Poster
Nathalie Casemajor Loustau
Biography
Nathalie Casemajor Loustau is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at McGill University (Department of Art History and Communications Studies). Her work focuses on photographic memory, digital archiving and visual methods.
Abstract
This talk will address the vocabulary of digital access (‘open’, ‘access’, ‘free’) in the field of cultural heritage. I will focus on a case study based on public documents issued by Library and Archives Canada over the last decade. My broader intention is to produce a diagram mapping the genealogy of the term ‘open’ in the field of digital culture and information.
With the creation of major open data catalogues by local and national governments since 2009, the use of the term ‘open’ has been rising in media, scholarly and professional discourses. We now frequently encounter multiple expressions that derive from the principle of open access: open content, open government, open resources, open knowledge, open culture, open science and so forth. What is the impact of this new popularity of the term ‘open’ in the field of cultural heritage? Is its recent expansion mirrored in the official discourses of memory institutions? By using the data mining tool ‘Voyant’ to examine the occurrences of the word ‘open’ in public statements by Library and Archives Canada (LAC), I will provide a starting point for the analysis of its trajectories within the field of cultural heritage.
The data gathered in this case study will help create a semantic map of the different meanings and uses of the term ‘open’ in the field of digital access to cultural heritage. This semantic map will contribute to the broader project of tracing a genealogy and critical analysis of the term ‘open’ in the context of digital practices.