VII. Are You There? Archival and Curatorial Silences in the Digital Sphere

As digital preservation and public dissemination of museum-held knowledge through digital collections become more prevalent, the very real issues of ethical considerations within these collections are amplified. Collection silences, in particular, are both exposed and reinforced by the digital space. This paper will address the following questions. What are collection silences? How do collection silences develop as a result of non-neutrality in collecting? How does converting the physical collection to a digital space effects collection silences and the people represented by these silences? What solutions are being implemented to resolve these silences in digital spaces?

What are Collection Silences?

“Museum interpretation has traditionally emphasized “presences”—artifacts, buildings, artworks, etc.—the tangible items produced or left behind by a culture. Radical interpretation might instead emphasize—or be self-consciously aware of—the “absences”—the stories and artifacts of those whom traditional history has largely forgotten or those whom dominant cultural thinking (infused as it is with racism, sexism, classism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, etc.) has deemed unworthy.”¹

The Museum as Site for Social Action, MASS, Action Committee released a toolkit in 2017 to examine the overarching unneutral nature of museums and how museums can and should address this issue.² The MASS toolkit discusses collection silences, although it refers to them as absences and gaps, framing the concept as a matter of representation and social justice. The document links interpretation silences of physical sites and silences in collection holdings as the same concept, with several case studies of museums that have addressed their silences. Lacking a precise phrase to describe this concept of collection silences makes it challenging to place the discussion presented by MASS with other discussions. Without the language to describe this problem, we, as a field, cannot discuss and find solutions for it properly. Notably, the MASS Toolkit does not address digital collection spaces.

‘Archival Silences’ are defined as “a gap in the historical record resulting from the unintentional or purposeful absence or distortion of documentation.”³ Collection silences can be understood as the same kinds of gap or absence but in museums and other collections. This could be through absences or distortions via collecting or interpreting artifacts and representative objects, including art or historic buildings. Curatorial silences would be gaps or silences in a collection surrounding underrepresented groups that directly result from curatorial decisions, whether unintentional or purposeful.

Although multiple sources discuss archival silences and the challenges they present within an archive,⁴ few sources have discussed curatorial silences,⁵ and when they do, they utilize different terminology; even fewer sources have discussed how these silences transition to the digital space.⁶ Terminology used varies drastically, making it difficult to find relevant sources. Terms can include ‘gaps,’ ‘absences,’ ‘blanks,’ ‘voids,’ or ‘silences.’ For this reason, this paper utilizes many examples from archives.

Whether in an archive, a museum, or another institution, collection silences are absences in the collection typically surrounding underrepresented or suppressed narratives. An example presented by Lisa Taylor is of women historically excluded from sports history collections in the River & Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames, where men’s sports history is the overwhelming majority of the collection holdings. Taylor addressed this silence through an oral history project.⁷ Collection silences are, in essence, absences of materials that can lead an institution not to discuss groups of people. Collection silences do not present through the absence of single objects or object types within a collection. Instead, they manifest in profound systemic absences of objects representing historically marginalized or excluded peoples or cultures.

Collection silences result from destruction of objects over time, lack of availability of objects to be collected, non-neutral collecting, bias in collecting practice, or many other contributing factors. Bias in collecting or interpretation is one of the most apparent reasons for collection silences.

Non-neutrality and bias in collecting are the main contributing factors to collection silences. Concepts of non-neutrality have been a recently renewed topic in the museum field, sparking heated debates in 2017 and 2018.⁸ A consensus is emerging that museums are not neutral and never have been. Cara Bennet put it succinctly in response to the debates at the time, “Museums reveal bias in the items they choose to collect, the stories they choose to tell, and the way they choose to tell them.”⁹ The very nature of choosing what is worth collecting and preserving versus what is not is, by its nature, choosing and constructing a narrative.

Choosing and constructing narratives is at the heart of non-neutrality in museums and archives, defining the power of the institutions and shaping collection silences. Joan M. Schwartz and Terry Cook discuss this power of archives and choice,

“…a tiny fraction of all those records created are appraised, selected, and memorialized as archives; the vast majority are not. Archival choices about how to describe this archival fragment reinforce certain values and impose emphases and viewing orders for the archive. Archival approaches to making records available (or not) again create filters that influence perceptions of the records and thus of the past.”¹⁰

Museums and archives make choices that can deepen collection silences in the process of describing materials creating different kinds of description silences.

