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CFP: Archives, libraries, and museums in the era of the participatory social Web

Special issue of the Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science

Guest editors

Fidelia Ibekwe-SanJuan, School of Journalism and Communication, Aix-Marseille University, France

Elaine Ménard, School of Information Studies, McGill University, Québec, Canada

Themes

The term “Web 2.0” refers to a set of Web tools that enhance and support user-generated content. Web 2.0 has made possible – and intensified – global collaborative mechanisms for the production of content. For nearly fifteen years, it has been gradually transforming the traditional Web, based on a dissemination model mainly structured by service providers and content providers.

This participatory and collaborative capacity of the Web 2.0 may, in some cases, erase old boundaries and hierarchies between professionals and amateurs in various areas, whether in the private or public domains (e.g., Journalism 2.0, citizen journalism, etc.). Professions related to the creation and dissemination of content and knowledge seem to be particularly affected (e.g., publishers, artists, graphic designers, journalists, librarians, competitive intelligence specialists, librarians, archivists, information managers, etc.). The participatory Web’s massive implementation of technology by the public has led to a reconfiguration and repositioning of the stakeholders in these sectors.

This special issue aims to investigate mutations or changes under way within the institutions and among the stakeholders of libraries, archives, museums and online media due to the spread of Web 2.0 digital practices. The guest editors of this special issue of theCanadian Journal of Information and Library Science invite researchers from different disciplines to submit original unpublished work in connection with the changes brought about by Web 2.0 in these sectors.

Contributions may cover different aspects: epistemological, technological, sociological, economic and political impact of Web 2.0 in the context of libraries, archives, museums and new media. More specifically, contributions should address the following questions:

  1. How can institutional repositories (nomenclatures, classification languages, catalogues, thesauri, controlled vocabulary indexing) produced by professionals (librarians, archivists, journalists, curators) accommodate the participatory culture of the social Web and content generated by users?
  2. How do Web 2.0 digital devices transform (or not) the relationship that libraries, museums and archives have with the public and vice versa? To what extent are the concepts/phenomena of participatory libraries or museums becoming a reality? Are we moving away from non-participatory past practices toward new practices that are rather participatory?
  3. How does the public receive the innovative applications of Web 2.0 technology in libraries, archives and museums?
  4. Do technical participatory tools (such as mashups, podcasts, blogs, social tagging/folksonomies, social bookmarking, use of social networks including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn or museum informatics, etc.) create new gateways or new modes of interaction with documentary, archival or museum artifacts?
  5. How do physical institutions (museums, libraries, archives) coexist alongside their virtual platforms? Will this coexistence continue (e.g., the threatened closure of libraries in some countries) or will the multiplication of virtual forms of libraries, museums and archives not result in the disappearance or deterritorializationof these institutions as physical places?
  6. Is the institutional and historical distinction between archives, libraries and museums challenged by digital phenomena? Are the boundaries between them becoming porous due to new needs generated by the public social Web (e.g., “museo-libraries”)?
  7. What socio-professional changes or epistemological repositioning under way among stakeholders of libraries, archives, museums and media are caused by these new digital devices?
  8. What is the impact of opening up public data for these institutions?

Proposals will be evaluated by two blind reviewers according to the standard practice of the Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science.

The journal

Established in 1976, the Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science is the official journal of the Canadian Association for Information Science. Its objective is to promote the advancement of information science in Canada.

Languages

Submissions are accepted in either English or French.

Deadline

  • March 2014: Call for submissions
  • November 30, 2014: Deadline for submission of the first draft of the article
  • January 15, 2015: Decision of the review committee sent to authors
  • March 1, 2015: Submission of the final version of the article
  • June 2015: Publication of the special issue

Submission

For questions about this special issue, please contact the guest editors. Send your manuscripts in electronic format (Word or RTF) to:

Fidelia Ibekwe-SanJuan
Full Professor
School of Journalism and Communication
Aix-Marseille University
France
fidelia.ibekwe-sanjuan@univ-amu.fr

Elaine Ménard
Assistant Professor
School of Information Studies
McGill University
Montreal, Canada
elaine.menard@mcgill.ca

Guidelines for authors are available online on the journal’s website at http://www.cais-acsi.ca/journal/guidelines.htm. Please indicate at the beginning of your submission which point(s) or theme(s) your paper will address.