FIMS Publications

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2017

Journal

Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

First Page

1

Last Page

10

Abstract

Abstract This research explores the ways values, power, and politics shape and are shaped by digital infrastructure development through an in-depth study of HathiTrust’s “dark history,” the period of years leading up to its public launch. This research identifies and traces the emerging and iterative ways that values were surfaced and negotiated, decision making approaches were strategically modified, and relationships were strengthened, reconfigured, and sometimes abandoning through the process of generating a viable, robust and sustainable collaborative digital infrastructure. Through this history, we gain deeper understandings and appreciations of the various and sometimes surprising ways that values, power, and politics are implicated in digital infrastructure development. Shedding light on this history enables us to better contextualize and understand the affordances, limitations, and challenges of the HathiTrust we know today, better envision its range of possible futures, and develop richer appreciations for digital infrastructure development more broadly.

Notes

Please cite version of record:

Alissa Centivany (2017). "The Dark History of HathiTrust," in proceedings of the 50th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science (HICSS '17)

Citation of this paper:

Alissa Centivany (2017). "The Dark History of HathiTrust," in proceedings of the 50th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science (HICSS '17)

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