Decolonising Digital Childhoods: A pilot study towards enhanced participation and diversification in historical children's literature collections

该项目将通过五项主要活动，试验使儿童档案的数字获取和内容多样化的技术。首先，我们将解决殖民档案馆的问题-在主要收藏品持有的数百万件物品中，那些符合社会规范或主导力量的物品被选作数字展览-通过寻求将隐藏在美国最大的儿童文学收藏之一鲍德温历史儿童文学图书馆和英国最大的图书馆之一剑桥霍默顿学院的隐藏材料去殖民化。这些馆藏部分是用不完整的MARC记录编目的，这些MARC记录依赖于几十年前的“重要”层次结构。其次，我们将通过项目团队的直接研究，并通过要求用户，包括年轻人、家长、教师和学者，提供对儿童书籍的匿名评论/评论，来增强这些文本的元数据，以便能够解释更多不同的观点。第三，我们将对可能对读者有害的已识别触发词进行全文搜索。儿童文学与历史(经常是正统的)作家作斗争，这些作家一直冒犯历史上被奴役、殖民或诋毁的人。鲍德温收藏的第一件作品《150个指导性的故事》，在第101页包含了一个词“黑人”，称这个角色为“一个简单而没有字母的野蛮人”。允许这种随意的种族主义不受遏制，是对我们作为看门人的玩忽职守。在与残疾和土著文化有关的贬低术语的历史上，以及塑造现代美国和英国的移民方面，类似的问题不断遇到。带有有害内容的触发警告将保护研究人员、儿童和普通读者免受在其他安全的搜索查询或浏览行为中可能出现的冒犯或伤害。第四，我们将策划一个由20本儿童读物组成的数字收藏，专门设计用于将历史儿童文学去殖民化。鲍德温图书馆2019年的展览《儿童文学中的种族主义、代表性和抵抗，1800-2015》已经开始了制作这样一个版本的一些初步工作。我们将在这次展览的基础上提供一个扩展的数字版本，由鲍德温图书馆和霍默顿学院图书馆联合主办，其中包括两个收藏的材料，包括学术介绍和视频和文本评论。最后，我们将通过项目培训和更广泛的活动，鼓励领导能力和技能发展，使数字档案实践多样化。

This project will pilot techniques for diversifying digital access to and content within archives of childhood through five main strands of activity. Firstly, we will address the problem of the colonised archive - whereby out of the millions of items held by major collections, those that accord with the canonical or dominant powers in society are selected for digital exhibition - by seeking to decolonise the hidden materials buried in the stacks, boxes, and basements of one of the largest collections of children's literature in the US, the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature, and one of the largest in the UK, Homerton College, Cambridge. These collections are partially catalogued with incomplete MARC records that rely on decades-old hierarchies of 'significance'. Secondly, we will enhance metadata for these texts through direct research by the project team and also by asking users, including young adults, parents, teachers, and scholars, to supply anonymous commentary/reviews of children's books, so that more diverse perspectives can be accounted for. Thirdly, we will deploy full-text searches of identified trigger words that can be harmful to readers. Children's literature struggles with historical (and very often canonical) authors who have been offensive to historically enslaved, colonised, or denigrated people. The first item available in the Baldwin collection, "150 instructive stories", contains the word "negro" on page 101, for instance, calling the character "a simple and unlettered savage". It is a dereliction of our duty as gatekeepers to allow such casual racism to go unchecked. Similar problems are encountered continually with respect to the history of demeaning terms associated with disability and indigenous cultures, as well as the immigrants who have shaped modern America and Britain. Trigger warnings, with indications of harmful content for intersectional identities, will protect researchers, children, and general readers from offensiveness or hurt that can emerge in otherwise safe search queries or acts of browsing. Fourthly, we will curate a digital collection of 20 children's books designed explicitly to engage with decolonising historical children's literature. Some initial work towards such an edition has begun in the Baldwin Library's 2019 exhibition 'Racism, Representation, and Resistance in Children's Literature, 1800-2015'. We will build upon this exhibition to offer an expanded digital edition, jointly hosted by the Baldwin Library and Homerton College Library with materials from both collections, including scholarly introductions and video and textual commentary. Finally, we will through project training and wider activities encourage leadership and skills development towards diversifying digital archival practice.