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 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 …

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.