Betas and Beyond: Challenging the Model of Community Engagement with Online Collections - Jennifer Withrow, William Huffman and Richard Laurin

audiences near and far. However, the digital presence of these collections remains almost entirely under the control of the institution. As the custodians of 100,000 artworks from the Cape Dorset Archive, the McMichael’s Iningat Ilagiit (rough translation: a place for family) project is a collection digitization project that incorporates community voices in framing the collection and innovative features allowing site users to create their own virtual exhibitions. By partnering with the West Baffin Eskimo Coop, Dorset Fine Arts, Kenojuak Cultural Centre and the students of Peter Pitseolak High School in Cape Dorset, Iningat Ilagiit represents a project where various levels of digital interpretation of the collection creates a platform to showcase Indigenous insight into a community’s artistic heritage through virtual exhibitions. This presentation will discuss how such partnerships have shaped the project’s goals, website development and how we envision the creation of virtual exhibitions in the coming years and how your institution could explore similar partnerships.