University of Maryland

About

Technological advances have significantly expanded our ability to create, analyze, preserve, and reuse data and other digital objects across all contexts including in archives.  These expanded capabilities have led us to grapple with the questions of how to bend these new capabilities to equitably serve our society by giving us all access to cultural memory at previously unprecedented scales.

In response to this challenge, the Center for Archival Futures (CAFe) seeks to develop and disseminate human-centered approaches to creating the systems, processes, and institutions which enable the use of and care for digital objects and data over time. We take a holistic view of digital curation as a research area, education domain, and growing profession that transcends disciplines and organizational contexts.

To accomplish the mission of developing and disseminating human-centered approaches to understanding the use of and care for digital objects and data over time the Center for Archival Futures conducts research, education, and partnership building in the following areas: 

Operationally we will advance knowledge and practice by serving as an active hub, bringing together researchers, professionals, and students to facilitate collaborative research projects, experiential learning, demonstration projects, and other activities that promote the development of nuanced, actionable understandings of human-centered approaches to the use of and care for digital objects and data over time.