Marcin Jarząbek
Selection and accessibility: the paradox of digital heritage
Paradoxically, there are two challenges: selection and accessibility. Selection matters because heritage is an ever-expanding concept, so we must decide what counts as a priority and which aspects should be digitised first — and be open about what goes in and what stays out, at least for a while. Accessibility is the problem of abundance: having too much heritage available without the tools to find one’s way through it. Even in a world where every element of the past is digitally accessible, people still need to know it exists and how to reach it. So the task is not only to make heritage digital, but to provide orientation — metadata, search engines and tools that are easy to access and understand.
We need to be quite open about what goes in, what comes in, what stays out.