DAM and Museums 2022
Diversifying Digital Collections: Reflections from the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Archives and Community Engagement (AIU RACE) Centre
The AIU RACE Centre undertakes sector leading community-centered work with the aim to decolonize practices rather than centring institutional needs. The Centre is part of the University of Manchester’s Special Collections which includes ground-breaking imaging and digitization work and is moving towards the ideal of Open Access to all digital special collections.
In this session, we’ll hear from Jane Gallagher, Head of Digital Special Collections and Services at the University of Manchester Library and Safina Islam, Head of the AIU RACE Centre about the challenges of using digital assets to share stories from communities underrepresented in many historic collections. There are key questions surrounding this complex process including:
- How should the sector approach digitization and access to collections which are gathered by global majority communities, by institutions and individuals?
- Should contemporary community collections be approached differently to legacy, historical collections?
- Is free Open Access always the best model for creating and sharing digital assets?
Join Jane and Safina as they consider the many challenges and approaches to diversifying digital collections.
