“As soon as you hear anyone saying they’re making a perfect map of the world, alarm bells should ring because they’re trying to sell, metaphorically, a certain ideological vision, a certain kind of product. They’re trying to push something, be it religious, political, ideological, commercial, whatever it might be.” – Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary University London and author of A History of the World in Twelve Maps
This is one of those things where I climb inside my own bellybutton. Its complexity and ever-expandingness makes me lose my way, so please pardon the half-thoughts, and spacey-thinking.
In addition to focusing on developing policies around what data and information to maintain, which is indeed important as our horror stories have shown, we also need to determine what is considered to be truth. Raw data is neutral, but when we put the data into containers it creates bias. With Google Maps, it’s the “agenda shaped by the ideas of its age” and the partial view or perspective we’re getting. When documenting or recording data about culture, something is going to be omitted, intentionally or not from what is collected, or how it is collected. I think primarily about science when thinking about data, and in the past have trusted that studies done by reputable sources that I have relied upon have provided me with confirmation of ideas I already had or aligned with some direction I was already headed. I allowed someone to determine the meaning of that data for me, and present it to me through a source that was curated for someone just like me. My information path is running parallel to someone else’s, with an opposing viewpoint, and different conclusions.
To make progress in any of these sectors, geographical, cultural, scientific, we must determine what accuracy is and how we will certify or verify that it is accurate, so we don’t have to continuously redo work that has already been done. We must determine a baseline set of certified facts, from which studies and additional research can continue. Might libraries be the neutral party that plays a role in this type of “certification,” and then also continue to be the repository for this and all information created from it? We are as neutral as neutral can get; there is no underlying agenda with a library, other than that we want people to use them.
Edit note: I know libraries aren’t neutral. As a student of library science, I did see them that way mostly in comparison to my experience in education, which I saw as being highly politicized.
Considered:
Dorothea (15 Mar. 2010.). Battle of the Opens | Book of Trogool. Bookoftrogool.scientopia.org. Retrieved from http://bookoftrogool.scientopia.org/2010/03/15/battle-of-the-opens/
Katie Shilton (27 Jul. 2007.). Participatory Appraisal and Arrangement for Multicultural Archival Collections | Shilton | Archivaria. Archivaria.ca. Retrieved from https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13129/14371
Timmer, John (8 Nov. 2010.). Preserving science: what data do we keep? What do we discard?. Ars Technica. Retrieved from https://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/preserving-science-choosing-what-data-to-discard.ars
WIRED (8 Aug. 2013.). Uncharted Territory: The Power of Amateur Cartographers. WIRED. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2013/08/power-of-amateur-cartographers/
MmePrice 