The DCDC 2021 conference topic will be Catalysts for change: transforming our practices, collections, and communities through times of crisis. It will explore how crisis can act as a catalyst for change within libraries, archives, museums, and cultural organisations. It will explore the impact that crisis can have on working practices, collections, and audience engagement, and how periods of turbulence can lead to new opportunities for research and collaboration. It will seek to examine how cultural heritage organisations can look beyond times of crisis and foster innovation and collaboration in their institutions and communities.
DCDC21 invites proposals on the theme of ‘catalysts for change’ on any project or initiative involving archives, libraries, museums and other heritage and cultural organisations in partnership with each other, communities and the academic sector.
The main conference themes will include, but are not limited to, the following:
Crisis as a catalyst for collaboration and change
- Creating new models of collaboration between institutions, audiences and researchers
- Shaping a ‘new normal’ and the role of heritage and culture
- Developing capacity and resilience within institutions
- Funding and sustainability in the post-COVID-19 landscape
- Climate crisis and sustainability: the role of heritage organisations
Organisational health and resilience
- The impact of crisis on working practices and workforce development
- Institutions in crisis: exploring funding and sustainability
- Investing in the future: skills and workforce development
Addressing inequality and exclusion
- The role of heritage and culture in reducing social inequality
- Structural inequalities of access and inclusion with collections, services, audiences and workforce
- Exploring anti-racist action in cultural heritage
- Widening participation and diversity for early career researchers and practitioners
- Power, intersectionality and privilege within heritage
Access, discovery, and use of collections and archives in periods of crisis
- The development of hybrid approaches to collection access and use
- Understanding and overcoming the challenges of digital inequality
- Enabling research-ready digital collections
Documenting and archiving societal crisis and unrest
- Collecting and documenting economic crisis, climate change, trauma and war
- The role of the archive and the voice of the young
- The role of digital technologies and media
- Navigating the ethics of the digital record
Research and digital scholarship
- Changing research practices and methodologies
- The exposed strengths and inadequacies of digital research infrastructure
- Opportunities and challenges for new frontiers of research
Read here for more information: https://dcdcconference.com/cfp/