Developing Digital Stewardship Training: Reflections from a Collaborative Project to Strengthen Staff Skills

Abstract

We discuss an IMLS-funded project to develop online digital stewardship training for staff of tribal archives, libraries, museums, and small public libraries, adapted from curriculum from WSU’s Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation.

The project team considered prevalent notions of openness and neutrality, and reflected on how practices around digitization, discovery, and access may perpetuate dispossession and erasure of traditional knowledge. We encourage learners to incorporate responsible, ethical approaches when collaborating with others and including diverse cultural heritage materials in their digital collections.

We share relevant learnings from the project, courses, and the work of the CDSC.