It occurred to me while reading a colleague’s dissertation proposal that I can insert 2 puns deep into my research. Many digitization projects are undertaken by conservators, or considered to be acts of conservation. There’s an incredibly rich natural resources and ecosystems conservation literature to draw from in geography–I’m not sure how relevant it would be, but perhaps some of the theory could be borrowed to talk about the conservation of artifacts.

For that matter, there’s also conservation of places that gets written about quite a bit too. Now maybe that would have stronger tie-ins.

The second strand of thought I ran across in her proposal is the critical thought that goes into defining community participation. In current geography literature, there’s a growing criticism of planning that is supposedly ‘participatory,’ but when people start examining it closely, it is anything but. However Ann cited a work that asks us to take “a closer look at what and who exactly is the community.” (I think the citation is “Images of Community: Discourse and Strategy in Property Relations” Li, T. M., Development and Change 27(3) 501-428. 1996) This is remarkably like the advice that Rob Kliing gives in “Group Behavior and Learning in Electronic Forums: A Sociotechnical Approach.” In that book chapter, he really fights against using the word community to describe online agglomerations of people. I wonder if Li is in the same ballpark?