@misc{Woitkowitz2024, author = {Woitkowitz, John}, title = {Digital Collections as Spaces of Contestation: Negotiating Access, Ethics, and Technology in the Digital Realm}, series = {TK 6: Sammlungen, Repositorien, Retrodigitalisierung und Kulturgut(schutz)/ Digitale Sammlungen (07.06.2024, 10:45 - 12:15, Saal A.3 / 1. OG)}, journal = {TK 6: Sammlungen, Repositorien, Retrodigitalisierung und Kulturgut(schutz)/ Digitale Sammlungen (07.06.2024, 10:45 - 12:15, Saal A.3 / 1. OG)}, year = {2024}, abstract = {Libraries increasingly confront their roles within the wider histories of colonialism and how these legacies continue to shape their collections today. As part of this process, the digitization of historical source material raises timely questions about forms and processes of presenting collections in the digital realm. Libraries and other cultural heritage organizations have begun to experiment with different forms of making available potentially sensitive collections in ways that seek to navigate the space between ethics and access as set out by community standards and funding agencies. This paper discusses existing and new approaches to presenting historical collections from colonial contexts in the digital realm. In a first step, the paper surveys existing approaches ranging from platform-wide disclaimer statements to collection-specific labels that seek to guide users in understanding potentially contested provenances, sensitive material and other problematic material that reflects the racial and ideological thinking of historical agents. In a second step, the paper discusses new approaches explored as part of the project IN_CONTEXT: Colonial Histories and Digital Collections with respect to presenting collections from colonial contexts by leveraging techniques from the field of web development. How manipulating the physicality of the presentation layer can help sensitize users and provide contextualization for problematic designators and colonial catalogues will be illustrated by way of a web-based prototype. Finally, the paper reflects on the importance of recognizing the authority and standards as articulated e.g. by Indigenous groups and other knowledge holders for presenting material from colonial contexts in the digital realm. The paper concludes by suggesting that if work towards creating responsible digital collections and ensuring wide access for diverse audiences is to succeed, support for sustained and iterative collaboration is indispensable.}, language = {en} }