These silences of description and collections perpetuate systems of oppression and continue to have real-life impacts. Suse Anderson states “As institutions, museums have long, troubling histories as mechanisms of imperialism and colonization.”¹¹ Collection silences result and enable these concepts to continue and influence interpretations of museum collections and history.

At the National Digital Stewardship Alliance in 2016, Bergis Jules explored why collection silences matter to living people and gave concrete examples of political repercussions. In examining the inherent white nature of the archival, library, and digital preservation fields, Jules emphasizes the importance of confronting bias within collections and the impact on living people and groups to the gaps. “The work we do as archivists, as librarians, as digital preservationists, have real consequences for marginalized people because who is remembered and how they’re remembered dictates who gets violence perpetrated against them.”¹²

Silences in the Digital Space

In today’s museum, creating a digital version of the collection and sharing it online is considered vital to public engagement and transparency. However, collection silences originating in the physical collection can carry over when a collection is digitized and made public. Suse Anderson points out:

“When one museum puts its collections online, there may indeed be a democratising effect, as objects previously hidden become visible and usable…When hundreds or thousands of museums digitise their collections and put them online, the effect is one that further embeds the status quo at scale, making claims writ large across millions of objects about whose histories and objects have been worth collecting, and in what circumstances, as part of whose narratives.”¹³

When physical collections are made digital, they push existing silences into public visibility while creating new silences. This is complicated by the digitization process itself.

Only some items can be digitized, and digitization does not happen quickly. Digitization is a process that can take many years, and not every institution has the resources to digitize its whole collection. Prioritization in digitization is a valuable way to maximize the benefits and justify the expense of digitization.

“…digital collections rarely reflect the entirety of a physical collection, as limitations of staff time, digital storage space, equipment, and the personal biases of the curator impact the decisions made when selecting materials for digitization…”¹⁴

When organizing a digitization project, there are multiple questions to consider. Unless an institution has unlimited resources, that institution has to decide what to prioritize for digitization. Fragile artifacts, highly used or highly requested items, items that address collection silences, or items that rarely go on display may all be good candidates for prioritization.¹⁵ The Northeast Document Conservation Center puts forth that the most important considerations are the value of the material, if legal copyright is an issue, and the technical aspects. Rarity, research and educational value, and user demand may all affect how an object may be valued and prioritized by an institution.¹⁶ Copyright concerns may further limit how a collection is digitized and shared in online collections.¹⁷

The Smithsonian Open Access website lists multiple reasons why an object may not be included in the digital collection, such as copyright restrictions, “contractual restrictions from a donor, lender, or artist,” unsupported data formats, and an object being culturally sensitive.¹⁸ While ‘culturally sensitive’ is not defined or explained in the FAQ page, it most likely refers to objects that may have cultural restrictions.

The Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery Special Collection discusses cultural sensitivity, “Some groups…have traditional norms surrounding who can use certain materials, or specific items may be part of a ceremony or tradition that is only accessible for people within that group.”¹⁹ This holds the caveat that not every community and culture wants their records in the hands of third party institutions, let alone published online by groups outside the community.²⁰ Respecting these cultural norms and traditions is vital to cultivate trust and maintaining transparency.

Not digitizing a collection item due to cultural sensitivity is not collection silence per se. It is respecting the originating culture and maintaining community trust through purposeful silence. Not digitizing a selection of artifacts due to cultural sensitivity does not stop a museum from engaging with that community or culture or detract from the mission of education. Instead, this gives museums a chance to engage in open conversations with the general public about why some collection items cannot be shared in this way.

Silences in Metadata

Collection silences can present in more ways than a lack of collection objects or the limitations of what can be posted; silences can also appear in descriptions. Practicality dictates that most objects in digital collections are limited in interpretation to the metadata unless included in museum blog posts or virtual exhibits where context can be discussed as deeply as exhibit labels. Metadata is the data that makes digital collections searchable and can also be places filled with silence.

Metadata can include location data, filenames, creation date, object type, object materials, page numbers, dimensions of the physical object, who created the file, file type, details about what is in a photograph, and the potential for silences and gaps as well. In short, metadata is data about data, providing context and descriptions, allowing catalogs and computer filing systems multiple routes of organization, and creating a structure that search engines can look through.²¹

Metadata is a route for the analysis and democratization of collections when made publicly available. Diana Greenwald facilitated a ‘Datathon’ for the National Gallery of Art, which examined new uses for museum collection data, largely utilizing metadata already publicly available for digital collections. Greenwald argues that not only does data democratize museum collections by creating transparency, but that data analysis of this kind can and does show collection silences. Greenwald does not use the term collection silences or related terms; she does discuss acquisitions trends with the collection, examining the number of female artists represented. As well as new approaches, by studying the number of female donors, researchers can take to examine silences. Greenwald demonstrates how collection silences can be exposed by examining publicly available metadata. This allows transparency and acknowledgment of previous collecting policies.²²

