Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

“Quietly Incomplete”: Academic Historians, Digital Archival Collections, And Historical Research In The Web Era, Donald Force, Bradley Wiles

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Since the early 1990s, archives institutions largely have approached digital archival collections with an “if we build it, they will come” mentality. But the extent and motivations of use for traditional and emerging patron groups are constantly evolving, and the factors or conditions that characterize use vary wildly in the web environment. As part of a broader study investigating how academic historians utilize and interact with digital archival collections, this paper details the findings of a pilot project involving a citation analysis, survey, and semi-structured interviews with academic historians from a medium-sized Carnegie Research 1 university. This limited exploratory study …

No Manuals: Archives Administration 100 Years After Jenkinson’S Manual, James Lowry, Riah Lee Kinsey, Aimee Lusty, Ezra Hyman, Phyllis Heitjan, Alexander Rettie, Kylie Goetz

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article discusses authority and the codification of professional principles in the archival field by comparing Sir Hilary Jenkinson’s Manual of Archive Administration (1922) with the contents of a wiki called A (New) Manual of Archive Administration, created by the Archival Discourses research network in the lead up on the centenary of Jenkinson’s text. Instead of a systematic comparison of the two texts, the article uses the mode of the “wiki game” to randomly navigate the intellectual content of the wiki. The authors then make comparisons between the wiki entries and the ideas espoused in Jenkinson’s manual. This comparison …

Review Of Communities, Archives And New Collaborative Practices (2020), Jennifer Coggins

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This collection of varied case studies demonstrates the value and possibilities of participatory documentation initiatives, framing them in the context of the turn towards archives as collaborative spaces and the opportunities presented by the internet. Readers will find the volume useful as a source of creative models for community memory projects, but less so for addressing the challenges of long-term preservation and access in community archives. Overall, it is a valuable resource for those taking on community and participatory archives efforts.

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.

Digitize Your Yearbooks: Creating Digital Access While Considering Student Privacy And Other Legal Issues, April K. Anderson-Zorn, Dallas Long

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Student yearbooks are distinctive cultural records. For the schools and universities that produced them, yearbooks promoted a shared sense of identity and experience among students and helped create enduring loyalty to the institutions long after the students graduated. For scholars and other users, yearbooks are unique primary sources that provide insight into past eras of local student life and culture. In regards to user engagement and preserving local histories, student yearbooks should be ideal candidates for digitization by libraries and archives. However, yearbooks are challenging digitization projects because they are likely to contain privacy-sensitive photographs and other information as well …

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 …

Web Archiving In North Carolina's Piedmont Triad During Covid-19, Jessica Dame

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s Martha Blakeney Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) utilized Archive-It’s COVID-19 Web Archiving Special Campaign in the spring of 2020 to expanded web archiving efforts to include COVID-19 related web content from the Piedmont Triad region. It was important to SCUA to archive local web content during a historical moment for future research and context that had the potential to be lost, in a way that did not require the community to create and submit content during a global pandemic. Challenges arose including the need to select material quickly, capturing as much content …

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 …

Greening The Archive: The Social Climate Of Cotton Manufacturing In The "Samuel Oldknow Papers, 1782-1924", Bernadette Myers, Melina Moe

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article re-examines the records and correspondence of Samuel Oldknow, a late eighteenth century textile manufacturer, within the context of the environmental humanities. Oldknow’s papers, a portion of which are held at Columbia University, are most often used by economic historians to date the beginnings of the factory wage labor system. We highlight, instead, the environmental implications of Oldknow’s cotton enterprise by juxtaposing documents related to the global reach of Oldknow’s empire with evidence of his transformation of the local landscape of northern England. This process of re-scaling captures a sense of what we call the “social climate” of the …

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 …

The Suffrage Postcard Project: Feminist Digital Archiving And Transatlantic Suffrage History, Ana Stevenson, Kristin Allukian

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article introduces The Suffrage Postcard Project (SPP), a feminist digital humanities project that utilizes digital tools to explore how transatlantic suffrage postcards and feminist digital humanities practices engender new historical narratives of the suffrage movement, especially in the United States and Britain. This article uses our Omeka-based digital archive of suffrage postcards to discuss the history of the postcard, the significance of a postcard archive to digital archival studies, and the significance of the digital postcard archive to digital history.

Our project uses feminist DH methodology in coding, tagging, and data visualization to better understand how gender, and intersecting …

Things That Work - Meditations On Materiality In Archival Discourse, Anneli Sundqvist

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The renewal of archival theory since the 1990s has drawn upon the abstract and functional qualities of records, while their material aspects have been more or less excluded from theoretical discourse. Even if an emerging interest in materiality could be noticed, its impact and conceptual implications still need to be elucidated. This essay will explore the concept of materiality and how it has been dealt with in archival discourse, and discuss in what sense records could be regarded as material. It can be shown that while materiality is seldom explicitly addressed, it is an underlying theme in much archival discourse …

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 Documenting Rebellions: A Study Of Four Lesbian And Gay Archives In Queer Times, Lynn A. Cowles

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The comparative case study, Documenting Rebellions: A Study of Four Lesbian and Gay Archives in Queer Times, traces the development of four prominent lesbian and gay archives as they grew out of the rights movement of the 1960s through the AIDS crisis and into the 21^st century. The study is informed by both queer theory and archival theory. The volume historically contextualizes them within the lesbian and gay rights movement, as well as the movement in archival science and practice to restore the voices of those silenced by power structures within society.

Review Of Mary Kandiuk, Editor. Archives And Special Collections As Sites Of Contestation. Sacramento, Ca: Library Juice Press, 2020., Jennifer Gotwals

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Archives and Special Collections as Sites of Contestation, an edited volume collecting 17 essays from practitioners across the United States and Canada, contains chapters critically evaluating how Special Collections approach instruction, digital projects, cataloging, knowledge production, and ethics.

