Interfacing with the past: Archival digitization and the construction of digital depository

Abstract

This article examines the construction of a digital collection. Using a theoretical framework adapted from digital history and historiography, it will investigate the implications of archival digitization. Through an empirical study of the National Library of Israel’s digital depository of ephemera entitled ‘Time Travel’, the article demonstrates how the selection of archival records for digital preservation, the design of the search interface, and the crowdsourcing of metadata collection are all directing archive users toward certain narratives about Israeli history and away from others. Drawing on interviews with professionals, analysis of reports, and investigations of user experience, I will unearth the political, religious, and cultural tensions that lie beneath the surface of ‘Time Travel’. This research demonstrates that digitization of archival documents is not just a technical process but a cultural, social, and political one as well.

Digitizing the paper of record: Archiving digital newspapers at the New York Times

“…The TimesMachine search interface – in a way similar to the traditional NYT Index – influences contextual knowledge by determining the limitations and constraints on information access. An interface can prioritize data or records, highlighting some topics of inquiry over others, thus guiding users toward certain determined historical conclusions (Ringel, 2020). But the ways in which these options are determined and what human and cultural forces are at play remain obscure to the vast majority of users, even though such choices deeply impact the way archival materials are presented and hence perceived, interpreted and remembered.…”