Faire des archives des communs

Many of us are everyday users of the Wikipedia encyclopaedia or OpenStreetMap maps, without knowing that these are commons. The notion of the commons is an old one, but the digital age has given it a much broader meaning. It is the link between the commons and open data that Valérie Larroche and Marie-France Peyrelong analyse in the article that the coordinators of this volume have given me as a starting point. The article will provide an opportunity to start thinking about the commons and archives. This article will not seek to establish whether archives are commons, but how archivists should rethink their practices in order to establish archives as commons. We will begin quite naturally by defining the nature of the commons. A large body of literature defines the notion of the commons, sometimes in different ways. However, we will see that it is possible to identify a consensus of criteria for defining the commons. We will then develop the elements that link or distance the notion of archives, in the heritage sense, from the commons. In the light of Larroche and Peyrelongs article, we will be able to analyse the similarities between open data and the archive, and in turn draw inspiration from them for an approach to the archive as commons. Finally, in conclusion, we will suggest possible areas for study, so that we can test our initial proposals in archive centres.