Archives Of Human Rights And Historical Memory: An Analysis Of Archival Practices ‘From Below’ In Four Ngos In Colombia, Claire L. Taylor, Lucia Brandi, Cecilia A. Acosta Sánchez, Marcelo Díaz Vallejo

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article centres on four Colombian NGOs who focus on victims of conflict, paying particular attention to the substantial body of material which they collect and curate related to their work, their activities, and the victims that they represent, and which thus comprise a form of unofficial, grassroots archives of the Colombian conflict. The article details the process undertaken by the research team in engaging with the NGOs to examine the current state of their archives, and the problems and issues they have encountered. Firstly, we provide an overview of the context in which the four selected NGOs are working, …

Review Of Defining A Discipline: Archival Research And Practice In The Twenty-First Century - Essays In Honor Of Richard J. Cox, Rose Buchanan

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Defining a Discipline: Archival Research and Practice in the Twenty-First Century reflects on the ways in which archival theory and practice have developed in recent decades and charts a path forward for a more engaged and empathetic profession in a new century. The eighteen essays in this collection will be of interest to archivists, librarians, and other information professionals seeking to expand collecting practices to better reflect underrepresented groups, engage in authentic collaborations with community members, and enact more equitable and just policies at their institutions.

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 Archival Values: Essays In Honor Of Mark A. Greene, Gregory Wiedeman

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Archival Values: Essays in Honor of Mark A. Greene is an archetypal Festschrift with 23 essays on each of the 11 Society of American Archivists Core Values of Archivists. This is primarily a book about archival professionalism, as Scott Cline’s framing essay offers the values as "integral to the archival endeavor" and the SAA Publications Board selected it as the fourth of SAA’s annual “One Book, One Profession” series. The book features some particularly standout works that will help both graduate students and veteran archivists better understand some of the more cutting-edge ideas that are reshaping how archivists think of …

Review Of Advocacy And Awareness For Archivists, Elizabeth D. James

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Advocacy and Awareness for Archivists is at once a practical guide and a call to action to consistently communicate the work and impact of archives at the local, regional, and national levels. As an expansion of the Archival Fundamentals Series, the book places the work of advocacy as being central to the archives profession. However, it neglects to incorporate contemporary archival concerns related to power dynamics and inequity when planning and conducting an advocacy effort.

Mplp: From Practice To Theory, Kyna Herzinger

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This paper traces the transformation of More Product, Less Process or MPLP from a processing methodology to a principle that has supported a growing toolbox of practices. It highlights the seeds of that principle, which are rooted in Greene and Meissner’s effort to shift professional focus away from processing minutiae and toward access to and use of archival materials. Although MPLP developed out of demonstrable needs, its underlying attention to the nature of archival work and the archivist’s role within that work speaks to deeper concepts addressed within archival theory. This paper argues that MPLP’s pragmatic methods have evolved beyond …

Labor Gone Digital (Digifacket)! Experiences From Creating A Web Archive For Swedish Trade Unions, Jenny Jansson, Katrin Uba, Jaanus Karo

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The Internet has become an increasingly important forum for societal activism, as event mobilization, member organization, and some actions have moved online. These new types of activities, often facilitated by diverse social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, form an increasingly important part of contemporary social movements’ and organizations’ communication, work, and expression. This rapid digitalization and the increase of online activities have created a dilemma for social movement archives and researchers: Born-digital material is necessary to understand our contemporary movements, yet the materials generated and available on the Internet are rarely systematically archived. To help find solutions …

Review Of Leading And Managing Archives And Manuscripts Program, Rory Grennan

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Review of Leading and Managing Archives and Manuscripts Programs, edited by Peter Gottlieb and David W. Carmichael, examining the main topics of leadership and management of people in archival programs, its place in the archival literature, and its potential audience.

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 …

A Methodology For Implementing The Standardized Statistical Measures And Metrics For Public Services In Archival Repositories And Special Collections Libraries, Melanie Griffin

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Society for American Archivists (SAA) joint standard, Standardized Statistical Measures and Metrics for Public Services in Archival Repositories and Special Collections Libraries, provides a shared vocabulary and set of statistical measures that help archival and special collections repositories articulate their value as they share concrete evidence demonstrating the impact of their services. The standard is specifically designed to be system agnostic so that all repositories can use it. Many of the standard’s recommended measures, particularly those related to users and circulation, …

What’S Wrong With Digital Stewardship: Evaluating The Organization Of Digital Preservation Programs From Practitioners’ Perspectives, Karl-Rainer Blumenthal, Peggy Griesinger, Julia Y. Kim, Shira Peltzman, Vicky Steeves

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The National Digital Stewardship Alliance surveyed practitioners in 2012 and again in 2017 to gauge, among other things, how satisfied they were with their organizations’ digital preservation function. This study seeks to understand what causes the high and rising levels of dissatisfaction that practitioners reported. We interviewed 21 digital stewards and asked them to describe the organizational context in which they work; to reflect on what aspects of their organizations’ approach to digital preservation are working well and which are not; and to evaluate necessary areas of improvement. We identified experiences that were common among participants using a qualitative research …

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.

Review Of The Future Of Literary Archives, Meghan R. Rinn

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In the opening of The Future of Literary Archives: Diasporic and Diverse Collections at Risk, editor David C. Sutton is careful to note that the various chapters in the volume are related to the work of the Diasporic Literary Archives Network. As such, the book itself serves as a demonstrated result of the Network’s years of work and collaboration across international boundaries, touching on subjects including public/private archives, material at risk, cultural imperialism, and literary history.