1. Challenges With the
Digitization of Archives
?

2. Three Challenges Explored
1. Ethics with archives in countries with a history of
colonialism
a. Theoretical Application
b. Practical Application
2. Creating user-friendly finding aids
3. Born digital materials

3. Ethics of archives in countries with a history of colonialism
Lor and Britz (2003), A Moral Reflection on the Information Flow From South to North: an
African Perspective
Information-based component to human rights: the right of freedom of access to
information needed to exercise all other basic human rights, the right of freedom of
expression, and the right of individuals and groups to use and control self-generated
information.

4. Lor and Britz (2004), Digitization of Africa’s
Documentary Heritage: Aid or Exploitation?
Projects are in partnership with the country of origin;
Original materials are returned to the country of origin;
Access to digitized resources are available to scholars and students in the country of
origin;
Capacity building, or the training of digital archiving staff is undertaken;
Compensation is provided, if appropriate, to institutions within the country of origin

5. CAPACITY BUILDING
Schultz (2013), “Supporting
Capacity Building for
Africa: Initiatives of the
Cooperative Africana
Materials Project (CAMP)
Since 1995”, details
projects in Senegal and
Uganda. Microfilm
projects laid groundwork
for digitization.

6. CAPACITY BUILDING
In 2010, hundreds of boxes
of papers from the
Kabarole District
Archives in Uganda were
digitized, preserved, and
stored at Mountains of the
Moon University. The
district still owns the
material, which was
scanned by an MMU
lecturer and his students.

7. Pei Jones Collection - University of Waikato, New Zealand
Digitized according to tikanga Māori (Māori cultural
protocols)
Māori subject headings created
Artifacts arranged by genealogy and historical context
Users, especially Māori, are encouraged to
participate in the development of the web
library.

8. Farley (2014): Participatory Finding Aid and The Archivist
Users at the J. Y. Joyner Library at East
Carolina University and University of
Massachusetts at Amherst Special
Collections are encouraged to contribute
annotations to the digitized collections.
This creates metadata or links to other web
pages, provides corrections, or adds
anecdotes and other information.

9. Hidden Collections: The Hornung Papers
Englishman “Pitt” Hornung owned sugar
plantations in present-day Mozambique
in the late 1800s. His archives, deposited
in the West Sussex Record Office, are
“hidden” because of repository specific
barriers and collection specific barriers.

10. Hunter, Legg, and Oehlerts (2010)
A metadata librarian, an archivist, and a digital projects
librarian at Colorado State University in Fort Collins collaborate
on the digitization of University photographs taken between the
1880s and 1930s.

11. Born digital materials
Daigle (2012), Digital Transformations of Special Collections
Goldman (2011), Bridging The Gap: Taking Practical Steps Toward
Managing Born Digital Collections in Manuscript Repositories