After disruption: a future for cultural memory

Abstract

"The digital age is burning out our most precious resources and the future of the past is at stake. In After Disruption: A Future for Cultural Memory, Trevor Owens warns that our institutions of cultural memory--libraries, archives, museums, humanities departments, research institutes, and more--have been 'disrupted,' and largely not for the better. He calls for memory workers and memory institutions to take back control of envisioning the future of memory from management consultants and tech sector evangelists. Owens draws on and synthesizes critical scholarship to document and expose the sources of tech startup ideologies and their pernicious results, revealing that cultural memory institutions need powerful and compelling counter frameworks and values to replace these ideologies. He also makes the case for the centrality of maintenance, care, and repair as interrelated frameworks to build a better future in which libraries, archives, and museums can thrive as sites of belonging and connection through collections."-- Back cover.

Contents

Cultural memory and the future -- Part one. Three bankrupt ideas. What disruption wants -- Where data drives -- Why memory work doesn't work -- Part two. Three ways forward. The maintenance mindset -- Concentric circles of care -- Repair, revision, and return -- A future for cultural memory.