Institutional metadata and the problem of context

Abstract

The traditional archive catalogue is a form of structural and descriptive metadata that long precedes the internet, and the cataloguing of photographs is just part of a wider process of archival administration. At the heart of this discussion lies the notion that the single photograph is devoid of context; it is a discrete embodiment of shutter time and there is nothing certain either side of that. Traditional institutional techniques of image description mirror this, as they are based on the visual content and are predominantly context-free. Description constitutes a remediation of the image, in stark contrast to the single word descriptor applied through a metadata schema. The archival photograph is therefore well-placed to highlight the criticality of place, hierarchy and context, which are key to the power of archive material as information and evidence. Context is built through static relationships, through the situating of objects in accordance with the concept of original order, and it is replicated through hierarchical storage systems and catalogue entries. Such orders and relationships are absent within sets of images that are brought together by simple keyword search, including through the digital interfaces of institutions that struggle to reconcile archival principles and identity with network culture. Images are transported to places where contextual information is at best difficult to access, especially for those unfamiliar with archival interfaces. In contrast to the controlled stasis of archival storage and interconnected recordkeeping systems, network storage is messy, unstable and poorly described. However, we must accept that context is not always important to Google-savvy users, and for them the networking of archival images denotes a freedom, a democratisation of the archive. But in a media-driven society that is becoming more and more indifferent to the evidential value of documents of any kind, the context-free image is left predisposed to exploitation.

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ORCID for Jane Birkin: orcid.org/0000-0002-6025-9300

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