Article:
Archiving the Leftovers of Science: Metadata and Histories of Scientific Institutions

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dc.creatorVolynskaya, Alina
dc.date.accessioned2024-03-01T11:35:45Z
dc.date.available2024-03-01T11:35:45Z
dc.date.issued2020
dc.description.abstractIn this article, I focus on digital scientific archives which are made up of the leftovers of science, such as drafts, obsolete instruments, pho- tographs, documentation, etc. The artifacts exhibited in such collec- tions were neither meant to be representations, nor objects of gaze, but means used to achieve scientific results. As they lose functionality, they acquire aesthetic and historical value and emerge as clues, traces of past scientific practices and institutional histories. Therefore, the ways in which institutions situate these objects within the archive, the vocabularies and metadata they use, bear testimony on the manner they present and depict their past. How do the digital archives of the scientific institutions represent their histories? To address this question, I analyse the subject metadata of twenty-five institutional archives, turning them into objects of distant reading. Quantitative methods offer a way to discern the discursive frameworks that sci- entific institutions tend to adopt: Do they frame their collections as cultural heritage? represent them as corporate histories? emphasise technical specifications? scientific value? big names? A closer look at the metadata sets reveals that, in fact, these very different perspec- tives intermingle and clash with each other within the archive struc- tures: the logic of heritage is juxtaposed with scientific classifications, institutional categories stand side by side with natural objects, and minority histories with celebrity narratives. Discussing this interplay of discourses, the article frames the digital archive of science as a spe- cific mode of historical representation, which gives rise to a new (and still political) order of things.en
dc.identifier.doi10.14361/dcs-2020-02008
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/21886
dc.identifier.urihttps://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.14361/dcs-2020-02008/html
dc.identifier.urihttps://mediarep.org/handle/doc/23196
dc.languageeng
dc.publishertranscript
dc.publisher.placeBielefeld
dc.relation.isPartOfissn:2364-2114
dc.relation.ispartofseriesDigital Culture & Society
dc.rightsCreative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 Generic
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
dc.subjectDigital archives of scienceen
dc.subjectsubject metadataen
dc.subjectarchival discoursesen
dc.subjectdigital historical representationsen
dc.subjectdistant readingen
dc.subject.ddcddc:700
dc.subject.ddcddc:600
dc.titleArchiving the Leftovers of Science: Metadata and Histories of Scientific Institutionsen
dc.typearticle
dc.type.statuspublishedVersion
dspace.entity.typeArticle
local.coverpage2024-03-02T02:44:53
local.source.epage162
local.source.issue2
local.source.issueTitleThe Politics of Metadata
local.source.spage133
local.source.volume6

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6(2) 2020: The Politics of Metadata