Digital Commons Network^™

Assessing The Ability Of A Large Language Model To Perform Recall Searches Of Archival Finding Aids, Will J. Gregg, Perry Gowdy

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This study assesses the ability of a large language model (LLM) to identify archival collections that fit a given research topic, known as recall searching, through searching finding aids. Recall searching can be a time-consuming and difficult process that relies on trying various combinations of keywords. Using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), a technique that enhances the reliability of an LLM by allowing it to reference a specific external dataset, the authors created a tool whereby an LLM answers queries related to more than 4,000 finding aids. The study assessed the performance of this tool by asking it to find collections related …

Curating The Liberal Arts: High-Impact Approaches To Teaching Medical Humanities In The Archives, Alyssa Culp, Liz Bloodworth

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article emphasizes high-impact practices in the archives and encourages instructors and archivists to use prolonged collaboration as a way to teach digital learners analog thinking. The digital and physical exhibits we discuss were designed to model liberal arts thinking and curate experiential learning opportunities that led students to make connections between artifacts and lived experiences. Our case study focuses on one course developed with sustained archival interaction, which demonstrates an effective use of archives for promoting active learning through direct engagement with primary source materials in a liberal arts environment and thereby serves as an example of partnership for …

A Historian And A Sociologist Walk Into A Bar: A Data Archive For Social Sciences And Digital Humanities Hosted At A National Archives Institution, Benjamin Peuch, Oliver Lenaerts, Rolande Depoortere, Johan Van Der Eycken, Youssef Ouahalou

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In October 2020, a new service was launched at the State Archives of Belgium, the Social Sciences and Digital Humanities Archive (SODHA). It is the result of several years of feasibility research into the viability of a data archive for social sciences and digital humanities in the research landscape of Belgium. SODHA acts as a service provider for the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archive (CESSDA ERIC) and takes up the task of preserving and disseminating research data in any of the disciplines that constitute the aforementioned fields.

SODHA is a latecomer compared to other similar organizations in Europe …

Lessons Learned: William White, Mercedes Cardona

Journal of Financial Crises

William White spent 22 years at the Bank of Canada, where he served as deputy governor from September 1988 until 1994 before joining the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). He held a number of positions at the BIS until 2008, including head of the Monetary and Economic Department; he was also a member of the executive committee. He served as chairman of the Economic and Development Review Committee at the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 2009 until 2019 and is currently a senior fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute in Toronto. This Lessons Learned summary is based …

Lessons Learned: Daniel K. Tarullo, Sophia Alden

Journal of Financial Crises

Daniel K. Tarullo was a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the Board) and the Federal Open Market Committee from January 2009 to April 2017. Before his appointment to the Board, Tarullo held several government positions, including assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs, deputy assistant to the president for economic policy, and assistant to the president for international economic policy. In addition to his work with the Federal Reserve, Tarullo has extensive experience in law and academia and has spent more than 15 years teaching at Georgetown and Harvard Law Schools. Tarullo …

The Lingering Effects On Junk Bond Spreads Of The Fed’S 2020 Corporate Bond Backstop Facilities, John V. Duca, An Nguyen

Journal of Financial Crises

The US corporate bond market is typically disrupted during financial crises, when uncertainty and risk premiums are high and bond issuance is depressed. During the COVID-19 recession, the Federal Reserve introduced two unprecedented interventions: the Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility and Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility. These backstop facilities stood ready to purchase corporate bonds when corporate bond spreads were wide. While existing literature highlights their effects on investment-grade bonds, the implications for high-yield (junk) bonds remain less well understood. We track uncertainty using the Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX; Jurado, Ludvigson, and Ng’s measures of macroeconomic uncertainty; and other …

Lessons Learned: Agustín Carstens, Mercedes Cardona

Journal of Financial Crises

Agustín Carstens had a long career at Bank of Mexico, the country’s central bank, starting in 1980, before he was named the country’s minister of finance, a post he held from 2006 to 2009. In January 2010, he was named governor of Bank of Mexico and served in that role through 2017, when he became general manager of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Carstens managed multiple financial crises during his career. Mexico weathered a significant upheaval during the Mexican Peso Crisis of 1994–95, and again during the 2007–09 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). The Mexican economy did not have the …

A Framework For Understanding The Vulnerabilities Of New Money-Like Products, Kenechukwu Anadu, Patrick Mccabe, J.P. Perez-Sangimino, Nathan Swem

Journal of Financial Crises

New money-like products, such as tokenized money market funds (MMFs), money market exchange-traded funds, and stablecoins, could be transformative for finance. These products may offer significant benefits, but like other money-like assets, they also have certain vulnerabilities. We introduce a framework to analyze the vulnerabilities of new products by comparing their features to those that contribute to vulnerabilities in MMFs. Specifically, we examine the extent to which each product engages in liquidity transformation, is subject to threshold effects, serves as a money-like asset, poses contagion risks, and has reactive investors. Our framework is useful for assessing the potential effects of …

Read, Evaluate, Cite: Using Chatgpt To Teach Primary Source Literacy, Victoria Jones

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

For the last three years, generative artificial intelligence and its uses have been a frequent topic of conversation. In education, many of us have wondered about the impact that generative AI will have on teaching and student learning. The present study considers the benefits and challenges of using generative AI tools in archival education to improve students’ primary source literacy skills. The focus of the research project is an assignment that uses ChatGPT to remove one of the challenges of developing primary source skills: historical writing. In doing so, the students were able to focus on practicing key archival research …

Review Of Archives And Emotions: International Dialogues Across Past, Present, And Future, Caelin Ross

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This review analyzes Archives and Emotions: International Dialogues Across Past, Present, and Future, edited by Ilaria Scaglia and Valeria Vanesio, which argues that emotions are constitutive forces in archival practice rather than distortions of objective work. This volume explores international case studies from the 1800s to the present, bridging the gap between archival science and historical scholarship. It examines how emotions influence preservation, access, and the production of knowledge. The editors use various theoretical frameworks to show that affect plays a contextual role across different types of archives and institutional settings. Key contributions include analyses of international standardization, archivists' …

Leveling Up Data Analytics To Understand Patron Interactions, Sasha H. Kim, Keri K. Eason Ph.D.

