Moving image preservation and cultural capital

CONCLUSION

In the wake of these recent developments in social mirror archiving, cultural heritage institutions such as moving image archives, must reflect on whether or not it represents a new model for collection building. Will cultural heritage institutions be willing to create systems to acquire and maintain content directly from users, allowing them to define the value of the material through the practices of description, usage, and critical commentary? Does doing so mean that they relinquish curatorial control, and thus have diminished powers as arbiters of value? It would require a tremendous leap of faith for these institutions, yet it would go a long way in showing users that we do in fact believe in the multivalent character of cultural heritage. By embracing multiple systems of valuation, inviting everyone to the table as stakeholders in the process of creating heritage, we would enrich our collections immeasurably.

Cultural institutions still hold an important position in society, as they exist to do much of heritage management work that cannot as of yet be easily accomplished by most individuals, and they have a responsibility to serve particular functions in society (such as government and corporate archives, which must act as instruments of accountability). Not all cultural institutions will see user-defined value as of primary importance, yet many should consider how to incorporate it within their own systems. It may provide important information that will be invaluable as archivists, librarians, and other professionals with curatorial powers make the decisions about how to spend valuable resources to sustain collections.

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