Schwartz and Cook’s discussion of choosing how things are described extends to the metadata, often written by the museum and archival staff, who may have an inherent bias or simply lack the knowledge to provide useful metadata. Archival materials not only document objects that describe or are used to create an identity but enforce identity through collection decisions and by organizing and describing those records.²³ Greenwald explained that, “Cataloging is a profoundly human process; there is the possibility of error…”²⁴ When records with these organization methods and descriptions are made digitally available in a digital collection, they retain these organization methods, thereby perpetuating those same methods of describing and discussing materials. If a material has been disconnected from its originating culture by description, it will continue to be disconnected. If metadata is a human process with human errors, what happens if metadata describes objects in ways foreign to their originating culture? How are those cultures supposed to find them?

The FOR THE PHOENIX TO FIND ITS FORM IN US. ON RESTITUTION, REHABILITATION, AND REPARATION exhibition at ifa-Gallery and SAVVY Contemporary hosted an invocation discussing problems of representation in collections and other related issues.²⁵ Speakers Chao Tayiana Maina and Molemo Moiloa of Open Restitution Africa²⁶ discussed unfamiliar metadata descriptions in their talk, “For Those of Us the Algorithm Doesn’t See.” Maina discussed metadata and “…visible and invisible labyrinth of underground roots of data…metadata isn’t just data about data it is the engine behind data.” Maina makes the point that the schema of metadata is made by particular groups for their own use and what happens when other groups attempt to use the same framework despite it not matching their needs. Metadata and data uniformity, the use of universal metadata templates have the potential to “…to strip cultural collections of their authenticity…” Maina still maintains that metadata has the potential to “…breathe life into collections…” and create a deeper context for digital collections.²⁷

Moiloa discusses how computer algorithms are not designed to identify African names and thereby attempt to identify them as European or Japanese names. Moiloa discussed digital restitution and the problems of how white western institutions chose to prioritize objects to be digitized. Moiloa states, “…we are ghosts of the internet, haunting spaces where we have been erased…”²⁸ in reference to African culture in digital museum spaces describing the larger impact of collection silences. Both speakers demonstrated how being absent from the data that discusses cultural objects is damaging and how they are aware of the collection silences surrounding their cultural and historical objects.

Racial and cultural biases are not the only kinds of silence within metadata; gender bias can also present itself. At the Champaign County Historical Society Museum in Urbana, Ohio, there is a collection donated by Mrs. Ella Whitlock largely related to her husband Brand Whitlock’s life. Letters and objects addressed to Ella herself as Mrs. Brand Whitlock are included. Only one of the five separate donor records listed her full name in the collection records. The remaining records described her only as Mrs. Brand Whitlock, diminishing her role and importance below her husband. While an individual example, this is a typical language and description choice that can be found in many institutions, demonstrating how collection policies can actively reinforce gender bias.²⁹

Cristin Guinan-Wiley demonstrates how metadata reveals bias of museum staff as they create the metadata, “…metadata can perpetuate bias…through a use of language (controlled vocabulary) that is biased, especially in subject headings and tagging.”³⁰ Guinan-Wiley focuses on projects that actively confront the issue of metadata bias and how these projects are creating solutions. Guinan-Wiley only discusses how metadata can reveal collection biases and does not use the terms ‘collection gap’ or ‘collection silence.’ However, this article describes how collection silences are become more entrenched with metadata choices and can be exposed through analytic analysis. The majority of the paper utilizes metadata to expose the collection biases of the Tate museum, focusing on the gender of the artists represented in the collection.

Attempts to solve metadata bias have led to ideas about automating metadata creation. Amalia S. Levi cautions against automating the creation of metadata and the use of AI. “Remember: archival silences don’t disappear with each successive reformatting–they get recreated and perpetuated.”³¹ As coding is created by humans, it will inevitably make the same mistakes humans do. Levi shared Eryk Salvaggio’s analysis of this concept through the example of AI-generated images in an archival silences Twitter thread.³² Utilizing AI could reenforce the bias of the metadata and has the possibility of making collection silences worse by misidentifying objects when writing the metadata.

