User Participation in Archival Knowledge Structures: Archival Description as Domain and Testing Ground

Abstract This paper presents a critical analysis of disciplinary discussions on user-generated contributions to institutional archives collections metadata and attempts to assess its impact on professional archivists’ approach to archival description. It frames archival description as a distinct knowledge domain and considers the possibilities, limitations, and contradictions of expanding this key function of archival work beyond the professional purview. It discusses how enhanced user participation might contribute to the knowledge and information infrastructures of archives and what this might suggest for archival description going forward. It identifies various practical, theoretical, and ethical implications for archives emerging from this body of literature, all undergirded by the role of technology in shaping the cultural and historical phenomena that archives seek to capture. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of archives’ renewed place in knowledge building in a digital society and offers suggestions for continued inquiry.