Digital curatorship: new models of public participation in the description of contents in cultural institutions

Abstract

This article analyses the participation of users in the description of electronic content (folksonomy), discussing these practices in the context of digital curation, especially about the lifecycle model for digital object suggested by the Digital Curation Center (DCC). The model, although ascribing relevance to the community of users, understands this group as formed exclusively by professionals and researchers familiar with the management of digital collections. This concept excludes the importance of all other possible groups of users who, not falling within the categories described by the DCC model, interact with digital collections provided via Internet by memory institutions, offering to these collections new descriptive categories and multiple alternatives of use.