Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Use Of Social Media In Public Archives: Perspectives About Ghana’S Readiness And Perceived Challenges., Reuben Saah, Samuel Abban, Esther White

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The study explored the readiness and challenges of social media adoption at the Public Records and Archives Administration Department (PRAAD) in Ghana and was guided by the Iacovou, Charalambos L., Izak Benbasat, and Albert S. Dexter model of Electronic Data Interchange adoption. Using the qualitative approach, 13 participants drawn from the Archives Division were interviewed to explore their perspectives. The results showed that besides the participants high understanding and awareness of the benefits of social media adoption, clients were interested to engage PRAAD on social media. However, PRAAD’s readiness to adopt and effectively use social media was inadequate due to …

Review Of Fundraising For Impact, Meredith R. Evans Ph.D

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In Fundraising for Impact, Kathryn K. Matthew uses soundbites from more than 100 interviews she conducted with practitioners from libraries, archives and museums from around the world to share ways they increased their funding. This work emphasizes frameworks that help reveal an institution's value and the impact of community, partnerships, investing and fundraising.

Data On Deck: A Case Study Of A Historic Undersea Film And Video Digitization Project, Karen Urbec Mlis, Ca, Audrey Mickle Mlis, Lisa Raymond

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In 2021, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Data Library and Archives (DLA), a part of the MBLWHOI (Marine Biological Laboratory Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) Library, received a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Recordings at Risk (RAR) program to catalog, digitize, preserve, and make available historic films and videos of Alvin, the first-of-its-kind manned submersible vessel that has shown us more of the deep ocean than had ever been possible and transformed our understanding of life on Earth.

These moving images have not been accessible to researchers and were far past the intended life cycle …

Review Of Archival Accessioning, Bree'ya Nadia Brown

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In Archival Accessioning, editor Audra Eagle Yun and eleven authors compile essays on modern theories and practices to accessioning collections in archival settings. Authors in this anthology share knowledge and assert scenarios supporting their arguments, while also providing resources as guides for professionals who tackle the challenges of accessioning records and collections.

Review Of: Archival Virtue: Relationships, Obligation, And The Just Archives By Scott Cline, Meghan R. Rinn

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

A thoughtful meditation on the profession, Scott Cline’s Archival Virtue is timely and much needed. The text reframes discussions regarding justice, equity, diversity, access, and a better archives for all as a part of a greater quest for morality and virtue among ourselves and as a core of archives as a profession in the 21st century.

Community Oral History To Widen The Path: The Jewish Mobile Oral History Project, Deborah Gurt

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article presents the case study of the Jewish Mobile Oral History Project of the McCall Library at the University of South Alabama as an example of a participatory archival practice. With goals to build a collection centered on a minority experience, to engage with community members, and to foster inter-communal dialogue, the project highlights affect as one vital consideration for archival record keepers, users, and subjects.

Archival Discretion: A Survey On The Theory And Practice Of Archival Restrictions, Katrina Windon, Lydia M. Tang

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In 2019, the Society of American Archivists’ Privacy and Confidentiality Steering Committee surveyed SAA members with the goal of identifying current practices and concerns across the field regarding archival access restrictions. Survey results yielded rich and sometimes contradicting information about how archivists approach access restrictions in theory and practice. The authors explore the survey methodology and results. Key observations include the ubiquity of restricted collections across archival repositories; the influence of donors on repositories’ restriction decisions; and variances in approaches to administering, tracking, and lifting expired restrictions.

Not having a comprehensive codified professional standard for privacy and restrictions is entirely …

Review Of Deconstructing Service In Libraries: Intersections Of Identities And Expectations, Emily Komornik

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In Deconstructing Service in Libraries: Intersections of Identities and Expectations, Veronica Arellano Douglas and Joanna Gadsby bring together nineteen essays from the perspectives of library workers of differing race, ethnicity, gender identity, and job title to discuss service and what it means in their respective roles. Arellano Douglas and Gadsby’s edited volume offers essays that highlight the frustration of librarians who feel underappreciated, undervalued, and, perhaps most importantly, underestimated in their professional spaces. Within Deconstructing Service in Libraries, Arellano Douglas and Gadsby collect insightful, real-world examples of library professionals tackling these issues, offering solidarity alongside valuable professional advice. This book …

Review Of Ghosts Of Archive: Deconstructive Intersectionality And Praxis, Rose Buchanan

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Ghosts of Archive: Deconstructive Intersectionality and Praxis explores the relationship between archives and power to posit an archival praxis centered around justice. Drawing on his experiences working for South Africa's National Archives and the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Harris shows how archives have the potential for oppression and liberation, harm and healing. His work will appeal to all readers interested in social justice.