Possible Solutions

Addressing collection silences through collecting to fill these silences is an approach for the physical collection, however, this can be a slow process. The digital collection is restrained by the physical collection’s silences. You cannot post an object you do not have and as previously discussed digitizing is a long process. So the question becomes how can existing museums address silences in digital spaces? One option is to provide disclaimers explaining the inherent bias of the collection.

The Paul Mellon Centre Photographic Archive discusses their collection gaps by highlighting how only “…320 women [are] represented alongside roughly 4,600 men…” in the collection. This is attributed to limited scope and a historical collecting bias; the collection ceased collecting in 2013, meaning that filling these silences through additional material will not be done.³³

The City of Kingston Civic Artifact Collection, a museum in Kingston, Ontario, has three paragraphs in the about the collection section of the website. “…[The collection objects] do not represent all history equally. There are gaps in the collection and silences in the history that the collection can presently share.” The statement says that the staff is working on this issue and welcomes community input. The page includes a ‘contact us form’ immediately after the statement.³⁴

Figure 1

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery Special Collections statement is fundamentally different from the other two examples. This page is not written as a disclaimer but as an educational opportunity. It defines archival silences, even bolding the text of the term, and explains what bias in archives is, bringing non-neutrality concepts into the discussion. Further, the page links to and suggests sources to learn more, including sources created by other institutions with direct links to academic papers such as .pdfs. The page outlines how the Special Collections plans to resolve collection silences problems internally and vows to do so.

Figure 2

Part of why this page is so fundamentally different from the other two examples could be that it is written for visitors and researchers of a university collection. University collections are focused on the likely visitors— namely students, faculty, and visiting researchers—not the general public. This page is written to be helpful and valuable to college students learning to do archival research; it is also extremely valuable to the general public, who are likely unfamiliar with these concepts. It serves as a deeper recognition of the issue at hand. It works to acknowledge the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery collection’s absences and educate about how collection silences affect real living people. This disclaimer has the added effect of constructing trust with communities and publicly demonstrating how vital this relationship is to the communities whose records they hold.³⁵

A potential pitfall of these disclaimers is where and how they are included in the museum’s digital space. The Paul Mellon Centre Photographic Archive’s disclaimer is a blog article tucked away from the digital collection within the framework of the archive’s website.

Kingston Civic Artifact Collection places its statement under “Explore The Collection,”³⁶ but the page is listed as a navigation option in the drop-down navigation bar. The Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery statement is under Visiting Special Collections and is listed in a sidebar alongside how to use a finding aid and handling procedures.

Is simply acknowledging and accepting a collection’s silences enough? Is writing a disclaimer at one institution with the assumption that another institution has the resources to fill the silence enough?

Another solution is crowdsourcing research methods to find answers for objects that otherwise would continue to be labeled and described in vague terms. The main goals of crowdsourcing research for digital collections focus on corrections and expanding narratives. While an in-depth discussion and debate about crowdsourced research are tangential to this paper, the idea of turning to communities to fill silences in the collection is valuable.³⁷ The Walter Havighurst University Archives and Special Collections at Miami University in Ohio, a prayer book from Ethiopia, was reassociated with its name, author, and deeper history after being digitized and identified by a researcher halfway across the country. The researcher, Amsalu Tefera, came and spoke on the Arganone Mariam and shared historical, religious, and cultural context about the manuscript.³⁸ Knowledgeable people stepping forward and sharing what that know is extremely valuable.

Relying only on general public members to step forward is not a feasible solution; staff actively researching and being willing to learn about collections is vital as well. Greenwald explained, “museum staff are always learning new information that can result in changes to title, date, or attribution.”³⁹ Meaning active research and collection knowledge will provide solutions to metadata silences and provide access to collections.

Research and solutions to digital collections silences should not happen in a vacuum. Partnering with other institutions and organizations to share results and create new initiatives together will provide better equitable solutions. Bergis Jules and Amalia S. Levi discuss projects, organizations, and institutions that actively work on collection silences in digital spaces.⁴⁰ Here is an overview of a few of these projects and the solutions they provide.⁴¹

The Race and Ethnicity Keyword Thesaurus for Chronicling America works as a search term guide, aiding researchers looking for materials when the terms attached to them have changed. The thesaurus acknowledges and addresses how language drift can create archival silences. Quite simply, when terms change, a term acceptable 20 years ago falls out of favor, or is deemed offensive, the metadata may still reflect the older term. This thesaurus helps researchers find search terms that will lead them to the sources they want.⁴²

