Archives & Manuscripts Post #8

The last post I wrote ripped pretty hard on e-books and their role in separating scholarly ideas from the work’s larger context. Luckily, we’re discussing other aspects of digitization this week, so I get another chance to write about the potential pitfalls of posting archival material online. This week’s reading primarily focuses on the liabilities that accompany digitizing archival materials. While scholars seem to be pushing more and more for the digitization of materials, making archival research easier and more accessible to a wider audience, many do not realize how difficult posting materials online is in actuality.

While many archives make a point of gaining the legal rights to collections after their accession, many materials still remain the intellectual property of other individuals. As Dharma Akmon shows in her article “Only With Your Permission: How Rights Holders Respond (Or Don’t Respond),” some documents might possess as many as ten copyright holders. Because archival institutions do not always hold the copyright to the materials they preserve, it is essential that copyright holders are contacted before materials are posted online. Due to the tedious nature of this process, archivists often prioritize digitizing materials with only one copyright holder when possible.

Obviously, determining who owns copyright information, not to mention tracking down that person, has the potential to be extremely difficult. Many materials possess few clues in determining a document’s creator and where to contact a creator in the present day. These documents are often referred to in the archival profession as “orphan works.” Occasionally, orphan works are still digitized and posted online, but archivists must document the steps taken in their search for the copyright holder, in case of potential lawsuit.

After learning this information, I can’t help but sympathize with the archivists. I’ve worked numerous customer service jobs where customers have no conception of how much work goes into something seemingly simple like making coffee or selling clothing, but still manage to complain about how things aren’t getting to them fast enough. Now that I know how much effort goes into releasing digitized archival material to the public, the research who’s complaining about how it’s hard for them to access materials because so little is featured online just reminds me of a whiny customer. In the twenty-first century, we increasingly crave convenience and speed within our every day lives. I think it’s important to realize the incredible amount of stress and hard work that goes into creating this convenience for others.