Participatory archives, as Kate Theimer tells us, are the future. Archives must become places where “people other than the archives professionals contribute knowledge or resources resulting in increased understanding about archival materials.” One way archives can engage the communities they serve is to invite “the public to make their own contributions to historical work” by transcribing documents (Theimer). Though there aren’t many participatory archives in medieval studies, EEBO’s Text Creation Partnership has partnered with over 150 libraries to “generate highly accurate, fully-searchable, SGML-XML-encoded texts corresponding to books from the Early English Books Online Database.” While the TCP may not meet all requirements of Theimer’s definition of ‘participatory,’ the project certainly unites “people other than archives professionals” and invites libraries “to make their own contributions to historical work.” As of January 1, 2015, EEBO made over 25,000 texts available to the public; they plan to make 45,000 more texts freely available by 2020 (“EEBO-TCP: Early English Books Online”). Of course, open access is not the same as allowing the public to participate in archival work, but the fully-searchable and SGML-XML-encoded texts allow these works to be used by anyone in any way they see fit. And, though Theimer calls management-level participation rare, EEBO-TCP places “titles requested by users at partner institutions...at the head of the production queue,” allowing contributors to directly affect the future of the archive (“EEBO-TCP: Early English Books Online”). All this, I think, is good news for the future of digital archives, medieval or not.
One element of participation that Theimer does not explore, however, is design. In other words, how do archives engage the community through attractive, user-friendly, intuitive design? The average EEBO-TCP document looks like this:
In fact, this screenshot is of Thynne’s 1542 title page to Chaucer’s works, yet it looks very unlike any normal title page or Thynne’s actual title page:
In “Digital Scholarship and Interface Criticism,” Berry and Fagerjord argue that humanists must critique and interrogate design just as they would analyze any cultural text. Though they question the ‘intuitive’ narrative that accompanies new GUIs, I suggest we question the average web format for transcribed texts: one incredibly long webpage, standard Times New Roman font, neutral backing, etc. These design features visually demonstrate that the text is for use; it is meant to be copied, pasted, and manipulated electronically. What these design features do not demonstrate is engagement or attraction of potential users. Arguably, the archive’s design inhibits Theimer’s participatory goal and her larger purpose for the archive: to “add value to people’s lives by increasing their understanding and appreciation of the past.” If electronic archives, including EEBO-TCP, hope to encourage non-academes to find value in their collections, then those collections must look inviting and participatory and attractive in themselves.
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