The embrace of digital technology and increased web presence in archival institutions has often been seen as a way to ease and democratise access. However, as demonstrated by recent work on information systems, digital technologies such as search engines are far from neutral as they structure knowledge along biased lines unknown to users. Seeing that historians increasingly find their sources online or via the use of digital catalogues, I have investigated what a Digital Archival Literacy for historians could look like. In this talk, I will frame my research within a media history perspective, to explain how biases and limitations imposed by digital technologies on knowledge structures are both similar and different from the well-known biases historians for centuries have dealt with in analogue archives.

Please sign up to receive the zoom links for the seminar by emailing sune.bechmann_pedersen@kom.lu.se. A unique link will be sent shortly before the event.

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