Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: Research has demonstrated that born-digital collections, in addition to the known physical objects, are increasingly becoming more present in cultural institutions. Still, a clear overview of Belgian social media archiving (SMA) initiatives is currently lacking. In this study, we map the Belgian landscape of social media archiving initiatives. The BESOCIAL research project used surveys and semi-structured interviews to find out how different initiatives in Belgium are archiving these volatile types of data, such as tweets. Our findings demonstrate that the scope and size of the archiving activities depend on 3 major thresholds: i) time to explore the field of SMA, ii) (technical) in-house knowledge and iii) the limited budget. Results are discussed in terms of selection, harvesting, preservation, and access. Based on our conclusions, we advise that practitioners should consider follow-up research to better understand the implications of certain SMA decisions for the future.
Source: In Monte Artium
DOI: 10.4000/ima.322
Author: Fien Messens
Institution: KU Leuven
Language: English
Subfield: Conservation
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4391984367