Stewardship I: Stewardship as a Discipline and a Research Area

This is the first of what are planned to be four lectures on Stewardship which, starting from first principles, summarize and synthesize the various discussions we have had over the past decade in the Friday seminar.

This first talk will initially define stewardship as a topic of research, including its relationship to other areas, including information security and preservation, and to other disciplines. We will explore some paradoxes of stewardship of the physical and the role of digital surrogates of the physical, as well as born-digital materials. Also to be considered are questions of access and visibility of materials. If time allows we will begin a consideration of key actors in the stewardship enterprise and their different traditions, including the vital and often overlooked role of private collectors.