| Title | Chapter 6: Digital curation: Encouraging disciplinary digressions and diversions |
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| DOI | https://doi.org/10.4102/aosis.2024.BK466.06 |
| Landing page | https://books.aosis.co.za/index.php/ob/catalog/book/466 |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Mirna Nel, Phil van Schalkwyk, Abiodun Salawu, Gustav Butler & Gilbert Motsaathebe (eds.). Licensee: AOSIS (Pty) Ltd. The moral right of the editors and authors has been asserted. |
| Publisher | AOSIS |
| Published on | 2026-06-09 |
| Long abstract | Data generated by current research provide exciting new dimensions to existing archives, enabling the transformation of these historical materials. The digital space provides a platform in which this shapeshifting can manifest. This chapter explores these possibilities by using the methodology of an object study conducted on an archival holding of the University of Cape Town (UCT) – a small medicine chest housed in the Manuscripts and Archives (M&A) Department as part of a larger collection of papers called the BC666 Floyd Family Papers. Because this little chest exhibits characteristics that fall outside those privileged by the library’s categorisation systems and search engines, it has been rendered somewhat invisible in the institution. This chapter uses the chest as a prompt and a provocation to consider where else in the institution knowledge has similarly been rendered invisible by the taxonomic systems utilised in its various departments, and it explores the role of digital curation (and platforms such as Omeka S) in expanding the limitations of disciplinary frameworks. |
| Print length | 23 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
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Nina Liebenberg has spent the last ten years working at the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Curating the Archive, convening a selection of courses for its curatorial programme. Using curation as a methodology, Liebenberg explores overlaps and connections between various university departments and regularly draws on the expertise of individuals from disciplines ranging from chemistry, medical imaging, physics, engineering and botany to create artworks and curate shows portraying the intersection between the quantifiable and the poetic. Her PhD thesis (2021) took the form of an object study that exposed the limitations of insider knowledge and categorisation systems within the academic departments of the University of Cape Town and demonstrated the explanatory, interdisciplinary potential of curatorship and artmaking. While contributing to this book, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of the Arts, Helsinki, Finland.