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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™

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Archival Science

Yale University

2015

Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Quidditch, Zombies And The Cheese Club: A Case Study In Archiving Web Presence Of Student Groups At New York University, Aleksandr Gelfand Dec 2015

Quidditch, Zombies And The Cheese Club: A Case Study In Archiving Web Presence Of Student Groups At New York University, Aleksandr Gelfand

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Student organizations are a unique feature of university life whose records merit preservation. Since the mid-to-late 1990s, these records have been increasingly transitioning from analog format to a digital, web-based platform; a pattern that has only picked-up in the 2000s. This paper looks at a case study of the New York University Archives and its attempt to archive student organizations using the Archive-It service.

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The Half-Life & After-Life Of New Media, Nancy Austin Nov 2015

The Half-Life & After-Life Of New Media, Nancy Austin

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

It is fitting to think of the half-life of new media using the time-based metaphor of radioactive decay. As a metaphor, an object’s half-life can be a useful way to talk about the potent technological modernity of new media and, like Walter Benjamin’s well-known notion of the aura, call attention to an object’s performativity. However, Benjamin’s aura remains a constant reminder of irrevocable originality whereas remarking on half-life references a quality that changes over time. But what happens after the rhetorical impact of being new has run its course? What is the life expectancy of once-new media and what of …

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When Narrative Fails: Context And Physical Evidence As Means Of Understanding The Northwest Boundary Survey Photographs Of 1857–1862, James A. Eason Nov 2015

When Narrative Fails: Context And Physical Evidence As Means Of Understanding The Northwest Boundary Survey Photographs Of 1857–1862, James A. Eason

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The photographs of the Northwest Boundary Survey, taken chiefly in 1860–1861, present many of the problems commonly encountered in the study of nineteenth-century photography. These views documenting the international border between modern British Columbia and the American Pacific Northwest provide a useful case study in the close reading of physical attributes of photographs. They afford an opportunity to compare imagery and evidence across known sets, and to draw conclusions from sequencing, variant captioning, and other physical evidence. These details will help archivists and other collection managers make good decisions about depth of cataloging, digital imaging choices, and interfaces for online …

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Faded But Not Forgotten: Thinking About The Records And Relics Of America's Earliest Forays In Photography, Jeffrey Mifflin Nov 2015

Faded But Not Forgotten: Thinking About The Records And Relics Of America's Earliest Forays In Photography, Jeffrey Mifflin

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The first documented photographs in America were taken in the spring of 1839 by enthusiastic experimenters after studying recently arrived publications from England, detailing William Henry Fox Talbot's instructions for making photogenic drawings. The images have not survived, but meaning can nevertheless be found in the circumstances surrounding their production and disappearance.

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The Role Of National Archives In The Creation Of National Master Narratives In Southeast Asia, Michael Karabinos Sep 2015

The Role Of National Archives In The Creation Of National Master Narratives In Southeast Asia, Michael Karabinos

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This paper is a working paper for a research project in its initial stage. Using an article by German historian Stefan Berger on the role of national archives in the creation of master historical narratives in Europe as its inspiration, I look at the same concept for postcolonial Southeast Asia. Particular attention is paid to Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. Due to the colonial past of these countries, what is held in their national archives includes many records created by the former colonial administrations. How this affects the creation of master historical narratives will be addressed in this research project. I …

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Graduate Archival Education In The United States; A Personal Reflection About Its Past And Future, Richard J. Cox May 2015

Graduate Archival Education In The United States; A Personal Reflection About Its Past And Future, Richard J. Cox

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

From one vantage, those who started their careers decades ago, graduate archival education has made tremendous leaps forward; from another perspective, those in the early years of their careers, education in this field may look spotty, disjointed, and confusing. As I near the end of my career (although old archivists don’t fade away, they get preserved), I have increasingly felt like an archival source in ongoing professional dialogue. In this essay, I briefly consider the evolution of graduate education since the 1970s, the emergence of a new archival professorial corps, the maturing of our field’s professional and scholarly research, and …

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Selecting An Electronic Records Repository Platform At The South Carolina Department Of Archives And History, Brian Thomas Apr 2015

Selecting An Electronic Records Repository Platform At The South Carolina Department Of Archives And History, Brian Thomas

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In the 2014–2015 fiscal year the South Carolina Department of Archives and History decided to embark on the journey to creating a repository that would house and preserve incoming state agency electronic records. This case study discusses the journey of the newly hired electronic records archivist in researching, evaluating, and recommending a digital repository platform. It also provides a set of take-away lessons learned through the process in the hope that it will help other archivists investigating repository platforms.

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Investigating The "Small World" Of Literary Archival Collections: The Impact Of Eac-Cpf On Archival Descriptive Practices – Part 1: Relationships, Description And The Archival Community, Katherine M. Wisser Feb 2015

Investigating The "Small World" Of Literary Archival Collections: The Impact Of Eac-Cpf On Archival Descriptive Practices – Part 1: Relationships, Description And The Archival Community, Katherine M. Wisser

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article opens an exploration of the description of relationships between entities made possible by the new standard, Encoded Archival Context - Corporate bodies, Persons and Families (EAC-CPF). Presents the results of a survey conducted in 2013 to gauge the archival descriptive community's perceptions of the significance of contextual information, relationship types, and other aspects of relationship description. Survey results indicate that the archival descriptive community has just begun to think about relationships in a formal way.

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