We’re all vegans here: The twenty-first century archival ecosystem

Two frameworks for understanding how we acquire, utilize, and preserve information within the archival profession include the concepts of information ecology and the participatory archive. As these frameworks converge, there are immense implications for how participatory actors interact with each other to create, transfer, and interpret archival records. The interactions of the archivist, record creators, subjects, and users of archival materials, facilitated by new technologies, have forever changed the dynamic within the archive. This article will examine how technologies and their usage affects the relationship dynamic between the various actors within participatory archives and resultant implications for appraisal and description.