Some groups have even created their own digital museums as an answer to physical collections that don’t address their cultural needs. The Digital Transgender Archive collects digital versions of and describes information on archival holdings at other institutions that have value for their specific mission. Meaning not every part of the Digital Transgender Archive is held by the Archive.⁴³

The South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA) describes itself as “…a community-based culture change organization ensuring that South Asian Americans are included in the American story: past, present, and future."⁴⁴ With a collection of 4,792 items digitally available but physically held across the country, the collection works to actively highlight the narratives and bring them to the community the collection documents.⁴⁵

The Pacific Virtual Museum is a digital museum collecting pieces housed around the world to create a single digital space focused on the history and culture of the Pacific. Funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and organized with the National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga, and the National Library of Australia, the project encourages museums and other content partners to add to Pacific Virtual Museum’s digital collection and help refine existing metadata.⁴⁶

While it seems an excellent idea to get as much as possible on the internet and encourage people to inform institutions of incorrect and inaccurate data is a tempting solution, it is not always the right one. Consulting originating groups to determine if it is acceptable to share their cultural heritage is important to maintain transparency, ethical standards, and healthy relationships.

Moving Forward

Collection silences, a lack of collection materials associated with underrepresented groups, and suppressed narratives are often a result of historical bias in collecting institutions. These silences are made more apparent and deepened in the digital sphere through metadata language choices and the availability of collection data to the public. The absence of cultural materials or cultural materials described in digital collection metadata in an unfamiliar way can alienate groups from their own artifacts and histories.

There are many options for resolving collection silences in digital collections. When confronting the silences in an institution, digital collection acknowledgment is only the first step. Actively working with communities to fill collection silences, either through acquisition in the case of the physical collection or better description and contextualization in the case of the digital, makes a more profound impact. Connecting with projects and organizations that create digital collections to expressly fill collections silences about how to approach a collection and contribute to an institution’s holdings is a valid approach that will increase awareness and bring forth new solutions.

I also suggest to the Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAM) world that a cohesive term is applied to collection silences. This discussion is often lumped in with non-neutrality; however, this term is too broad, encompassing everything a museum does, including exhibit design and marketing choices. Sometimes this is referred to as ‘collection gaps,’ but this term is often applied when a museum lacks an example of a specific kind of object rather than discussing underrepresented narratives, making it the incorrect term and causing confusion. Referring to this issue as a diversity and inclusion issue is significantly more accurate but unclear. Does it refer to hiring practices or collection holdings and descriptions?

Archives have long used ‘archival silences’ as a cohesive term to describe a lacking of narratives due to collection bias. However, there is no currently used cohesive term to discuss this same problem in other kinds of institutions. Yet, it is a pervasive problem that many institutions have prioritized. I suggest utilizing the terms ‘collection silence’ or ‘curatorial silence’ moving forward to cohesively describe this issue, allowing for deeper conversations about solutions to develop. The suggested terms are not meant to apply to a lack of collection examples but to absences in the collection that result from collecting bias and are related to underrepresented and previously suppressed narratives.

Notes

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1. Museum as Site for Social Action Committee. MASS Toolkit. Museum as Site for Social Action, (Online Resource, 2017), 93. https://www.museumaction.org/resources/ ↩︎

2. “Museums do not just describe or collect cultural knowledge; they create it.” Museum as Site for Social Action Committee. MASS Toolkit. Museum as Site for Social Action, (Online Resource, 2017), 12. https://www.museumaction.org/resources/ ↩︎

3. “SAA Dictionary: Archival Silence,” Accessed November 21, 2022. https://dictionary.archivists.org/entry/archival-silence.html. ↩︎

4. “SAA Dictionary: Archival Silence,” Accessed November 21, 2022. https://dictionary.archivists.org/entry/archival-silence.html. Rodney G.S. Carter, “Of Things Said and Unsaid: Power, Archival Silences, and Power in Silence,” Archivaria 61, (September 24, 2006): 215–33. ↩︎

5. Museum as Site for Social Action Committee. MASS Toolkit. Museum as Site for Social Action, (Online Resource, 2017), 93. https://www.museumaction.org/resources/; Diana Greenwald, “What Can Data Teach Us About Museum Collections?” American Alliance of Museums (blog), April 27, 2020. https://www.aam-us.org/2020/04/27/what-can-data-teach-us-about-museum-collections/.; Cristin Guinan-Wiley, “Examining Biases in GLAM Data and Metadata,” 2019, https://ad-hoc-museum-collective.github.io/GWU-museum-digital-practice-2019/essays/essay-12/ ↩︎

