Archives on the Internet: Representing Contexts and
Provenance from Repository to the Internet

Archives on the Internet: Representing Contexts and
Provenance from Repository to the Internet

Archives

This article examines the ways in which online archives challenge the concept of provenance. Monks-Leeson examines two online archives in detail, the First World War Poetry Digital Archive, hosted by Oxford, and the Walt Whitman Archive, edited by Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price, to determine the ways in which they interpret and incorporate provenance. She concludes that both websites rather offer a collection than archival fonds. According to Monks-Leesong, search emphasizes themes rather than the creator’s order; thus, online archives seem to privilege alternate structures over traditional ones, such as provenance and original order. Nevertheless, Monks-Leeson points out, traditional archives offer thematic guides as well. Additionally, online archives tend to provide rich amounts of contextual information, which allows researchers to retrace the creator’s order. Ultimately, Monks-Leeson argues that digital archives are “a familiar adaption of ongoing practices and concerns,” rather than entirely new phenomena. Archivists must therefore keep in mind those traditional concepts whilst thinking of them in complex and new ways.

Monks-Leeson, Emily

2011

Laura Moeller

Journal article

Monks-Leeson, Emily. "Archives on the Internet: Representing Contexts and
Provenance from Repository to the Internet." The American Archivist 74 (2011): 38-57.