Conference themes

Archival records are not neutral but speak the language of those who collected them. This raises questions about how to handle records from children in public care and other histories of people whose lives were stolen or deeply impacted public authorities or other agencies with power. What is the role of the archives in setting the record straight in cases like these? What about the right to be forgotten or perhaps as an alternative a right to speak back to the archives?

Archives as ‘big data’ and the reuse of data or information once collected for a specific purpose now being reused for other purposes. What are the implications of substituting ‘records’ with ‘data’? What archival and ethical considerations should both archives as ‘big data’ and reuse of data raise? Can rethinking of central concepts in archival theory help us manage and handle archives as big data and reuse of data in ethically and societal responsible ways?

Can artificial intelligence be used to appraise digital records? What search engines will be used to search digital collections – what is current experience and future options? What is so far, our experience with text mining and digital search methods in digital collections? Other relevant experience with use of artificial intelligence in digital archiving?

The EU is working hard to find ways to regulate social media data, and in the Nordic countries we have several laws regulating access and use of data and registers. Present day regulation normally builds on individual rights and property laws. What are the limits to individual rights and individual consent? Is it possible also to speak about communal or common rights? Perhaps as a parallel to speaking of societal or common provenance?

So far public records have been the ones most consistently preserved, at least in the Nordic countries as most archival acts and other types of regulation mainly adheres to public administration. Standards have been the key to preservation of public sector records, but the importance of specific standards for records creation and preservation, such as those developed in the Nordic countries, may be of less importance as international standards becomes the new norm? What is the current experience with handling digital private collections around the world? Will international standards eventually help create common standards for creation and preservation also of private records? And for whom? Only big private companies? What about less resourceful entities such as e.g. civil society organisations and their archival legacy?