Both Fernandez (2016) and van Otterlo (2016b) describe how AI can be employed
to do, for example, recommendations based on access to items and user data. AI can
also be employed for personal assistants (agents) implementing virtual reference
desks (Liu, 2011), and to optimize library and archival processes. Many core archival
processes can be automated but currently digitalization and algorithmization have
only just begun.
Access to lots of information has been the dream of many visionaries, especially in
the last century. Joseph Licklider (1965) predicted more than fifty years ago that
humans by the year 2000 would invest in a kind of intermedium40 which would
provide access to the so-called procognitive net, containing all knowledge. Paul Otlet
envisioned various automated ways to do knowledge classification and retrieval, and
laid the foundation for the modern internet with his Mundaneum and universal
decimal classification. In 1945 Vannevar Bush introduced the "Memex", resembling
Otlet's "Mondotheque" (introduced around the same time), a machine in the form
of a regular desk that used microfilm as the storage medium for collections of text,
and which could provide access to knowledge. Otlet's version was more related to
H.G Wells "World Brain" in the sense that it focused on "networked" knowledge,
and targeted film, photographs and radio in addition to text. Wells, building on
ideas on information retrieval in his early "A Modern Utopia" from 1905,
introduced his "World Brain" in 1939 in a series of lectures, as an idea to make the
whole human memory accessible to every individual. More recently Wilfred
Lancaster wrote (1982, quoting Schiller 1977): "Ultimately, the signs point to a
technology offering search capability at home or office terminals without the aid of
librarian intermediaries who perform the searches." (p. 33-34). All these, and many
more pioneers (see Borner (2010) and Wright (2014) for extensive overviews),
envisioned forms of technology that would connect each individual to "all"
knowledge, in the form of some "world encyclopaedia" and would make this
knowledge retrievable by technology. In essence, our current world, with Google,
Wikipedia, Twitter and smartphones, exhibits all that they were looking for.
The enthusiasm of these pioneers in "universally accessible" knowledge is echoed in
today's Silicon Valley's technology push. Every day comes with new services, new
technologies, new apps and new AI. That each person on earth, in principle, has
access to the world's knowledge through a smartphone was just a start. Soon,
algorithms will become the prime actor doing selection, ordering and description
for many information-rich tasks. What Silicon Valley and the pioneers also have in
common, at least until very recently, is their focus on the possibilities of novel
technologies, and not on possible (unintended) consequences. Archivists, librarians
and other information professionals have powerful roles as gatekeepers, and with
great power comes great responsibility. If we are increasingly handing such tasks as
access to information over to algorithms, or algivists, we need to look at the ethics of
doing so. And, since human information professionals have been doing that for
such a long time, it is interesting to see how they have handled moral issues in the
next section.
(3) The Intended Archivist: Ethical Aspects of Archives
Taking practical action based on moral values is the domain of ethics (Laudon, 1995;
Baase, 2013; Kizza, 2013). According to Kizza (2013) morality is "a set of rules for
right conduct, a system used to modify and regulate our behavior." (p. 3).
It naturally has close ties to law since when a society deems certain moral values to
be important, it can formalize such values in a law and set behavior that will uphold
those values as a norm. Ethics typically is concerned with analysis of such norm
setting processes. Classic ethical questions are: "should we clone humans?", "is it
sometimes allowed to kill people?" and "should we provide a base income in case
robots take over most jobs?". As Laudon defines it (1995): "Ethics is about the
decision making and actions of free human beings. When faced with alternative
courses of action or alternative goals to pursue, ethics helps us to make the correct
decision... Ethics is, above all, about what is good and what is evil, and how we come
to make such judgments" (p. 34). I would summarize it as: if there are options what
to do, then ethics is concerned with practical reasoning about "good" and "bad"
actions. Important subsequent questions are then, for whom is something good or
bad, and by who's standardsDifferent answers to those questions induce a variety
of ethical reasoning frameworks, with two main dimensions. One is about rules vs.
consequences: to find the right decision one may follow a religious rule like "thou
shalt not steal", or look at the consequences and decide, for example ignoring a red
light at night when there is no traffic. The second dimension deals with "for whom"
something is good: the individual, or the collective. A well-known collective
consequentialist framework is John Stuart Mills' utilitarian ethics, which is aimed at
finding the decision that gives the best result on average, for all, and can be unfair to
single individuals.
Traditional archives are filled with ethical issues. The archivist performs many core41
archival operations that all involve ethical decisions. Archives are (just like libraries
and museums, see Kirchhoff et al., 2008) "memory institutions".42 Morris (2009):
"Archives are records, regardless of format, created or received by a person or
organization during the conduct of affairs and preserved because they contain
information of continuing value." (p. 4). Archivists deal with the selection
(acquisition, appraisal, accessioning, retention), maintenance (provenance, order,
physical arrangements) and description (cataloguing, referencing) of sources. Access
to the material in traditional archives involves physical access to the physical
material. Because archivists are, in contrast43 to e.g. librarians, highly involved in
creating the order and descriptions of the archive, users are more dependent on the
archivist when they want to access materials. Zastrow (2013): "The idiosyncratic
and contextualized world of archives necessitates communication with the
archivist." (p. 18). Physical access to archives and libraries has always appealed to
our imagination, in fiction, poetry and film (Crawford, 2015). Exciting stories like
Indiana Jones revolve around the idea of finding a lost archive and retrieving a
valuable item. The nicest example of such a physical hunt for a book appears in
Umberto Eco's (1980) The Name of the Rose, which features an evil librarian, a
difficult book maze, and poisonous pages as physical barriers to access.
archives in liquid times
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martijn van otterlo from intended archivists to intentional algivists.
ethical codes for humans and machines in the archives
40 In his words: "a capital investment in their intellectual Cadillac".
41 https://www2.archivists.org/node/14804
42 Kirchhoff et al. (2008, p252) cites Lorcan Dempsey (2000) as follows: "Archives, libraries and museums
are memory institutions: they organize the European cultural and intellectual record. Their collections
contain the memory of peoples, communities, institutions and individuals, the scientific and cultural
heritage, and the products throughout time of our imagination, craft and learning. They join us to our
ancestors and are our legacy to future generations. They are used by the child, the scholar, and the citizen,
by the business person, the tourist and the learner. These in turn are creating the heritage of our future.
Memory institutions contribute directly and indirectly to prosperity through support for learning,
commerce, tourism, and personal fulfillment."
43 https://www.quora.com/How-would-you-explain-the-difference-between-a-librarian-and-an-archivist
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