archives: Digital Forensic
Dimensions
6: Lora Angelova: Patch and Repair: Evolving Understandings of Material in
the Conservation Studio
7: Andrew Prescott:
7. Electric Ink and Arduinos: The Internet of Things and
the Archive
Digital Explorations of Archival Materiality
8: Philippa Hoskin and Elizabeth New: Making an Impression: Digital
Investigation of Palm Prints on Medieval Wax Seals
9: Lotte Fikkers and David Mills: The Ward 16 Manuscripts: Towards
Digitisation without Disruption
10: Karl Burgess, Gerard Carruthers, Craig Lamont, James Newton, George
Smith, and Ronnie Young: Robert Burns: Archival Aspects of the Printed and
Manuscript Record in the Digital Age
11: Maryanne Dever, Jacqueline Lorber Kasunic, and Kate Sweetapple: Surfacing
the Page: Experimental Visualisation and the Writing Process
12: Lorna Hughes: Co-creation and the Digital Archive: Unlocking Historic
Archives and Records through New Approaches to Mass Digitisation
13: Juan Carlos Covelli Reyes: New Materiality and the Digital Artefact
Afterword
Eirini Goudarouli is Head of Research at The National Archives, UK, where she leads an interdisciplinary team of experts. She has extensive experience in leading research and engagement programmes and in building impactful research collaborations and networks. Her passion is to drive innovation that enables new ideas for broadening our current understanding of collections and their discoverability through ground-breaking research, safe and responsible use of emerging technologies, interdisciplinary collaborations and knowledge-exchange initiatives. Eirini has published extensively, especially within the space of Digital Cultural Heritage. Recent publications include the contribution 'Digital Innovation and Archival Thinking', in Archives: Power, Truth, and Fiction (2023, eds Andrew Prescott and Alison. Wiggins).
Andrew Prescott is Honorary Senior Research Fellow, School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow. From 1979-2000, he was Curator in the Department of Manuscripts, British Library. He has also worked in digital humanities units and libraries at the University of Sheffield, University of Wales Lampeter and King's College London. From 2012-2019, he was Theme Lead Fellow for the AHRC strategic theme Digital Transformations. He was recently a co-investigator on the People of 1381 project. Recent publications include Communities, Archives and New Collaborative Projects (2020, with Simon Popple and Daniel Mutibwa) and Archives: Power, Truth and Fiction (2023, with Alison Wiggins).
