Introduction
This online exhibit has been created to share relevant insights about the process of preparing a digital archive for junior and senior scholars who have no training as archivist. The exhibit is based on my experience as a non-archivist making David Wurfel digital archive. The reflections and ideas captured in this online exhibit were triggered and enriched by multiple readings and the project team. The hope is that the ideas discussed in this exhibit will be helpful to all of those who may not have training as archivists but may be interested in preserving and sharing material via its digitization and display through an online archive.
The creation process of the digital archive of David Wurfel is used in this online exhibit to illustrate some of the steps and decisions that the preparation of a digital archive entails. David Wurfel digital archive consists of 200 photographic slides. I selected these slides from more than 1,800 that are part of David Wurfel fonds. The making of this archive was an adventure that led me to confront the interests of a scholar committed to scholarship about Southeast Asia.
The making of a personal digital archive is clearly not a neutral process. However, the combination of the archivist’s awareness of her/his positionality and her/his familiarity with the owner of the material that make the digital archive up can produce a carefully crafted digital archive.
In this process I questioned, what are the steps and decisions involved in the making of a digital archive, from the perspective of a non-archivist?; what are some of the complexities this process entails?
