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‘A Good Enough Fix’: Repair and Maintenance in Librarians’ Digitization Practice

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Repair Work Ethnographies

Abstract

Moritz Fürst examines how librarians deal with the unavoidable decay of archived and to-be-archived books in the context of a large-scale digitization project. The librarians’ professional repair and maintenance work is specified by the complex nature of the books and the ‘double bind’ of their routine treatment. At the same time, they are to be preserved as jewels of cultural heritage and national identity and to be made available to interested visitors. The chapter focuses on the digitization process disclosing a tension between preservation and availability in the multiple enactments of documentary heritage artifacts. Through ‘shadowing’ librarians at work, Fürst explores librarians’ distinctive care and professional vision, as well as their local inquiries into book properties, material and digital.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Moritz F. Fürst

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  1. Moritz F. Fürst
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Correspondence to Moritz F. Fürst .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geography and Sustainability, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Ignaz Strebel  & Alain Bovet  & 

  2. HEG—Haute école de gestion Arc, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, Neuchâtel, Switzerland

    Alain Bovet

  3. STS Lab, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Philippe Sormani

  4. CEMS-IMM, EHESS, Paris, France

    Philippe Sormani

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Fürst, M.F. (2019). ‘A Good Enough Fix’: Repair and Maintenance in Librarians’ Digitization Practice. In: Strebel, I., Bovet, A., Sormani, P. (eds) Repair Work Ethnographies. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2110-8_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2110-8_3

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-2109-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-13-2110-8

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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