Toward a Notion of the Archive of the Future: Impressions of Practice by Librarians, Archivists, and Digital Humanities Scholars

With this piece, we seek to interrogate the sites at which library, archival, and scholarly work occurs in order to consider the changing nature of the future of the archive. First, we consider the work of the archive from the perspective of the long-standing tradition of scholarly publication and scholarly editing in archives and libraries. Second, we introduce interviews with five leading humanities scholars and practitioners, who discuss the work that is involved in producing scholarship in archives and libraries. Finally, we explore the topics and themes that surface from the interviews, including centralized digital repositories, open-source methods and applications, and community building. This conclusion gives insight into theories and modes of practice that are developing and shaping notions of the archive as a site of collaborative work among archivists, librarians, and humanists, who are constantly negotiating their shifting roles in the stewardship of the archives of the future.