Crowdsourcing Culture: Challenges to Change

Abstract

Cultural heritage is a perishable resource that is not renewable and is at constant risk of permanent loss. Galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs) have traditionally been regarded as the guardians and gatekeepers of a nation’s culture and have taken on the role of “protecting” heritage. This traditional role can now be extended to incorporate the curation of digital cultural heritage, including that sourced by citizens (crowdsourced). By asking the public for their assistance to preserve their heritage, albeit by digital means, two objectives are achieved. One outcome is the creation and preservation of digital cultural heritage for future generations. Another significant outcome is that crowdsourcing provides a conduit for increased public engagement with heritage that is of significance and relevance to them. The current ability to crowdsource digital cultural heritage potentially challenges the role and status of GLAMs as primary caretakers of heritage. Since the public can play a greater role in preserving their heritage, authoritative control will need to be reconsidered and adapted to align with heritage that has been deemed important by people. Irrespective of these challenges the opportunity to digitally preserve heritage should take precedence, especially in high risk countries facing conflict and socio-political unrest. This chapter will highlight some of the challenges of engaging people with crowdsourcing cultural heritage and the requirement of designing appropriate engagement strategies. The need for crowdsourcing Afghan cultural heritage will be considered given that it is currently facing many threats to its preservation for future generations. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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