6. Colleen Hoelscher, and Michael J Hughes, “Mind the gap: Teaching Archival Silences in Digital Collections,” Case Studies on Teaching with Primary Sources, Society of American Archivists, Case 19, (2021). ↩︎

7. Lisa Taylor, “Confronting Silences in the Archive: Developing Sporting Collections with Oral Histories,” Sport in history ahead-of-print, no. ahead-of-print (2021): 1–14. ↩︎

8. Gretchen Jennings, “Thoughts on Museum Neutrality: What Is the Conflict?” MASS Action. Accessed October 9, 2022. https://www.museumaction.org/massaction-blog/2018/2/9/thoughts-on-museum-neutrality-what-is-the-conflict. ↩︎

9. Cara Bennet, “Intern Weekly Response: Museums and Neutrality,” Jewish Museum of Maryland (blog), June 18, 2018. https://jewishmuseummd.org/intern-weekly-response-museums-and-neutrality/. ↩︎

10. Joan M. Schwartz, and Terry Cook, “Archives, Records and Power: The Making of Modern Memory,” Archival Science no. 2 (2002): 14. ↩︎

11. Suse Anderson, “Provocations on the Digital Future of Museums,” In The Digital Future of Museums: Conversations and Provocations, edited by Keir Winesmith and Suse Anderson. 2020. Routledge. ↩︎

12. Bergis Jules, “Confronting Our Failure of Care Around the Legacies of Marginalized People in the Archives,” On Archivy (blog), November 12, 2016. https://medium.com/on-archivy/confronting-our-failure-of-care-around-the-legacies-of-marginalized-people-in-the-archives-dc4180397280. ↩︎

13. Suse Anderson, “Provocations on the Digital Future of Museums,” In The Digital Future of Museums: Conversations and Provocations, edited by Keir Winesmith and Suse Anderson. 2020. Routledge. ↩︎

14. Colleen Hoelscher, and Michael J Hughes, “Mind the gap: Teaching Archival Silences in Digital Collections,” Case Studies on Teaching with Primary Sources, Society of American Archivists, Case 19, (2021), 5. ↩︎

15. Rachael Cristine Woody, “5 Prompts to Prioritize Museum Digitization Projects,” Lucidea, February 20, 2019, https://lucidea.com/blog/5-prompts-to-prioritize-museum-digitization-projects/.; Rachael Cristine Woody, “Myth #1: You Should Digitize All the (Museum) Things!” Lucidea, April 27, 2022, https://lucidea.com/blog/myth-1-you-should-digitize-all-the-museum-things/.; Rachael Cristine Woody, “Myth #2: It’s Easy to Digitize Museum Collection,” Lucidea, May 4, 2022, https://lucidea.com/blog/myth-2-its-easy-to-digitize-museum-collections/. ↩︎

16. Janet Gertz, “6.6 Preservation and Selection for Digitization.” Northeast Document Conservation Center. Accessed November 18, 2022, https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/preservation-leaflets/6.-reformatting/6.6-preservation-and-selection-for-digitization. ↩︎

17. Peter B. Hirtle, Emily Hudson, and Andrew T. Kenyon, “Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums,” SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY, October 27, 2009, https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1495365. ↩︎

18. Smithsonian Institution, “Open Access FAQ.” Accessed November 18, 2022, https://www.si.edu/openaccess/faq. ↩︎

19. Lindsey Loeper, “LibGuides: Visiting Special Collections: Silences and Bias in Archives,” Accessed November 21, 2022, https://lib.guides.umbc.edu/c.php?g=24920&p=7361816. ↩︎

20. These concepts are further explored with ideas about how some groups and communities may create silences to protect themselves and exercise power in this article: Rodney G.S. Carter, “Of Things Said and Unsaid: Power, Archival Silences, and Power in Silence,” Archivaria 61, (September 24, 2006): 215–33. ↩︎

21. Piotr Kononow, “What Is Metadata (with Examples) - Data Terminology,” Dataedo, September 16, 2018. https://dataedo.com/kb/data-glossary/what-is-metadata. Diana Greenwald, “What Can Data Teach Us About Museum Collections?” American Alliance of Museums (blog), April 27, 2020. https://www.aam-us.org/2020/04/27/what-can-data-teach-us-about-museum-collections/. ↩︎

22. Diana Greenwald, “What Can Data Teach Us About Museum Collections?” American Alliance of Museums (blog), April 27, 2020. https://www.aam-us.org/2020/04/27/what-can-data-teach-us-about-museum-collections/. ↩︎

