Affiliations: [a] Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London, London, UK | [b] Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, London, UK
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Kristen Schuster, Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London, London, UK. E-mail: [email protected].
Abstract: Our paper consists of two parts. First, we review the history of the Royal United Service Institute (RUSI) museum, its collections, its closure and the dispersal of its collections. Second, we synthesize this analysis with a summary and reflection on the challenges of undertaking a collective memory project that represents the rise and fall of empire. To synthesize these two points, we discuss the museum’s history and highlight how digital cultural heritage initiatives have catalyzed an interest in digitizing and archiving RUSI’s collection records. Following our review of RUSI and its museum collection, we discuss the value of academics forming partnerships with cultural heritage institutions, and we analyze our experiences managing two student projects hosted at RUSI. Our discussion of student work will reflect on methods for designing engaging curriculum that encourages students to practice record keeping for cultural heritage institutions.
Keywords: Digital cultural heritage, Digital Humanities pedagogy, academic and practitioner partnerships
