Enlighten me, please?

[ladywhizbee]

Do any of you know anything about this fanfiction archive:

Archive of Our Own

I've begun to see more and more stories on LJ linked to this site. The format reminds me a bit of FanFiction.net in that every fandom is accounted for (in much smaller quantities) but all of the stories I've read so far have been really, really good (or mostly so).

There is

Comments

[ladywhizbee]

I am LOVING this conversation! :-)

There is a continuing debate about digital preservation and how it should be handled throughout the archival community. Endless conferences, ongoing discussion, etc. It is a challenge. The digital world is not a paper world. Media isn't saved once it is updated. Life goes on while the historical record disappears. Not to mention the technological evolutions and challenges of seeing old media, which you have already brought up.

While I totally see your point about it be a subset and partial record, we should start somewhere--shouldn't we? Websites go up, websites go down and everything that was archived there is suddenly out of the public record. I can't speak for anything other than the HP fandom (as far as fandoms go) because that is where I have immersed myself, but having a repository for some of it (that isn't subject to the ups and downs of the original website, blog, community) seems valuable. It's true that isn't complete--won't ever be complete--but the benefit of it being a Wiki is that anyone can add to it. Add new categories, commentary or overlooked information. It isn't ever static.

And when has the mainstream media ever gotten it completely right? ;-)

I understand why the record will never be complete--even though I have immersed myself in the HP fandom I do not claim to know everything about it. There's no way. But if I add my piece, and you add your piece, and someone else adds their piece maybe someday there will be a collective whole.

Perfect? No. But a start.

I don't know that I've really sat and gave this any serious thought either. It is an interesting concept though. For so long my world centered on preserving a historical artifact--something that you can touch, feel, hold--but digital media as popular culture? This is brand new beast that has emerged over the last twenty years. Before this popular culture could still be found in letters, paper, magazines, recorded interviews, etc. How do you capture something that's always changing, emails that were never archived, not to mention an abstract concept like fandom? It's very complicated. But I still think it's worth trying.