Toward Empathetic Digital Repositories

An Interview with Diego Pino Navarro

Abstract

Diego Pino Navarro is a systems architect and open source software developer from Chile. He is the Assistant Director for Digital Strategy at the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) where he manages the digital services team. Diego is also the Lead Architect of Archipelago Commons, an open source digital library software for cultural heritage materials.

In this interview from October 18, 2021, Sophia Ziegler talks to Diego Pino Navarro about his work with Archipelago, and specifically how he invokes the role of empathy in ongoing digital library software development. Diego talks about his efforts to build a digital library system that empowers local control of digital items and metadata, thereby maintaining unique characteristics represented in their digital collections, while simultaneously generalizing for various schemas. This empathetic approach requires resisting capitalistic impulses for continuous growth and prioritizing generosity and care.