Postgraduate Course: Future Library and Archive Collections (fusion online) (EFIE11322)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh Futures Institute |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | Memory Institutions, such as Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums, have traditionally preserved our cultural record through physical means, but the rise of digital media has necessitated a shift towards digital preservation. This presents new challenges, such as collecting and preserving internet content and social media posts, and ensuring future users can access and understand the preserved digital information. This course aims to educate students on the fragility of our digital information environment and provide strategies for preserving important digital information for posterity. |
| Course description |
This course provides an in-depth exploration of the role of Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums as memory institutions, and their changing role in the digital age. Students will develop a critical understanding of the history, theory, and practice of memory institutions, and how they curate and preserve cultural heritage for future generations.
The course will cover topics such as collection development, preservation, and access in the digital age, digital curation, metadata standards, web archiving, social media preservation, and legal and ethical considerations. Through a combination of lectures, case studies, and practical assignments, students will develop the skills and knowledge needed to navigate the complexities of digital preservation in memory institutions. This course offers a stimulating and collaborative learning experience, preparing students for leadership roles in the field of memory institutions and digital preservation.
Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) - Online Fusion Course Delivery Information:
The Edinburgh Futures Institute will teach this course in a way that enables online and on-campus students to study together. This approach (our 'fusion' teaching model) offers students flexible and inclusive ways to study, and the ability to choose whether to be on-campus or online at the level of the individual course. It also opens up ways for diverse groups of students to study together regardless of geographical location. To enable this, the course will use technologies to record and live-stream student and staff participation during their teaching and learning activities. Students should note that their interactions may be recorded and live-streamed. There will, however, be options to control whether or not your video and audio are enabled.
As part of your course, you will need access to a personal computing device. Unless otherwise stated activities will be web browser based and as a minimum we recommend a device with a physical keyboard and screen that can access the internet.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2024/25, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 10 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
100
(
Lecture Hours 4,
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 8,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
86 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
This course adopts an assessment for learning philosophy, which will be explained to students from the outset.
Assesssments are viewed as a means of supporting and enhancing learning throughout the course.
In alignment with this ethos, the assessments are designed as follows:
Formative Assessment:
In the pre-intensive part of the course, students will individually research and present a case study of their choice (ca. 500 words) on a topic related to future libraries and archives, which will be posted to the course boards.
Students will also provide feedback on a colleague's post (ca. 100 words) in response to the research they presented.
Summative Assessment:
1) Evaluation of Case Study / 900 Word Blog Post (100%)
Students will complete an evaluation of a case study related to the manifesto for future libraries and archives (started as a group activity during the course) by conducting additional research and critical analysis. They will communicate the processes and outcomes of this evaluation to an adult public audience through a blog post (ca. 900 words with at least two visuals and four key references). This assessment component will be submitted at the end of the course and will be graded, making up 100% of the overall assessment (1-5). |
| Feedback |
Feedback will be an integral part of the learning process throughout the future libraries and archives course.
Students will receive feedback through various means such as group discussions, individual consultations, and interactive discussion sessions after the lectures. In addition, a dedicated formative feedback session will be conducted after the group activity in the second day of the course. This session will allow students to receive feedback on their progress, strengths, and areas for improvement. The feedback will be constructive, focused, and aligned with the learning outcomes of the course. It will help students to develop their critical thinking, research, and communication skills necessary for success in the field of future libraries and archives. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate advanced understanding of the functioning mechanisms of national and international heritage policies and legal frameworks, and critically evaluate their strengths and limitations.
- Apply advanced critical and multicultural approaches to evaluate the work of intergovernmental organisations in the field of heritage conservation in diverse social and geo-political contexts, and propose innovative solutions to complex problems.
- Critically analyse the challenges and potentials of data innovation in heritage preservation, and evaluate the effectiveness of different strategies for managing and sharing digital heritage collections in diverse cultural and institutional contexts.
- Communicate advanced analysis of heritage policy and practice to diverse audiences, using appropriate professional and academic conventions and media.
