Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Review Of Nonbinary Gender Identities: History, Culture, Resources, Chris Babits

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

McNabb introduces the definitions, histories, and cultures of nonbinary individuals and provides scholars, archivists, librarians, and teachers with an array of resources to research the history and contemporary experiences of nonbinary people. Although the text privileges gender variance in Western nations and could have included more on gender theory, McNabb offers a strong introduction to the topic of nonbinary gender identities. Researchers will especially appreciate the comprehensive list of resources.

Lessons From The Treblinka Archive: Transnational Collections And Their Implications For Historical Research, Chad S.A. Gibbs

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In work for his 1979 book The Death Camp Treblinka, Alexander Donat began the process of locating survivors of the camp and recording their histories. In a telling testament to the lethality of this place, he could identify only sixty-eight survivors. Analysis of Donat’s early findings—emerging six years prior to the publication of any major academic monograph on the subject—offers a window into the difficulties of conducting research on this Nazi extermination camp and its widely-scattered witnesses.

Treblinka’s disembarkation ramp was effectively the eye of a transnational needle through which so many passed and so few emerged. Victims of …

Review Of Participatory Heritage, Allyson E. Smally

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This review of Participatory Heritage, edited by Henriette Roued-Cunliffe and Andrea Copeland, focuses on the book's relevance to the archives field. It highlights some of the chapters that will be most relevant to archivists, provides overviews and highlights of each of the book's three sections, discusses some of the main themes that come up throughout the book, and mentions a few strengths and drawbacks to the book’s approach. It addresses some ways the book relates to important topics in the archives field today and what areas of the field it has particular relevance for. The review concludes that Participatory …

Téacsúil Fionnachtain, Alan B. Delozier

Critical Inquiries Into Irish Studies

“Textual Discovery,” by the Seton Hall University Library Archivist, Alan Delozier, is presented to pique interest in the obscure, yet unique works in Irish language, literature, and history that have been largely forgotten over time. Articles will cover different subject areas, authors, themes, and eras related to the depth and consequence of the Gaeilge experience in its varied forms.

Cultural Memory In Danger: Sustainable Information, Preservation, And Technology In The Humanities: A Theoretical Approach, Casey D. Hoeve

Collaborative Librarianship

Abstract

Management of library collections is an inherently collaborative process. Spanning multiple generations, materials are selected that support user communities, striving for the optimization of storage and access at the lowest cost.[i] While established partnerships are crucial for the survival of libraries, within any cooperative network, there exist opportunities for divergent practices. Alternative initiatives may have progressive intentions, but competing systems and groups have the potential to disrupt recognized standards and infrastructure, some of which can prove detrimental to information organizations.

Abrupt format changes and technological advancements have altered the way in which materials are currently acquired, accessed, and …

History In The Making: Outreach And Collaboration Between Special Collections And Makerspaces, Erin Passehl-Stoddart, Ashlyn Velte, Kristin J. Henrich, Annie M. Gaines Mlis

Collaborative Librarianship

Makerspaces present unique possibilities for creative partnerships within libraries, including the opportunity for interdisciplinary use of emerging technologies with archival objects and primary sources. One example of this type of interdisciplinary collaboration is the fabrication of cultural heritage replicas via 3D scanning and printing of historical university objects in academic libraries. Two departments in the University of Idaho Library, Special Collections and Archives (SPEC) and the Making, Innovating, and Learning Laboratory (MILL), partnered on such a project as a way to broaden maker competencies across library departments, leverage interdisciplinary connections between emerging technologies and historic archives, and create innovative outreach …

A Reckless Verisimilitude: The Archive In James Ellroy’S Fiction, Bradley J. Wiles

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

The archive as both plot element and narrative presentation factors significantly into the work of James Ellroy’s novels in the L.A. Quartet and USA Underworld Trilogy series. This article examines the important role of the archive as a source of information and evidence that Ellroy’s characters utilize in their attempts at either maintaining or attacking the status quo. Through these novels, Ellroy conveys the potential power archives wield over the trajectory of history and our understanding of it by demonstrating how the historical record is often shaped in favor of the powerful. Yet even if the archive is a manifestation …

Queering The Archive: Transforming The Archival Process, Lizeth Zepeda

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

The purpose of this work is to recognize the lack of queer of color lens within the archival profession that determines the appraisal, preservation, and impeding access. Queering the archive transforms the institution with possibilities of inclusivity for social justice and the rewriting of histories. Traditionally, the archival institution has reaffirmed hegemonic power structures by erasing and ignoring histories of marginalized communities. A way to disrupt this is to queer these archival institutions to confront these power dynamics and make interventions against the racist, sexist, classist and heterosexist structures that maintain them. Thus, this paper focuses on how processing through …

