Global Ireland and the Digital Footprint: The Abbey Theatre Archives in the Digital Repository of Ireland
From Firenze University Press Journal: Studi irlandesi. A Journal of Irish Studies
Nahed Mohammed Ahmed Meklash, Matrouh University
Digital preservation is a complex process associated with numerous unresolved organisational, managerial, and technical issues. Indeed, managing institutional repositories is a challenging task. Numerous preservation activities to date have focused on the creation of repositories, the depositing of content, the promotion of content, the discovery and access of content, and/or the promotion of a necessary cultural shift. However, digital preservation has not been incorporated as an integral part of repositories work#ow, and there is a lack of experience and consensus on the best practices to be used for digital preservation (Hockx-Yu 2006). To understand the processes needed to achieve the long-term digital preservation of objects deposited in a repository, it is helpful to break down what is understood as “effective preservation”.
Despite the challenges posed by digital preservation, cultural transformation requires its implementation. According to the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) mission statement, digital preservation has multiple purposes, which vary according to the reasons for preserving digital content, preserving the originality of digital content and protecting it from damage and loss is one such reason. The current European policy framework for the digitisation of cultural heritage is supported by a collection of strategies, initiatives and programmes that aim to comprehend the relationship between cultural heritage and education, tourism, sustainability, development, and job creation. Some critics argue that the European policy framework for the digitisation of cultural heritage is structured along a number of axes. One axis is concerned with promoting cultural heritage-driven innovations and the social and economic bene$ts they offer. Another objective is to assist in reversing the negative effects of COVID-19 on cultural heritage-relevant sectors, via digitisation (Münster, Utescher, Ulutas Aydogan 2021). This demonstrates a multidimensional approach to the digital preservation of cultural heritage and its associated benefits. However, this European policy applies to all European nations, and is not primarily concerned with the national potential of digitising the cultural heritage of individual countries.
According to Irish digital cultural preservation policy, users must be taken into account, so as to support a vision in which digital cultural heritage is accessible and shared in order to entertain and educate. The Irish policy resonates with Paul Wheatley (2004) who summarises primary preservation objectives as follows:
- Data is maintained in the repository without being corrupted, lost, or maliciously altered.
- Data can be located, extracted, and served to the user.
- Data can be interpreted and comprehended by the user.
The first objective is a fundamental requirement which every digital repository must meet. The second and third objectives require repositories to support search and retrieval functions in order to improve information accessibility. Digital preservation research has received a great deal of attention in recent years. In this respect, standards such as the Open Archive Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAIP-MH) have made it easier for service providers to create discovery services across repositories using repeated metadata harvesting (ibidem). These are the objectives that digital preservation must meet. It is insufficient simply to preserve the original bit-stream that represents the data stored in a digital object. The challenge is to ensure that users can access and understand the intellectual property of content that has been ingested into the repository in the past, despite hardware and software changes over time. In this respect, the DRI supports the reuse of cultural heritage data in research, education, the creative industries, and tourism. However, this content needs to be curated responsibly, and preserved and shared, not only on websites run by individual organisations, but via national and international platforms such as DRI, HeritageMaps.ie, Data.gov.ie, and Europeana. If we take into account the goals of the Global Ireland 2025 initiative, and the Culture Ireland Strategy 2017–2020, it could be argued that the DRI relates to Irish policies on digital cultural preservation and Irish cultural dissemination worldwide. Indeed, according to Global Ireland: Progress Report Year 1, June 2018-June 2019, one goal for communicating with the Irish Diaspora is to promote Irish culture and values (Global Ireland 2018). In this respect, Global Ireland emphasises the signi$cance of Irish expatriates, which is a 70 million-strong Diaspora, as well as the ability of Irish culture and heritage to forge new international connections. In this way, Global Ireland 2025 encourages Irish culture to be tangible and visible to a variety of users and audiences, including the Irish Diaspora, students, scholars, and tourists. Global Ireland 2025 also works to strengthen relationships and communications with large numbers of Irish and non-Irish citizens abroad. To achieve these goals, and to measure progress, five prominent cultural ambassadors were appointed, and a Global Ireland Stakeholders’ Conference was set up, as part of a multi-year plan to double the scope and impact of Ireland’s global footprint by 2025. This initiative was also designed to reflect the Irish Government’s commitment to dissemination goals. Taking into account the goals of Global Ireland 2025’s promotion of the dissemination of Irish cultural heritage, the remainder of this paper is divided into three sections.
Section 1 will discuss Global Ireland and the Abbey Theatre, and section 3 will discuss the digital footprint of Ireland and the Abbey Theatre. In this context, section 2 will de$ne the Global Ireland 2025 initiative, and will provide evidence for the Abbey !eatre’s role in promoting this initiative. Section 3 derives its conceptual framework from a description of the Abbey !eatre’s digital archive project at the Library of the National University of Ireland in Galway (NUIG), and this section will also consider the limitations of the project. Section 4 will explore DRI opportunities for the Abbey !eatre’s archived collections and will outline policies and practices used as part of the project, namely: Ireland’s national policy for digital preservation and open access; the policy of federation; collaboration and partnership policy; and usability, archiving and access policy. Section 5 will discuss metadata management policy, including deposit policy and storage policy, and section 6 will present a conclusion. In this regard, the paper will consider DRI publications, including reports and guidelines drafted by the DRI’s stakeholders and directors, including Sharon Webb, Aileen O’Carroll, and Dr. Natalie Harrower.!is paper will use an interdisciplinary approach and a digital humanities lens to highlight the opportunities that the DRI can provide for disseminating, discovering and visualising details of past dramatic performances stored in the Abbey !eatre’s archives, as part of Irish literary heritage. These archives form a signi$cant part of the Irish national cultural canon. Further, in order to achieve its objectives, the paper will consider the practices of the aforementioned policies, in relation to the Abbey Theatre’s archived collections. The Abbey Theatre’s archived collections form part of !e Inspiring Ireland project. Further, Inspiring Ireland and the National Library of Ireland, views the Abbey Theatre as an important visual arts venue. In this context, sources reviewed include the Abbey Theatre’s archived administrative records, the Abbey Theatre’s archived prompt script collection, stored items from the Abbey !eatre’s archived photographic collection, the Abbey !eatre’s archived poster collection, and the Abbey !eatre’s archived Anne Yeats collection. !e paper will conclude by addressing the following question: What are the advantages of preserving the Abbey !eatre’s archives digitally in an interactive, reputable, national, and collaborative digital repository like the DRI?
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/SIJIS-2239-3978-14641
Read Full Text: https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-sijis/article/view/14641
