During my annual professional reboot (presenting & attending IASSIST19) I came across a group called “The Maintainers.” They are championing a refreshingly accurate / realistic perspective on living and working with technology.
Originating in the perspective of the History of Science, their content reflects the understanding that maintenance is not the opposite of change (when in balance they have a symbiotic relationship). The Maintainers also most especially focus on the care with which we should also curate the information surrounding all of our technology & technical processes, as well as just coping with the maintenance of everyday information.
I am so happy with their white paper: “Information Maintenance as a Practice of Care: An Invitation to Reflect and Share” (June 17, 2019), downloadable from Zenodo … it is really good. If you feel like your maintenance work might be dragging you down, read this paper, check out their blog, follow them on Facebook. This is a path that supports a long-term-sustainable and respectful culture.
The logo alone probably resonates with many of us — but the group is actually more focused on the maintenance of information (which is inherently technical) and, as such, reminds me that the File Management Stewards are in the midst of their 2nd summer without overt recognition.
Many of us are familiar with the term “maintenance,” and we may even have ready-made ideas of what maintenance looks like, whether as an occupation or what we just realized the dishwasher needs. But what about the day-to-day, minute-by-minute work that sustains our world, our societies, and the way we interact with them? Maintenance is like soup: it comes in many styles and flavors. And our preconceived ideas and notions of what maintenance entails simultaneously bias our understanding of maintenance and its value within our surroundings, while further making invisible the myriad forms of work that sustain the world around us…
– The Maintainers
I’ve been waiting for a professional development group to take this on & it’s likely that The Maintainers are quietly (characteristically) “leading” this charge.
– The Maintainers
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