Unintended Consequences: New Materialist Perspectives on Library Technologies and the Digital Record.

Digital technology has irrevocably altered the nature of the archive. Drawing on materialist critiques and the evolving field of media archaeology, this essay explores new strategies for understanding the implications of computer networks in libraries. Although a significant portion of the contemporary literature within Library and Information Science (LIS) addresses issues of technological change, the materialist and multidisciplinary approaches proposed here provide a theoretical basis for investigating the current state of library technologies in new ways. These methods provide insight into the proliferation of digital products and the cycles of platform adoption and replacement that have marked the past decades of library development. They also help to reframe questions about content aggregation and the licensing of digital scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Portal: Libraries & the Academy is the property of Johns Hopkins University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)