Records on the Go: the Intersection Of
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RECORDS ON THE GO: THE INTERSECTION OF MOBILE DEVICES AND ARCHIVES by Marta Dąbroś A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of the University of Manitoba in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of History (Archival Studies) Joint Master’s Program University of Manitoba/University of Winnipeg Winnipeg, Manitoba Copyright © 2017 by Marta Dąbroś i Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iv Dedication ........................................................................................................................... v Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Mobile Devices and the Call for Increased Representation in Archives .... 13 Mobility and the Digital Computing Environment ....................................................... 14 Mobility as it Applies to Records ................................................................................. 19 A Case in Point: The Challenges of Archiving Text Messages .................................... 29 Beyond Technical Issues: Making Intellectual Space for Born-Mobile Records ......... 38 Chapter Two: Born-Networked, Born-Mobile Records ................................................... 44 Personal, Organizational Born-Mobile Records: A Case for Ephemerality ................. 46 Social and Leisure Functions and the Cultural Work of Born-Mobile Records ........... 52 Citizenship Functions.................................................................................................... 57 Chapter Three: Networked Mobile Devices and Public Programming in Archives ......... 69 Resource Discovery: Search, Discovery, and Access and the Rise of the Mobile- Connected User ............................................................................................................. 70 Mobile Computing Devices and Participatory Archiving ............................................ 82 Mobile Devices in the Reading Room .......................................................................... 87 Enhanced User Engagement via Networked Mobile Devices ...................................... 90 ii Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 95 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 99 iii Abstract Given the pervasiveness of mobile devices in our environment, it follows that they are increasingly being used as a primary mode of archival records creation. This enormous shift in the mode of communication should be appropriately reflected in archival holdings and in archivists’ approaches to their craft. Yet, despite the widespread and multilateral impacts of these technologies across all of the core archival functions, this topic has received little attention from archival scholars. This thesis is an attempt to fill that void in the literature by investigating the reasons for this oversight and by examining the many impacts at the intersections of networked mobile devices and archives. The immense democratizing, culture-building, social, cultural, and political power of mobile devices should be adequately represented in archives. Grounded in the postmodern paradigm of archiving, this project suggests that the pervasiveness of networked mobile devices, and the resulting born-digital, “born-networked” records they are being used to create, should be better accounted for in the archival (and by extension historical) record. While this task involves coming face to face with some unique and tangible challenges from both technical and conceptual standpoints, making intellectual and practical space for networked mobile devices and born-mobile records in archives can have countless positive consequences for creators, archivists, and users of records, and can help to enact a more inclusive, more representative archive. iv Acknowledgments I would like to extend a sincere and heartfelt thank you to all the “co-creators” of this thesis. First and foremost, I thank my advisor, Dr. Greg Bak, for providing the necessary guidance, support, and patience as I worked through this thesis. He oversaw its development through many iterations and made time to answer questions, propose interesting and relevant sources, and inspire my thinking about the material presented within, while always exuding a contagious passion for archivy. I am also grateful to Professor Tom Nesmith for his encouragement and for introducing me to the inspiring thought that archives are everywhere and that all things are archival, which has allowed me to see the world and this profession in new ways. I am grateful to Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, for his indirect yet sweeping role in my life. Thanks to his work, I can ponder the impacts of internet-connected mobile devices on archives and peruse memes about cats—sometimes simultaneously! Last but not least, I thank, from the bottom of my heart, my family, my dear friends, and especially Zaw, for their constant love, unwavering encouragement, patience, and logistical and moral support as I worked on this thesis. Marta Dąbroś 2017 v Dedication This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my father, Tadeusz Dąbroś, and to the future of my daughter, Mila Tin Dąbroś Aungkyaw, whose lives just barely intersected but whose intersections with mine have nourished and enriched it. 1 Introduction When I first began my research into this topic, I hoped to examine examples of archives that are incorporating records made using networked mobile devices. It piqued my interest to think about how the records born out of the increasingly immersive and all- encompassing digital environment (itself largely a result of the growing pervasiveness of mobile devices in our lives) were making their way into archival repositories and institutions. I pondered what new kinds of realities, relationships, and social and cultural trends they may help future historians and scholars of human cultures and societies to reveal. However, it very quickly became apparent that, even if archivists were starting to turn to born-mobile records as a source of documentation that should be preserved, they were not distinguishing these from the other born-digital records in their collections, making the proposed task difficult. It became clear that even if archivists may find value in preserving these records, they were not valuing them based on mode of creation. This makes sense, in a way. Archives have never been overly concerned with the mode of production of records; although this aspect of the record helps us to make better sense of its context of creation and its materiality, for most analogue records, it is implied by the material form of the record and tends to take second stage to its content. Likewise, for electronic records, before the explosion in the popularity of smartphones, tablets, and other such networked portable computers, it was generally safe to assume that they had been created via stationary (or mostly stationary) computers such as desktops and 2 laptops; the focus was centred around the digital formats of the files rather than on the mode of their creation. Thus, I readjusted my task to better reflect this reality, and my guiding questions became: Why aren’t archives distinguishing born-mobile records as such? Why is it useful to do so? What value might it add to distinguish them from analogue and other born-digital records, and what may we gain as archivists to make this distinction? Finally, how may such a distinction be a step towards responding to the underrepresentation of born-mobile records by archives, and how can such a response help to enact a better archive for all—records creators, archivists, and users alike? My hope is that, by getting at the heart of this issue, we can start to address the underrepresentation of these records in archival holdings, and by extension, the underrepresentation of the people, relationships, and social systems they represent or reflect. A significant impact of the rapidly growing global pervasiveness of mobile devices (in particular, smartphones) is that they have become a powerful and critical tool in the democratization of communication by allowing almost anyone with a mobile device and an internet connection to add their voice—and their records—to society (for better or for worse)1. This democratization of communication has immediate, tangible, and far-reaching lateral effects, and should be appropriately reflected in the historical 1 It is worth noting here that not all responses of scholars to the democratization of the historical record have been purely optimistic. For example, notable digital historian Roy Rosenzweig has presented a measured, cautiously hopeful approach that acknowledges that the overabundance of digital records that this democratization contributes to can be overwhelming and paralyzing, while articulating the need for improved digital literacy and critical assessment of digital sources as part of the digital historian’s craft. See Roy Rosenzweig, “Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era,” The American Historical Review