Born-digital items are materials that are created in a digital format. This includes websites, email, digital photographs, electronic records, and more. Born-digital items are distinct from analog items that are subsequently digitized, such as paper manuscripts or photographs.
– Yale, n.d.
In collecting, museums have a very material focus on cultural artifacts. What about the whole side of human culture in digital?
Whether it’s social media posts, videos, audio recordings, PDFs, text, images or more, born-digital artifacts are a part of human creation, the world and our understanding of society. Though they have not been historically collected, the development of technology over the past 50 years leads us to question what these artifacts, files, and data mean to our collections.
The intersection of Born-digital & Oral Histories
As a recording or video of an interview, Oral History within itself is a born-digital artifact.
Like all areas of collections, born-digital and oral histories are artifacts, which institutions are required to maintain, display and document.