In addition to my work on archival displacement, open government data and archival thinking, I have been involved in the following research projects.
Records and ICT at the Boundaries of the State: Refugee Needs, Rights and Uses
Co-PI with Prof. Anne Gilliland, University of California, Los Angeles
This project aims to identify and make visible ways in which official records (including bio-records), bureaucratic practices and other more “irregular” forms and uses of records play crucial roles in the lives of displaced people as they travel across state boundaries, interact with governments and aid agencies in camps, asylum hearings, immigration vetting, claims for social services and so forth, and eventually resettle into new countries and interface with their bureaucratic systems or return/are returned to their places of origin. It aims to identify ways in which professionals and agencies involved in record-keeping in affected countries might contribute and collaborate through digital systems design to identifying and locating, protecting, validating, securing and certifying such records.
2017 – 2019, Co-PI with Prof. Marilyn Deegan, Kings College London
Funded by the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund
Value: £817,221
In this project, a register of cultural institutions and artefacts will be compiled, and a priority schedule for conservation and digitisation will be drawn up. A professional cataloguing and digitisation service will be set up in Khartoum, with roving facilities available for other regions. This service will continue once the project ends, being offered at an affordable cost to institutions within Sudan. A large volume of at-risk content will be captured, including 100,000 maps, fragile photographs (in excess of 10 million) and AV materials documenting disappearing cultures and customs. Staff and volunteers in local cultural institutions will also be provided training with the view to building digitisation and conservation capacity in Sudan in the future.
Aligning Records Management with ICT, e-Government and Freedom of Information in East Africa
2010 – 2011, PI and Project Manager
Funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
Value: £356,803
The project, conducted by national teams in each of the five East African Community countries (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda), found that records management issues are not being addressed in relation to the ICT/ e-Government and Freedom of Information initiatives that are being planned and implemented within the region, and that this situation placed these initiatives at risk. The research consisted of a high level exploration of the extent of integration between national ICT/ e-Government and Freedom of Information initiatives and records management. An in-depth study of digital court case management systems was undertaken to assess the practical effects of integration or lack of integration on records, systems and citizens.
James Lowry 