Remediation and Scholarly Communication
When thinking about remediation strategies for long-term storage and scholarly communication, matters get even more complicated because strategic remediations of the dissertation need to take into account the technologies that shape preservation and circulation of scholarly work. Indiana University uses ProQuest as the repository for dissertations of record. This means that ProQuest’s policies shape the ways that files are stored, accessed, and shared. According to ProQuest’s guidelines, I am welcome to submit any kind of file. Yet, their file migration policy does not include most of the file types described above. This means that if (or, more likely, when) ProQuest decides to move files from one server to another, they can choose not to preserve the files excluded in their file migration policy, essentially eliminating that part of the dissertation of record. Remediation also plays a significant role in the ways that ProQuest circulates scholarship. Their search engine looks for terms in the dissertation’s title, keywords, abstract, and other metadata, meaning that content not remediated into this form would remain hidden until someone opened the files. This, of course, is if someone can access them. ProQuest is a subscription-based service, placing the dissertation of record behind a pay-wall.
Though these concerns may seem like purely technical issues, they speak to the ways that knowledge design can limit continued scholarly conversations, particularly about missionaries, magic lanterns, and global history. By pursuing open-access forms of digital publication and preservation, I address these affordances by creating multiple avenues through which to access materials. IU Scholarworks, our open-access repository, is a more fitting home for the dissertation’s multimedia content than ProQuest. It not only makes these files viewable and downloadable without payment, but it also has a more robust file migration policy, and it offers more robust declarations of copyright than ProQuest’s open-access service. The dissertation’s primary form as a website also promotes continued engagement with these materials. As part of the knowledge design process, I have asked the private collectors who have generously donated photographs of their collection for permission to share these images via a public site. By including thorough attribution clauses, I preserve their rights as the copyright holders while also encouraging readers to do the same. The dissertation’s ephemeral form as a website imagines a more ethical and more open landscape of scholarship through multisensory engagements with magic lantern ephemera.