Understanding Essential Information Maintenance Work Within and Beyond COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has made the work of information maintainers within libraries, archives, and museums all the more precarious and difficult, even as particular information maintenance roles are deemed “essential”. We are inspired by several collaborative efforts including two recent white papers on information maintainers and contingent labor in libraries, archives, and museums, and a variety of reports from the DLF Working Group on Labor in Digital Libraries, Archives, and Museums. The proposed project builds on these efforts by exploring the relationship between information maintainers’ perceptions of their status within cultural stewardship organizations, and organizational preservation and access outcomes.