23. Joan M. Schwartz, and Terry Cook, “Archives, Records and Power: The Making of Modern Memory,” Archival Science no. 2 (2002), 15-17. ↩︎

24. Diana Greenwald, “What Can Data Teach Us About Museum Collections?” American Alliance of Museums (blog), April 27, 2020. https://www.aam-us.org/2020/04/27/what-can-data-teach-us-about-museum-collections/. ↩︎

25. “SAVVY • SAVVY Tours in SAVVY Tongues,” Accessed November 21, 2022, https://savvy-contemporary.com/en/events/2021/savvy-tours/. ↩︎

26. “What the Algorithm Doesn’t See,” Open Restitution Africa (blog), February 15, 2022, Accessed November 10th, 2022, https://openrestitution.africa/what-the-algorithm-doesnt-see/. “About the Project | Open Restitution Africa,” Open Restitution Africa, Accessed November 21, 2022, https://openrestitution.africa/about-the-project/. ↩︎

27. Chao Tayiana Maina and Molemo Moiloa, “For Those of Us the Algorithm Doesn’t See.” SAVVY Contemporary in “INVOCATIONS | FOR THE PHOENIX TO FIND ITS FORM IN US | DAY 2 - YouTube.” August 21, 2021. Accessed September 20, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZRibg-0T44&t=1029s. ↩︎

28. Chao Tayiana Maina and Molemo Moiloa, “For Those of Us the Algorithm Doesn’t See.” SAVVY Contemporary in “INVOCATIONS | FOR THE PHOENIX TO FIND ITS FORM IN US | DAY 2 - YouTube.” August 21, 2021. Accessed September 20, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZRibg-0T44&t=1029s. ↩︎

29. As an intern at this institution I merged these duplicate records and after discussions with the museum director the records were changed to reflect Ella Whitlock as the donor. An example of an object that addresses Ella Whitlock as Mrs. Brand Whitlock as published on the digital collections for the Champaign County Historical Society Museum. “3995 - Banner,” Champaign County Historical Society Museum, Urbana, Ohio. Accessed November 21, 2022, https://cchs.catalogaccess.com/objects/779. Notably when a researcher, Annelien van Kempen showed interest in this collection and created a blog post about some of the artifacts, where Ella Brainerd-Whitlock is mentioned: Annelien van Kempen, “Flour sack trip from Urbana to Overijse,” Versierde meelzakken in WO I / Sacs à farine décorés pendant la GG / Decorated Flour Sacks from WW I (blog), October 24, 2020. https://meelzak.annelienvankempen.nl/blogeng/from-urbana-to-overijse/. In another section of the blog in Dutch she is referred to as “Mrs. Ella Whitlock, née Brainerd”: Kempen, Annelien van, “Van hulp tot borduurwerk in Ohio, VS,” 2022. Versierde meelzakken in WO I / Sacs à farine décorés pendant la GG / Decorated Flour Sacks from WW I (blog), June 10, 2021. https://meelzak.annelienvankempen.nl/blog/hulp-borduurwerk-ohio/. Kempen describes needing to learn how different institutions described the flour sacks. It is possible that if the museums Kempen is researching used every possible term as part of the metadata that identifying these artifacts would be more streamlined, further demonstrating the need of detailed metadata. Annelien van Kempen, “American Collections in Figures 2022,” Versierde meelzakken in WO I / Sacs à farine décorés pendant la GG / Decorated Flour Sacks from WW I (blog), January 25, 2022. https://meelzak.annelienvankempen.nl/blogeng/american-collections-in-figures-2022/. ↩︎

30. Cristin Guinan-Wiley, “Examining Biases in GLAM Data and Metadata,” 2019, https://ad-hoc-museum-collective.github.io/GWU-museum-digital-practice-2019/essays/essay-12/ ↩︎

31. Amalia S. Levi [@amaliasl]. “1/ I’d like to Highlight Some Recent Digital Projects and Scholarship That Engage with the Concept of #ArchivalSilences and Purposefully Center It in Their Thinking. Follow Along:” Tweet. Twitter, October 11, 2022. https://twitter.com/amaliasl/status/1579852438928232449. ↩︎

32. Eryk Salvaggio, “How to Read an AI Image,” Substack newsletter. Cybernetic Forests (blog), October 2, 2022, https://cyberneticforests.substack.com/p/how-to-read-an-ai-image. ↩︎

33. Paris A Spies-Gans, “Archival Silence and Historical Bias,” Features, Paul Mellon Centre. Accessed October 9, 2022, https://photoarchive.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/groups/Archival-Silence-and-Historical-Bias. ↩︎

