The Researcher as Curator in the Digital Age: Personal Collections and User Needs in Art History

Paper By: Christina Kamposiori

Blog By: M.G.

Art history and research collections are like fingerprints. Every historian, researcher, or student has their own system and rationale for collecting and organizing their material. Christina Kamposiori's text understands the concept of individualized collections. She writes about the essential steps and elements when conducting art history research and their individual role in a person's research process. Kamposiori makes the point that we should be teaching researchers to make organizational systems work for them rather than for their research to work with a predetermined system.

The concept of unique digital systems adapted to suit the needs of an individual really appeals to me. In the same way that a fingerprint is unique to an individual, with all the swoops and swirls embedded in the surface, the organizational need of a person is dependent on multiple factors unique to the individual. Rather than trying to adapt to fit a pre-existing system, researchers should be able to create or adjust systems to reflect their own unique processes. Suppose they need visual representations of all their collected material. In that case, they should be able to use a system that will let them see all their sources. Suppose researchers would rather use a database type system to compile their collections. In that case, they should be able to compile a database that will use the same recall systems as their manual organizational systems.

In her paper, Kamposiori uses multiple, three-section concepts to describe the different stages that exist with research and the collection of information. Between storing, indexing, and curating, Kamposiori places a larger emphasis on using digital resources to store and curate media and information. While she puts an emphasis on digital resources, she acknowledges that the majority of art historians, and other researchers, tend to carry on with non-digital, traditional methods of organization. The main reasoning for this is that most researchers do not have the time, nor the effort, to convert their physical collections into an online database.

Philosophy of the mind can help us understand the need for individualized systems and why digitized systems are passed over by researchers as much as they are now. According to Descartes, the mind and body are separate substances that interact with each other. Their interactions produce our actions. One could suggest that depending on the individual, there could be specific ways that the mind interacts with the body. This type of interaction would influence how we explain our actions and react the way we do. No digital system can completely replicate the unique mind-body connection. As such, no digital recall system would satisfy the needs of recall established through years of mental recall between mind and body. For example, the mind-body connection establishes a tangible pattern for resources.

A physical organization system, like record files or art portfolios, could be organized based on proximity to the collector/ researcher; maybe the more relevant it is to the current project, the closer the files or artifacts are to the researcher/ collector. A digitized system would not be able to replicate the tangible aspect of recall, not like the mind-body connection. Therefore, a digitized system wouldn't work.

Suppose your mind-body connection understands what result you want from the information recall. In that case, the subconscious command can produce what you are looking for within the limitations of your tacit knowledge. However, once you ask an external system, you may not retain those subconscious blinders that the information you receive will be from what you have stored. So, while you are similarly in control of what information is kept in your collection, there are different expectations of what information will be presented as a result of a conscious versus subconscious search of the collection.

Overall, I appreciate Kamposiori's goal to recognize researchers' requirements for digital organization tools. I find her assessment, that each person has individualized needs for the system to work for their collections, is extremely accurate. For researchers to actively involve digital tools in storing, indexing, and curating their collections, a system must model their subconscious mind-body communication systems. If a digital system cannot be moulded to fit the exact needs of the researcher, then the digital tool would hinder, not help, their process.