http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5713-5956
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ABSTRACT
Digital archives are a popular way for archivists to provide access to their important collections, but they also create more opportunities for private information within these collections to be disseminated widely and without consent. This is especially true of collections of the recent past, which often include materials and testimonies from living individuals. This paper draws on interview data collected from 13 archivists at four institutions that created digital archives of Civil Rights Movement-era materials. Despite clear professional obligations to protect individual privacy, the author found that archivists relied on open-access policies to justify their projects and digitisation labour itself.
Acknowledgements
This research was funded through a Top-Up Fellowship from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Robert F. and Jean E. Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies. The author would also like to thank Dr Alan Rubel for his advice and encouragement while writing this paper, and Drs Kristin Eschenfelder, Rebekah Willett and Ethelene Whitmire for their helpful and insightful comments on early drafts of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
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Additional information
Notes on contributors
Ellen LeClere
Ellen LeClere is a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Information School. Her dissertation research examines issues of information ethics in large-scale digitisation labour.