34. “Collection Gaps and Silences | Civic Artifact Collection,” Accessed November 26, 2022. https://www.kingstonciviccollection.ca/explore-collection/gaps-and-silences. ↩︎

35. University of Maryland, Baltimore County Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery, “University of Maryland, Baltimore County LibGuides: Visiting Special Collections: Silences and Bias in Archives,” October 10, 2022. https://lib.guides.umbc.edu/c.php?g=24920&p=7361816. ↩︎

36. “Collection Gaps and Silences | Civic Artifact Collection,” Accessed November 26, 2022. https://www.kingstonciviccollection.ca/explore-collection/gaps-and-silences. ↩︎

37. For more sources on the use of crowd sourcing for collection research see: Jason A. Heppler and Gabriel K. Wolfenstein, “Crowdsourcing Digital Public History,” The American Historian Organization of American Historians. Accessed November 26, 2022. https://www.oah.org/tah/other-content/crowdsourcing-digital-public-history/.; Mia Ridge, Crowdsourcing Our Cultural Heritage, Edited by Mia Ridge. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2014.; Serge Noiret, “Crowdsourcing and User Generated Content: The Raison d’Être of Digital Public History” In Handbook of Digital Public History edited by Serge Noiret, Mark Tebeau and Gerben Zaagsma, 35-48. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2022. https://doi-org.proxygw.wrlc.org/10.1515/9783110430295-003 ↩︎

38. The collection listing for the manuscript had not been updated to reflect all the information presented by Amsalu Tefera at the time of writing, most likely due to how collection updates occur in large batches. Amsalu Tefera talk took place April 4, 2022, this author was in attendance. “Ethiopian Prayer Book - Miami University Libraries Digital Collections.” Accessed November 26, 2022. https://digital.lib.miamioh.edu/digital/collection/prayerbook. https://digital.lib.miamioh.edu/iiif/info/prayerbook/787/manifest.json; Miami University Calendar, “Amsalu Tefera Presents Arganone Mariam — A Praise for the Threefold Virgin: An Illuminated 16th-Century Ethiopic Manuscript Housed at Miami University,” Accessed November 26, 2022. https://events.miamioh.edu/event/arganone_mariam. ↩︎

39. Diana Greenwald, “What Can Data Teach Us About Museum Collections?” American Alliance of Museums (blog), April 27, 2020. https://www.aam-us.org/2020/04/27/what-can-data-teach-us-about-museum-collections/. ↩︎

40. Amalia S. Levi [@amaliasl]. “1/ I’d like to Highlight Some Recent Digital Projects and Scholarship That Engage with the Concept of #ArchivalSilences and Purposefully Center It in Their Thinking. Follow Along:” Tweet. Twitter, October 11, 2022. https://twitter.com/amaliasl/status/1579852438928232449. ↩︎

41. The Diversifying the Digital online forum was also going to be discussed however it appears the website for the forum stopped functioning between discovery of the source and attempting to write about the source. I have included it here in case the website regains functionality or is discovered to have moved to another online location. Attempting to view the website through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine was also unsuccessful resulting in 502 and 503 errors. “Diversifying The Digital – a Substantive Series of Forums.” Accessed November 18, 2022. http://diversifyingthedigital.org/. ↩︎

42. EDSITEment! National Endowment for the Humanities, “Race and Ethnicity Keyword Thesaurus for Chronicling America | NEH-Edsitement,” Accessed November 26, 2022. https://edsitement.neh.gov/media-resources/race-and-ethnicity-keyword-thesaurus-chronicling-america. ↩︎

43. Digital Transgender Archive, “Overview - Digital Transgender Archive,” Accessed November 26, 2022. https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/about/overview. ↩︎

44. South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA). “Mission, Vision, and Values.” Text, August 3, 2017. https://www.saada.org/mission. ↩︎

45. South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), “About,” February 26, 2013. https://www.saada.org/about. South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA). “Mission, Vision, and Values.” Text, August 3, 2017. https://www.saada.org/mission. ↩︎

46. digitalpasifik.org, “About Us,” Accessed November 26, 2022. https://digitalpasifik.org/about-us.; digitalpasifik.org, “Content Partners,” Accessed November 26, 2022. https://digitalpasifik.org/partners.; Tim Kong, “Immaterial: Sharing Taonga at The Pacific Virtual Museum,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accessed September 20, 2022. https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/articles/2022/7/immaterial-jade-pacific-virtual-museum. ↩︎