For one and all: participation and exchange in the archive of the future

By looking at the advanced ICT methods now being employed, this volume details the long-lasting effects and advances now made possible in art history and its associated disciplines. The authors analyze the most advanced and significant tools and technologies, from the ongoing development of the Semantic Web to 3D visualization, focusing on the study of art in the various contexts of cultural heritage collections, digital repositories and archives. They also evaluate the impact of advanced ICT methods from technical, methodological and philosophical perspectives, projecting supported theories for the future of scholarship in this field”. My chapter considers how the developments of Web 2.0 have affected the practices of archives as they endeavour to open up their collections in new ways. While archivists seek to standardize cataloguing to facilitate data exchange, users increasingly expect to be able personalize their own selections of material. Meanwhile born-digital records create new challenges of their own. Considering examples of approaches to these challenges, the chapter emphasizes the importance of collaboration between different perspectives and approaches to enable the presentation and re-presentation of archival content.