Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Using Metadata To Mitigate The Risks Of Digitizing Archival Photographs Of Violence And Oppression, Claudia A. Mallea

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Questioning the archival imperative of access, this research article discussed how descriptive metadata can be used to contextualize and problematize digitized archival photographs, which are often inadequately described in the digital environment. Beginning with literature review of atrocity photos and their use and digitization to discuss the risks inherent to disseminating photos of or born from violence. Review continued into the digital environment and the risks inherent to making difficult archival collections accessible online and the conflict between the right to privacy of the individuals represented in archival materials and the archival imperative to provide access.

Expanding on the recommendations …

The Value Of A Note: A Finding Aid Usability Study, Betts Coup

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Finding aids have long been an essential part of archivists’ work. To create a finding aid is to create a surrogate of an archival collection. Multiple levels of description are used to distill information about the unique groupings and parts of a collection and to place its content into context. Archivists make decisions about what to include in a finding aid based on their own judgment as trained professionals, but also with the intent to create a finding aid that will be genuinely helpful to researchers. Indeed, as the revised principles of Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS) state: “Users …

The Platinum Rule Meets The Golden Minimum: Inclusive And Efficient Archival Description Of Oral Histories, Weatherly A. Stephan

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article presents an oral history description methodology, rooted in both extensible processing practices as well as cultural humility, that results in efficiently-processed but richly-described oral history interviews. The author explores three key questions. Is there a way to process oral history to the golden minimum? Is there a way to process oral history ethically, with an empathetic approach to narrators and the communities they originate from or discuss? And is there a way to do both at the same time? In addition to the application of this descriptive methodology, the article examines the archives and oral history professional ethics …

Review Of Putting Descriptive Standards To Work, Katy Sternberger

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

For a thorough understanding of current descriptive best practices, consult Putting Descriptive Standards to Work, edited by Kris Kiesling and Christopher J. Prom, with modules written by Cory L. Nimer, Kelcy Shepherd, Katherine M. Wisser, and Aaron Rubinstein. This volume covers modules seventeen through twenty of the Trends in Archives Practice series from the Society of American Archivists. The book provides readers with the context and the applied examples needed to explore the possibilities of descriptive standards.

Exploring Relationship Description: A Report From The Describing Relationships Workshop, Simmons College, February 2018, Katherine M. Wisser, Hayley Mercer, Mitch Nakaue, Adrienne Pruitt, Susan Pyzynski, Jessica M. Sedgwick

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Archivists have included relationship information as a component of contextual and content description; however, they have not been called on to formalize that information. Rather, relationships have been identified and defined through informal narrative contexts, and depend on the archivist’s interpretative work and determination. Additionally, descriptive standards provide little guidance on the explicit description of relationships. To begin to address these issues, a group of archivists gathered in Boston to explore the challenges and opportunities in describing relationships. This paper serves as an account of that workshop from two perspectives: first, it documents the results of the day's discussions and …

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.