Records on the go: the intersection of mobile devices and archives
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Date
2017
Authors
Dabros, Marta
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Abstract
Given the pervasiveness of mobile devices in our environment, it follows that they are increasingly being used as a primary mode of archival records creation. This shift in the mode of communication should be reflected in archival holdings and in archivists’ approaches to their craft. Yet, despite the widespread, multilateral impacts of these technologies across all of the core archival functions, this topic has received little attention. This thesis investigates the reasons for this oversight by examining the impacts at the intersections of networked mobile devices and archives. The democratizing, culture-building, social, cultural, and political power of mobile devices should be represented in archives. Grounded in the postmodern paradigm of archiving, this project suggests that the pervasiveness of networked mobile devices, and the resulting born-digital, “born-networked” records they are being used to create, should be better accounted for in the archival (and by extension historical) record. While this task involves coming face to face with some unique and tangible challenges from both technical and conceptual standpoints, making intellectual and practical space for networked mobile devices and born-mobile records in archives can have countless positive consequences for creators, archivists, and users of records, and can help to enact a more inclusive, more representative archive.
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Keywords
mobile, Mobile devices, cellphone, archives, archival, Cell phone