Book chapter co-authored by Bettivia examines digital heritage

Postdoctoral Research Associate Rhiannon Bettivia (PhD '16) is the co-author of a chapter in Politics of Scale: New Directions in Critical Heritage Studies, a newly published book edited by Tuuli Lähdesmäki, Suzie Thomas, and Yujie Zhu. In the chapter, "The Dynamics of Scale in Digital Heritage Cultures," Bettivia and Elizabeth Stainforth, a lecturer at the University of Leeds, examine scalar politics as enacted through Europeana, the EU digital platform for cultural heritage, and the Digital Public Library of America. The idea of scale and scalar relations comes broadly from the field of geography and examines issues of space, magnitude, or level. Politics of Scale is the first scholarly publication to consider scale and heritage together.

"The idea is to look at the same museum or work of art, or the Europeana and DPLA projects in my chapter, from the perspective of different levels of space or magnitude to examine how political implications manifest differently (or similarly) as the scale changes," Bettivia said. "In the case of heritage, scales of location could include looking at the local contexts versus national or supranational ones, or different scales of time, like the life of an artist versus the life of an institution versus the geological scale of animal migrations in the designation of a UNESCO World Heritage Site."

Bettivia's research explores the standards undergirding digital platforms from an intersectional and transnational perspective, combining issues of race, gender, and nation in digital memory cultures. She examines the politics and discourses of mass culture and heritage aggregation. She has published in the International Journal of Digital Curation and Digital Humanities Quarterly, among other publications in the fields of information science, critical heritage studies, digital humanities and communications.

Tags:
Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Kilhoffer defends dissertation

Doctoral candidate Zachary Kilhoffer successfully defended his dissertation, "Human Factors in the Standardization of AI Governance: Improving the Design of Risk Management Standards for Ethical AI," on January 24, 2025.

Zak Kilhoffer - square

Han defends dissertation

Doctoral candidate Kanyao Han successfully defended his dissertation, "Natural Language Processing for Supporting Impact Assessment of Funded Projects," on January 7, 2025.

Kanyao Han

SafeRBot to assist community, police in crime reporting

Across the nation, 911 dispatch centers are facing a worker shortage. Unfortunately, this understaffing, plus the nature of the job itself, leads to dispatchers who are often overworked and stressed. Meanwhile, when community members need to report a crime, their options are to contact 911 for an emergency or, in a non-emergency situation, call a non-emergency number or fill out an online form. A new chatbot, SafeRBot, designed and developed by Associate Professor Yun Huang, Informatics PhD student Yiren Liu, and BSIS student Tony An seeks to improve the reporting process for non-emergency situations for both community members and dispatch centers.

Yun Huang

New digital collection sheds light on queer nightlife in Champaign County

Adam Beaty decided to pursue an MSLIS degree to combine his love of history, the arts, and community-centered spaces. This combination of interests culminated in a 244-item digital collection that showcases digitized materials depicting nearly thirty years of queer nightlife in Champaign County. 

Adam Beaty_headshot

Hoiem receives Schiller Prize for “Education of Things”

Associate Professor Elizabeth Hoiem has won the 2025 Justin G. Schiller Prize from The Bibliographical Society of America for her book, The Education of Things: Mechanical Literacy in British Children's Literature, 1762-1860 (University of Massachusetts Press). The prize, which recognizes the best bibliographical work on pre-1951 children's literature, includes a cash award of $3,000 and a year's membership in the Society. 

Elizabeth Hoiem