Acting on the Cultural Object: Digital Representation of Children’s Writing Cultures in Museum Collections

This chapter examines how digital environments can enable children’s writings in museums to be “read” in new ways, and how they can facilitate engagement with the intangible human emotional archaeology of these objects. This chapter analyzes the collections of children’s writings held in the Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh, Scotland and the Museum’s embryonic engagement in the digital public sphere, as told via a semi-structured interview with one of the Museum’s curators. Ultimately exploring the theoretical and real-world implications of digital environments for bridging ontologies between publics and museums, this chapter offers reflections on and recommendations for meaningful digital engagement with children’s collections