- Collaborate effectively in multicultural and interdisciplinary teams to develop and implement creative and sustainable solutions for improving current heritage policies and their implementation, and reflect critically on the ethical and social implications of their work.
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Reading List
Indicative Reading List:
Essential Reading:
Brügger, N., 2018. The archived web: doing history in the digital age. MIT Press.
Owens, T. (2018). The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation. John Hopkins University Press.
Gooding, P. and Terras, M. eds., 2020. Electronic Legal Deposit: Shaping the library collections of the future. Facet Publishing.
Jo, E.S. and Gebru, T., 2020, January. Lessons from archives: Strategies for collecting sociocultural data in machine learning. In Proceedings of the 2020 conference on fairness, accountability, and transparency (pp. 306-316).
Jaillant, L. and Caputo, A., 2022. 'Unlocking digital archives: cross-disciplinary perspectives on AI and born-digital data'. AI & Society, 37(3), pp.823-835.
Recommended Reading:
Gooding, P., Terras, M. and Berube, L. (2018) Legal Deposit Web Archives and the Digital Humanities: a Universe of Lost Opportunity? Digital Humanities 2018, Mexico City, Mexico, 26-29 Jun 2018. pp. 590-592.
Falcão, P. and Ensom, T., 2019. Conserving digital art. In Museums and Digital Culture: New Perspectives and Research (pp. 231-251). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Ruest, N., Lin, J., Milligan, I. and Fritz, S., 2020, August. The archives unleashed project: technology, process, and community to improve scholarly access to web archives. In Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries in 2020 (pp. 157-166).
Thylstrup, N.B., Agostinho, D., Ring, A., D'Ignazio, C. and Veel, K. eds., 2021. Uncertain archives: Critical keywords for big data. MIT Press.
Barrueco, J.M. and Termens, M., 2022. Digital preservation in institutional repositories: a systematic literature review. Digital Library Perspectives, 38(2), pp.161-174.
Beiguelman, Giselle, and Nathalia Lavigne. "The Museum with Only Walls." Digital Age (2022): 468. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/VictoriaWalden/publication/366635501_The_Memorial_Museum_in_the_Digital_Age_ed/links/63ac3134c3c99660ebaf9aa2/The-Memorial-Museum-in-the-Digital-Age-ed.pdf#page=468
Further Reading:
Pandey, Rahul, and Vinit Kumar. "Exploring the Impediments to digitization and digital preservation of cultural heritage resources: A selective review." Preservation, Digital Technology & Culture 49, no. 1 (2020): 26-37.
D'ignazio, C. and Klein, L.F., 2020. Data Feminism. MIT press.
Zuanni, C., 2021. Theorizing Born Digital Objects: Museums and Contemporary Materialities.
Museum and Society, 19(2), pp.184-198.
Richards, N., 2021. Why privacy matters. Oxford University Press.
Mackinnon, K., 2022. Critical care for the early web: ethical digital methods for archived youth data. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society.
Shiozaki, R., 2022. A Note on Law and Economics of Legal Deposit Systems. Libri, 72(4), pp.393-403. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Students will develop the following mindsets and skills while working to achieve the five Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) specified above and, in particular:
- Critical thinking and analysis (ILOs 1, 3, 5)
- Intellectual curiosity and creativity (ILOs 2, 3, 5)
- Cross-cultural awareness and sensitivity (ILOs 2, 5)
- Research design and methods (ILOs 1, 3, 4)
- Data analysis and interpretation (ILOs 1, 3)
- Autonomy and initiative (ILOs 2, 3, 5)
- Effective written and oral communication (ILO 4)
- Collaboration and teamwork (ILO 5)
- Information literacy (ILOs 1, 3)
- Ethical and professional responsibility (ILOs 1, 3) |
| Keywords | EFI,Level 11,Future,Library,Archive,Collections,Cultural Heritage Futures |
Contacts
| Course organiser | |
Course secretary | Miss Veronica Silvestre
Tel:
Email: Veronica.Silvestre@ed.ac.uk |
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