Curating dissent at the State Library of Victoria 14:30-15:00

Peter Jetnikoff, State Library of Victoria

The State Library of Victoria has been collecting web publications through PANDORA for twenty years. There are numerous themes discernible in this collection that express a timeline of web usage, design and behaviour. This paper will address one in particular: protest.

Material of political dissent and social action in the state of Victoria has been collected by the Library from the nineteenth century onwards. The online material is an extension of that in terms of technology and also a continuance of tradition. But perhaps the most important aspect of this material is that, representing as completely as it can one side of the dispute, it emerges as primary historical source material, aligning it with manuscripts, small press and pamphlets in the greater collection. More than a simple record of the times, the look and feel of the technology, this material is witness to the timeline of dissent as a series of modes along with shifts in content.

This paper will discuss some of the more significant items collected by the Library over the past two decades such as Residents Against McDonalds, Occupy Melbourne and other protest publishing as well as dissenting material that appears at election time (with particular attention given to the 1999 Victorian state poll). The collection of this material offers its own peculiar issues and challenges, sometimes involving the Library itself being perceived as partisan coupled with the ongoing need to convince online publishers that they are, in fact, publishing. The issue of the need to secure publisher permission will continue but recent developments within the PANDORA partnership have provided new options. The intersection of political activity and the increasing utility of emerging technology has seen a steady shift from websites to social media which, in turn, offers new challenges to collect moments of dissent for permanent curation.