Institutional Shaping of Cultural Memory: Digital Library as Environment for Textual Transmission

The emerging trends in digital(ized) collection development from 1997 are examined using a sample of projects accessible through Web-based registries of the Association of Research Libraries and the Digital Library Federation. The analysis focuses on thematic repertoire, narrative structuring, underlying historiographic principles, presentation, and the context of institutionalization, combining empirical and interpretive approaches to understand how digital libraries are involved in the production of knowledge and how memory institutions are currently shaping this record in the digital environment. Digital collections are presently showcasing material previously restricted to scholarly uses, making it available for broader educational purposes. Nevertheless, they resemble the sixteenthand seventeenthcentury Cabinets de curiosités in their limited ability to support scholarship or address information needs of defined communities of users. Programmatic statements for developers in the conclusion of the study suggest ways for improving the usability of these emerging textual environments, while recognizing new uses for the collections.