Aim High: Pushing Collaboration And Outreach Limits For The 50th Anniversary Of Apollo 11, Molly Stothert-Maurer, Julie Swarstad Johnson

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Exhibits in archives and special collections function as an important outreach tool for these specialized, sometimes formidable repositories. Exhibits increase public knowledge of available collections, promote engagement with those collections, reach new audiences, and provide opportunities to build bridges across campus units. This case study looks at a rotating exhibition titled Moon at the University of Arizona Libraries Special Collections created to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing on July 20, 2019. This article covers exhibit design, programming and events that accompanied the exhibit, and coordinated efforts across the University of Arizona campus to celebrate this …

Blood At The Root, Jarrett Martin Drake

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

What is the sound of silence and what is the sight of absence? The following essay situates itself along those two questions by devoting close ethnographic attention to the lives and afterlives of seven people—Delia, Renty, Jem, Alfred, Fassena, Drana, and Jack—whose reflections resonate and resound throughout the world of archives. I argue that a theory of archival power must consider the role of process and place in the shaping of modern memory practices. The article begins by narrating the story of how these seven people came to occupy the center of the archival universe. Next, it traces a tale …

Review Of Seeking A New Life For Indigenous Archives, Natalia Kovalyova

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Thirteen essays in Afterlives of Indigenous Archives, assembled and edited by Ivy Schweitzer and Gordon Henry Jr., collectively respond to the call to reconsider the archive and reinstate the principles and practices of indigenous archiving. The central element of such reconsiderations is the question of power sustained via the Western tradition of print culture and knowledge organization and, consequently, of conflicts and contradictions amassed in non-indigenous repositories that preserve Indigenous heritage. Exploring alternative ways of preserving indigenous materials, the volume takes the reader from institutional frameworks through an examination of specific cases toward projections of digital innovations in indigenous archives …

Review Of Do Archives Have Value?, Luciana Duranti

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This book is about the value of archives in all of its connotations: value as evidence, memory, culture, source for a variety of practical purposes, and, most interestingly, value as means of financial gain for corporations. Each chapter emphasizes values in a variety of contexts: from Malawi, Australia, and the United Kingdom, to India, Hong Kong and Japan. In the process of discussing such values, several authors explain how archives came to be accumulated and preserved in their countries and how these processes have determined the value, as well as the worth, of their archives today. Though the chapters are …

Perspectives And Practices: Archival Processing Metrics Survey Findings, Cyndi Shein, Sarah R. Jones, Tammi Kim, Karla Irwin

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Professional literature and case studies demonstrate that processing metrics are valuable in advocating for resources, informing priorities, supporting grant proposals, and predicting costs for collection storage and care. This article analyzes responses to an archival processing metrics survey that gathered perspectives and practices from archivists working in a variety of repository types. The findings describe how archivists collect processing metrics in different ways, what data points they view as essential, and how they use certain data points to serve specific purposes. The findings indicate that although most respondents acknowledge the value of processing metrics, the majority of them still do …

The Concept Of Natureculture Document: A Conceptual Exploration Of Seeds, Embodied Information, And Unconventional Records, Marc Kosciejew

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Seedbanks, or so-called archival arks of the apocalypse, are addressing accelerating anthropocentric alterations to the environment by collecting, storing, and preserving seeds. These are specialized archival repositories that approach, frame, and use seeds as documents for agricultural and scientific research, classification and preservation work, and various other archival and administrative purposes. Seedbanks indeed are archives of unconventional records.

This article introduces the concept of natureculture document as a framing device in which to help analyze the documentary status of objects that are not necessarily or usually considered as documents or having documentary characteristics. This concept, coupled with its interdisciplinary theoretical …

Review Of Feminist Histories And Digital Media, Biz Gallo

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The edited volume, Feminist Histories and Digital Media, sets out to explore the ways in which the field has grown and changed since the advent of the first reminist archival research projects 20 years ago. Intended as a signpost by the editors for future research in the field, the volume succeeds in informing, inspiring, and inciting researchers to move forward with using digital archives in feminist scholarship.

Issues Of Ownership: Leveraging Accession Documentation And Provenance Research To Improve Collection Access, Kara Flynn

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Records created about archival materials—including deeds of gift, collection-related correspondence, and other accession documentation—play an important role, particularly when it comes to providing access and maintaining partnerships with other recordkeepers. This case study will describe a project to review the accession documentation of all collections within Augusta University’s Special Collections & Institutional Archives, and the collections of the local historical society, held on deposit with the department.

Review Of Sustainable Thinking: Ensuring Your Library’S Future In An Uncertain World, Ben Goldman

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Sustainable Thinking: Ensuring Your Library’s Future in an Uncertain World explores strategies for how public libraries can become more sustainable organizations in a time of social and environmental disruptions. Sustainability, viewed through the lens of triple bottom line accounting, can be accomplished by understanding and prioritizing the needs of the communities that libraries serve. While not written with archives in mind, the book offers important insights for archivists, who collectively must do more to prepare for climate-driven disruptions to their work.