Togetherness With The Past: Literary Pedagogy And The Digital Archive, Madeline B. Gangnes

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

Archival materials are invaluable to an understanding of the historical, cultural, and material contexts in which literary texts were published. Materiality, paratextual elements, and other key characteristics of literature cannot be discerned from recent editions. Yet original and rare versions of literary texts are difficult or impossible for most scholars, let alone their students, to access. Digital facsimiles provide opportunities to examine archival texts over the Internet, alleviating logistical and financial barriers. In Dust: The Archive and Cultural History (2001), Carolyn Steedman writes: “The Archive is a place in which people can be alone with the past” (81); archives are …

Queer Lives In Archives: Intelligibility And Forms Of Memory, Gina Watts

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

Exploring queer archives through a variety of texts and case studies, this paper seeks to understand three primary themes: the departure of traditional archival theory in queer archives, the absence of records and what they might mean for queer history, and a conception of queer time and space contributed to by archival records. Together, these suggest a specific form of intelligibility and memory available to people identifying as queer through the existence of these communal archives, one which reaffirms a history that some were determined to bury and which challenges and expands typical understandings of activism in the archival profession. …

Subjectivity And Methodology In The Arch‘I’Ve, Elizabeth J. Vincelette

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

This article explores methodologies from the fields of library archival science, human geography, composition and rhetoric, and established editorial practices in English studies. By elaborating on the role of a researcher’s subjectivity in archival creation, this work expands the conversation regarding methodology and archives, especially how archives present us with new ways of seeing and making narratives during the editorial decision-making involved in their creation. Writing about my own experience, I privilege the researcher’s point of view with a narrative about my construction of a digital archive. With archival research, we should promote the revelation of methods and methodology to …

Seeking Glimpses: Reflections On Doing Archival Work, Alex Hanson, Stephanie Jones, Thomas Passwater, Noah Wilson

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

This article explores the role of archival research in understanding and generating social histories from the perspectives of four different doctoral students as they reflect on their archival research experiences. We argue that archival research is complex, subjective, contextual, and at times, incomplete. Our various perspectives address ideas of privilege, representation, what it means to remember (or forget), how archives are constituted and reconstituted, and where we can make meaning in archival spaces. This article demonstrates that although archival research has had a presence in Composition and Rhetoric for some time, that presence is continually shifting, and even when embarking …

The Nuremberg Trials Project At Harvard Law School: Making History Accessible To All, Judith A. Haran

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article is primarily a case study of the Nuremberg Trials Project at the Harvard Law School Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It begins with an historical note about the war crimes trials and their documentary record, including the fate of the several tons of trial documents that were distributed in 1949. The second part of the article is a description of the Harvard Law School Nuremberg project, including its history, goals, logistical considerations, digitization process and challenges, and resulting impact. The structure and function of the project website is described, followed by a description of a typical user experience, the …

Researcher Access To Born-Digital Collections: An Exploratory Study, Julia Y. Kim

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

While a small, but growing number of institutions offer access to born-digital collections, there is scant literature documenting researcher interaction with these materials. This paper addresses this gap through documenting and analyzing researcher interactions to portions of born-digital collections at New York University (NYU) Libraries, with the cooperation of NYU’s Fales Library and Special Collection and the Digital Library and Technology Solutions Department, as well as the National Digital Stewardship Residency (NDSR) program. From September 2014-May 2015, NYU Libraries began implementing an “access-driven” born-digital workflow for their 3 archives: Fales Library and Special Collections, NYU University Archives, and the Tamiment …

Review Of The Shelley-Godwin Archive, Stacey L. Kikendall

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Review of The Shelley-Godwin Archive

Writing To Save A Life: The Louis Till File, Chris Laico

The Primary Source

No abstract provided.

The Library Of Virginia, Local Records, And The Civil War, Eddie Woodward

Provenance, Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists

Virginia’s city and county court records are not only the resources used to write and interpret history, but they have a history in and of themselves--if they survived. Unfortunately, because of records' legal and administrative importance, they are prime targets during a war; destroying these materials not only erases history, but can also cause a great amount of disruption, confusion, and anxiety among residents. This was the case in 1861, after Virginia seceded from the Union and its state capital also became the national capital of the Confederate States of America. As the courthouses were seen as the head or …