Revealing collections, exploring discovery? Participatory archiving and creating 'thick description' catalogues for medical and scientific archives

尽管自20世纪70年代以来，英国档案馆保存了大量重要的科学和医学档案，但由于编目不充分、档案馆工作人员缺乏科学专业知识以及只有有限的背景信息，许多藏品没有得到充分利用。威康图书馆的工作人员希望通过扩大其利益攸关方对档案进程的参与来解决这一问题。图书馆可以接触到各种各样的专家和学科专家网络，从生物医学和精英临床学科的专业实践社区到患者支持和压力团体，并希望能够收集所有这些团体的专业知识，并将其纳入档案目录。值得注意的是，图书馆认为，这些参与性方法还可以在档案描述中涉及“被历史边缘化的社区”，例如精神健康幸存者历史网络。这些目标与当代关于“参与性档案”的学术和专业辩论相吻合，这些辩论旨在使记录创建者、存放者和用户能够参与专业的档案过程，目的是创造更详细的描述，加深对记录及其制作和使用的背景的理解。最近将用户生成的内容视角应用于目录的一些尝试是由Web 2.0技术的使用推动的，然而参与式档案实践包括许多技术依赖性较低的方法，如重新访问档案收藏(RAC)和与创建者和储存者的生活史访谈。在这些例子中，用户的贡献是通过档案员分级和记录用户与藏品之间的接触而获得的，其结果随后可用于增强目录描述。可以采用这样的用户参与方法来获取传统“专家”的知识，包括档案收藏品的创建者和保管人，以及个人和群体的反应，这些个人和群体可能被描述为与档案有文化联系而不是“专家”联系。在档案目录中加入更多的主观和本能的反应，对有效性、可靠性和代表性提出了一些严重的问题，而档案员在评估这方面的角色是一个重大的专业挑战。这项研究旨在通过对威康图书馆的一些科学档案采用RAC和生活史访谈的影响，彻底了解参与式档案描述的潜在优势、机会和挑战。这项研究的一个关键要素将是探索如何做出关于捕获的数据的可靠性的决定，然后将其记录在案，以及如何满足任何由此产生的伦理问题。关键的研究问题是*在科学档案目录中捕捉和利用多种声音的挑战是什么？这种方法对公众参与科学档案有何影响？*将多种声音纳入目录的专业影响是什么？档案员是否应该在协调和制定这一新内容方面发挥核心作用？如果是，如何记录这一角色？*将多种声音纳入目录的伦理影响是什么？*从捕获和利用来自其他学科的用户贡献的内容方面可以学到什么教训？*参与的方法与所选的交付机制(包括基于技术的解决方案)之间的关系是什么？尽管这项研究侧重于威康图书馆的科学和医疗档案，但其结果将引起所有遗产专业人士的更广泛兴趣

Despite the large number of significant scientific and medical archives deposited in UK archives since the 1970s, many collections are underused because of inadequate cataloguing, a lack of scientific expertise amongst archive staff and only limited contextual information. Staff at the Wellcome Library wish to address this by extending the involvement of its stakeholders in the archival process. The Library has access to a diverse network of experts and subject specialists, ranging from specialist communities of practice in the biomedical sciences and elite clinical disciplines, to patient support and pressure groups, and hopes that the expertise of all these groups can be captured and incorporated into archival catalogues. Significantly the Library believes that these participatory approaches could also involve 'historically marginalised communities', such as the mental health survivor history network, in the description of archives. These objectives mesh with contemporary academic and professional debates about the 'participatory archive' which seek to enable record creators, depositors and users to participate in professional archival processes with the aim of creating more detailed descriptions and a deeper understanding of the record and the context of its creation and use. Some recent attempts to apply user-generated content perspectives to the catalogue have been driven by the use of Web 2.0 technologies, however participatory archival practice includes many less technologically dependent approaches, such as Revisiting Archive Collections (RAC) and life history interviews with creators and depositors. In these examples, user contributions are obtained by the archivist staging and recording encounters between users and the collections, the results of which can then be used to enhance catalogue descriptions. User participation approaches such as these can be employed to capture the knowledge of both traditional 'experts', including the creators and depositors of archive collections, and the responses of individuals and groups that might be characterised as having a cultural rather than 'expert' association with the archives. Incorporating more subjective and instinctive responses into archive catalogues poses some serious questions about validity, reliability and representativeness and the archivist's role in assessing this is a major professional challenge. This research aims to deliver a thorough understanding of the potential strengths, opportunities and challenges of participatory approaches to archival description by examining the impacts of employing RAC and life history interviews to a number of scientific archives at the Wellcome Library. A crucial element of this research will be to explore how decisions about the reliability or otherwise of the data captured are made and then documented, and how any resulting ethical issues are met. The key research questions are* What are the challenges in capturing and utilising multiple voices within scientific archive catalogues? What are the impacts of such approaches on public engagement with scientific archives? * What are the professional implications of the incorporation of multiple voices within the catalogue? Should the archivist have a central role in moderating and framing this new content and if so how is this role to be documented?* What are the ethical implications of incorporating multiple voices into the catalogue?* What lessons can be learnt about the capture and utilisation of user contributed content from other disciplines?* What is the relationship between the approach to participation and the chosen delivery mechanism (including technology based solutions)?Although the research focuses on scientific and medical archives in the Wellcome Library, the results will be of wider interest to all heritage professio