“Who’S Driving The Bus?” Or How Digitization Is Influencing Archival Collections, Kathelene Mccarty Smith, David Gwynn, Beth Ann Koelsch, Jennifer Motszko

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Archivists who work directly with unique collections, as well as librarians and other professionals who coordinate digitization, generally agree that access should be prioritized. However, each group has its own goals, standards, and timelines that may conflict with those of their colleagues. The push to maximize access to collections may, in some cases, go so far as to influence collecting policies. Is the lure of rapid digitization affecting best practices of arrangement and description? If online access to the collections is the ultimate goal, and if each stakeholder has a different perspective on how best to accomplish this, who decides …

Economic Provenance: The Financial Analysis Of Art Historical Records, Amy C. Whitaker

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The Leo Castelli Gallery launched pivotal mid-twentieth-century artistic careers, including those of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Although well-studied for its artistic impact, the Castelli archives—as well as those of other gallery artists such as Frank Stella and early collectors such as Burton and Emily Hall Tremaine—include a curious trove of artists’ financial records and related correspondence. This paper argues that these records form an “economic provenance” that is important both to both art market analysis and art history. This economic context is sometimes overlooked because of the contested relationship between art and markets. In this context, the archive can …

Assessing Impact Of Medium-Sized Institution Digital Cultural Heritage On Wikimedia Projects, Elizabeth Joan Kelly

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Cultural heritage institutions with digital resources, ranging from digitized collections to online finding aids, have increasingly pursued creative solutions to make their collections more open and reach more users. One strategy for increasing access to digital cultural heritage resources is the addition of links or uploaded media to the Wikimedia environment. However, existing literature detailing the process and results of such strategies centers primarily on the work of large research institutions and focuses on web analytics to show success of such projects. It is unclear if smaller institutions with niche and focused collections will see the same results as many …

Review Of Music Preservation And Archiving Today, Christina Taylor Gibson

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Music Preservation and Archiving Today, a collection of essays edited by Norie Guthrie and Scott Carlson documents some of the most pressing issues confronting contemporary music archivists, particularly those working with popular music and their relevant communities. This review presents a summary of the essays included and considers the breadth of questions asked and answered therein. Particularly of interest are the relationships described and documented with those ordinarily excluded from the archive because of class, ethnicity, or race.

Review Of Moving Image And Sound Collections For Archivists, Lauren Sorensen

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Review of Anthony Cocciolo's Moving Image and Sound Collections for Archivists.

Exploring The American Archivist: Corpus Analysis Tools And The Professional Literature, J. Gordon Daines Iii, Cory L. Nimer, Jacob R. Lee

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The literature of a professional community provides insights into what members of that community value and underscores key professional issues. Periodic analyses of professional literature are an important way for these communities to identify trends that deserve further exploration. This article introduces the use of corpus analysis tools such as Voyant Tools and discusses their value in performing periodic analyses of professional literature. As an example, it presents a limited study examining the use of the term “theory” in the American Archivist.

Nineteenth-Century Depictions Of Disabilities And Modern Metadata: A Consideration Of Material In The P. T. Barnum Digital Collection, Meghan R. Rinn

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The Library of Congress subject headings have been examined in the past for their classification of subjects relating to race, gender, and sexuality. Overlooked is subject headings that relate to disabilities. In the course of creating records for the archival and object material that form the P.T. Barnum Digital Collection, the project discovered the imperfections of the Library of Congress subject headings, and the need to develop standards and protocols for the material. This resulted in a balance of language that respects the preferences of living communities and their best practices, and the existing language in the Library of Congress, …

Open-Source Opens Doors: A Case Study On Extending Archivesspace Code At Unlv Libraries, Cyndi Shein, Carol Ou, Karla Irwin, Carlos Lemus

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Libraries is in its third year of implementing the open-source archival collection management application ArchivesSpace, and is sharing UNLV-developed code that extends ArchivesSpace’s built-in functions. The case study demonstrates how adopting and building upon community-created code and developing original local code is improving critical workflows that support creating collection descriptions, cleaning up metadata, and disseminating finding aids that are easier for researchers to comprehend. UNLV discusses how using an open-source application has opened up opportunities for cross-departmental collaboration, moving UNLV further down the path toward full implementation and closer to the goal of …

Altmetrics And Archives, Elizabeth Joan Kelly

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Altmetrics are an alternative to traditional measurement of the impact of published resources. While altmetrics are primarily used by researchers and institutions to measure the impact of scholarly publications online, they can also be used by archives to measure the impact of their diverse online holdings, including digitized and born-digital collections, digital exhibits, repository websites, and online finding aids. Furthermore, altmetrics may fill a need for user engagement assessments for cultural heritage organizations. This article introduces the concept of altmetrics for archives and discusses barriers to adoption, best practices for collection, and potential further areas of study.

Archiving Governance In Palestine, Caitlin M. Davis

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

During the 1980s, a historical turn within the discipline of anthropology fueled an ‘archival imaginary’, which encouraged scholars to enter archival spaces, study their documents, and collect the historical ‘context’ that had been missing from previous ethnographic texts. The archive, in other words, became a repository, a site for the extraction of information about a particular topic. In the historiography of Palestine, these activities have proved fruitful; new historians have mined military and state archives in ways that have illuminated the nefarious details regarding the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Fewer scholars, however, have positioned ‘the archive’ as a subject (not …

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 …