Building Collections for All Time: The Issue of Significance

Abstract

One of the major roles adopted by libraries is the long-term preservation of selected material within their collections. Traditionally. this role comprised identifying individual physical objects or collections based upon the library's own view of its role and the significance of items in its collections. With the rapid growth of digital materials there has been a blurring of the divide between museum, archive and library collections. ll'ith a growing concern amongst all cultural heritage sectors about the identification and ongoing preservation of digital objects. Due to the size and complexity of' the issues and. in particular, the volume of digital material and costs in1'0lved in its long-term preservation. there has been a resurgence in the debate on identifYing significance in materials and thus their priority in preservation programs. This debate has sparked widespread discussion in the museum, archives and recordkeeping professions which can inform the more recent concerns now being voiced within librarianship. This paper looks at the concept of significance within all of the 'memory institutions' and considers how the theory is shaped, how it has been put into practice and the applicability of such a notion to digital preservation.

Guarding Against Collective Amnesia? Making Significance Problematic: An Exploration of Issues

“…The question posed in the title of this paper is rhetorical and, as Pymm (2006) has suggested, there probably is no single definitive answer. The reason for this rests in the problematic construct of significance, and in library scholars' and practitioners' unwillingness to engage in debate about the underlying themes that motivate and drive the designation of significance.…”

The Cognitive and Social Lives of Paradigms in Information Science

“…Some citing authors misread-or selectively read-Kuhn. Bob Pymm (2006) wrote, "While Kuhn was mainly concerned with the physical sciences he also applied the same arguments to social or, as he termed them, quasi-sciences, with a direct relevance to the paradigms favoured by our profession" (p. 65). Kuhn repeatedly averred that he did not intend his examination to refer to anything but the physical sciences.…”

Recuerdos Hablados /Memories Spoken: Toward the Co-Creation of Digital Knowledge with Community Significance

“…Therefore, it is unfortunate that the concept of significance has received little attention (Pymm, 2006). Rather, determining and assigning significance proceeds as a largely uncontested and unexplored practice.…”