Participatory archives have arisen in the paradigm of archive management importantly considering users with the development of web. However, for the continuous participation of users, an archivist need to organize the records beyond the traditional cr...
Participatory archives have arisen in the paradigm of archive management importantly considering users with the development of web. However, for the continuous participation of users, an archivist need to organize the records beyond the traditional creator-centered way. Archives are not only the result of activities of an individual or a group, but also information asset in society. If an archivist makes archives available to users, they can lead users to participate continuously in the archive. It can be effectively supported in semantic web, dealing data in certain context. Thus, this thesis researched technology of semantic web in order to support the participation in the participatory archives.
This study applied Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘Language Play’ and the ‘Continuum’ theory of Upward to look into the concept 'Participation' in the context of Archive Science. In this point of view, it found the strengths and weaknesses of semantic web for participation by analyzing the semantic web standard of the W3C and the semantic technology used by the NAA. It also studied two case of participation in archives by using semantic web. TNA’s ‘Expert Participation Programme’ was an example of supporting the use of records according to the rules and multiplying them. UNESCO’s ‘Dive into ICH’ was designed to use records according to the way of life, but was also intended to organize the user to the UNESCO’s context.
To explicitly express the archive’s meaning for the using them in the original context, the archivist can design ontologies and thesaurus in creation. When capturing the documents and making them records, the archivist can publicize the records by issuing them as Linked Data. Data Visualization can be built in organizing. To pluralizing archives, they can be shared as open data. The user can freely reconstruct the archives which includes the context of the archive. If the changed meaning of the reused document is arranged by the archivist and represented with the archives, a virtuous cycle of participation can occur. To support it the archivist need to store the archives as a data form in the extensible metadata schema. The way of reusing archives are combining them as documents from multiple sources. Artificial intelligence can help organize different types of rules which is belonged to the documents. The limitation of the semantic web is that humans can not afford to teach everything to machines. The machine can not know more than what human had taught in advance. In participatory archives, where many lifestyles coexist, the archivist can not prescribe all the relationships proactively. Therefore, the archivist needs to wait for the actual use of the users and link the new meanings of documents to the original records. The meaning of the archives can be enriched beyond the producer's point of view.
This study tried to contemplate the users’ participation through the users’ recognition, use and reuse of archives in the environment where participation through web is important. Apart from the original context given by the archivist, this study presented a direction for dealing with reused documents by users in philosophical manner illuminating the change of context when the archives are reused.