Looking Back Through Opaque Glasses: What Born-Digital Archives Can Learn from Analog

The American idiom “hindsight is 20/20” refers to the clarity with which we see pitfalls when reflecting on the past. That idea can be extended and applied to the scholarly understanding of the theoretical archive as having holes, gaps, and silences. Certain documentation that was actively or passively excluded from collecting now seems of obvious importance. At the point of creation and preservation, however, materials are appraised and disposed of using the beliefs of the moment.

While hindsight may be “20/20,” to quote Robert Darton “What was proverbial wisdom for our ancestors is completely opaque to us.” Darton was referring to the everyday commonly-understoods of 18th century France, but in the ever changing digital archive the transparency of our glasses becomes more opaque in shorter and shorter time-frames.

This talk seeks to take a step back from the immediacy of born-digital archives, and to examine them within the larger context of how and why we’ve created archives for centuries.

Presenter
Dorothy Berry is an archivist and writer. She is currently the Digital Curator of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., where her portfolio includes all of the museum’s digital interpretation and digital scholarship strategy. Her forthcoming book The House Archives Built and Other Thoughts on Black Archival Possibilities will be the first release from We Here Press, expected in autumn 2025.

This lecture is generously sponsored by the University of London Press. At the University of London Press, our programme of cutting-edge humanities publications is built on a century of publishing experience and a commitment to support humanities research and researchers. We are a non-profit, predominantly open access university press and offer authors a friendly, professional and collaborative publishing experience. We publish 20—25 books a year across the humanities disciplines, publishing work that highlights the importance of humanities research and opens up debate. Our new books are published in multiple formats in print and ebook editions and open access titles are published online and free to download in PDF format via our website alongside print editions.

Additional support is provided by the John Coffin Memorial Fund. This lecture accompanies the Born-Digital Collections, Archives and Memory conference, running from 2-4 April 2025, which is supported by the Digital Preservation Coalition, the Endangered Material Knowledge Programme and the School of Advanced Study.
 

All welcome

This event is free to attend, but booking is required. It will be held in-person at Senate House, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. It will be followed by a drinks reception.