Barriers and Challenges to Virtual Reunification
This paper presents challenges and barriers to virtual reunification as a strategy to represent dispersed ethnographic collections online. The study draws from the case of Dean C. Worcester's photos of U.S. colonial Philippines currently kept in various archives, libraries and museums. Findings presented are based on two types of qualitative data sources: two years of archival research in various owning repositories as well as semi-structured interviews of heritage administrators and professionals directly responsible for the Worcester photographs. Representatives from grant institutions that provide funding for digitization projects as well as researchers of the collection were also interviewed. By examining several repositories and analyzing stakeholders pre-reunification concerns, the study examines prevailing challenges of virtual reunification as an inter-institutional collaborative endeavor.
virtual reunification ethnographic collections archival photographs