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This case study demonstrates how a special collections unit library has used descriptive and predictive (inferential) data analytics with reference transaction data over three years. The goals of this case study are to introduce the idea of inferential statistics and analysis to the library and archive world, to show how using inferential statistics and analysis can help a newly hired library leader understand historical context of user behavior quickly, and how to use data analysis as part of data-informed decision-making that can strengthen archives and library leadership and administration.

Mechanism Design For Alignment And Control, Dirk Bergemann, Andrew Koh, Stephen Morris

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

No abstract provided.

Efficient Dynamic Mechanism Design Without A Common Prior, Dirk Bergemann, Marek Bojko

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

No abstract provided.

Growth With New And Old Technologies, Bernardo S. C. Ribeiro

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper proposes a semi-endogenous growth theory that incorporates technology vintages and the endogenous evolution of multiple technological paradigms through innovation. It provides a characterization of both balanced growth equilibrium and transitional dynamics in an environment where new technologies continuously emerge. From a positive perspective, the model rationalizes two distinct empirical patterns. Using two centuries of US patent data, I first document that the age profile of patents has a pronounced hump shape: most contemporary patents build upon technologies that are between 50 and 100 years old. Second, this age profile has remained stable throughout the past century. From a …

Information Revelation In Constant-Sum Games: Elections And Beyond, Navin Kartik, Francesco Squintani, Katrin Tinn

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Do elections aggregate the private information of office-motivated candidates? Our answer stems from a general result for two-player constant-sum Bayesian games with type-independent payoffs. Under a “completeness” statistical condition, every “identifiable” equilibrium is an ex-post equilibrium. Applied to Downsian elections, the ex-post property implies a sharp bound on information aggregation: equilibrium voter welfare is at best equal to the efficient use of a single candidate’s information. In canonical specifications, politicians may “anti-pander” (overreact to their information), whereas some degree of pandering would be socially beneficial. We discuss other applications of the ex-post result.

Earthly Alienization And Galactic Othering: How Star Wars Holistically Reimagines American History And Constructs A Pipeline To Christian-Imperial Humanitarianism, Taylor Valci

Effervescence: Yale Divinity School's Student Journal of Religion

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, the future of religion looks remarkably familiar. This essay argues that Star Wars offers a holistic reimagining of American racial formation in a speculative interstellar setting, translating historical practices of othering and alienization into the galaxy’s social and religious order. Across the Skywalker Saga (1977–2019), the Jedi Order functions as a galactic priesthood whose moral universalism authorizes intervention, governance, and salvation across the cosmos. Drawing on American religious history, critical race theory, migration studies, humanitarianism, and imperial studies, I show how alien species, racialized language, colorblind representation, and sacred bloodlines …

Theologians, Political Influencers, Organizers, Founding Mothers, White Feminists: Evangelicalism Recast As Revolution, Through The Life Works Of Hannah More And Phyllis Schlafly, Taylor Valci

Effervescence: Yale Divinity School's Student Journal of Religion

Nearly two hundred years and an ocean apart, Hannah More and Phyllis Schlafly occupied the same impossible set of roles: theologians, political influencers, organizers, founding mothers, and white feminists. What they shared most deeply, however, was evangelicalism. This essay argues that their life works require evangelicalism to be recast not as a stable denominational throughline, but as a reactionary religious revolution: a recurring form of conservative Christian mobilization that emerges when national security and Christian order are perceived as threatened by secularization, women’s expanding public authority, revolution, or global disorder. Read comparatively, More and Schlafly reveal how evangelical women turned …

Strengthening The Holy Athlete: Lay Ascesis And Athletics In The Works Of John Chrysostom, Stephanie R. Roston

Effervescence: Yale Divinity School's Student Journal of Religion

Contemporary fitness influencers often compel their audiences by appealing to the felt connection between physical and moral-spiritual conditioning, but this was also true for John Chrysostom and his attending congregations in late antiquity. Chrysostom believed that body and soul might be brought into healthy, transparent alignment through the cultivation of embodied training grounds for virtue, and he repeatedly utilized athletic imagery in his homilies and baptismal liturgy to emphasize that the cognitive attention necessary for such work is strengthened over time through repeated physical regimens such as fasting and vigils. Warning against hypocrisy, he looked to athletes and ascetics for …

Extraordinary Senses And Dreamscapes In Medieval Japanese Ōjōden Narratives: Reading Yoshishige No Yasutane’S Nihon Ōjōgokuraku-Ki, Qingxuan Wang

Effervescence: Yale Divinity School's Student Journal of Religion

This paper examines the affective and multi-sensorial narratives in Yoshishige no Yasutane’s Nihon Ōjōgokuraku-ki, the foundational collection of medieval Japanese Pure Land Buddhist rebirth tales (ōjōden). Composed at the threshold of a dark age in which Buddhist salvation through ordinary practice was believed to be impossible, the collection spoke directly to a faith community haunted by worldly suffering and their own spiritual inadequacy. Engaging with sensory studies and narratology, this paper challenges the binary divide between doctrinal expositions and didactic narratives in the study of Buddhism. Rather than treating the Nihon Ōjōgokuraku-ki as secondary supplements to scholar-monks’ …

Raising History From The Grave: Reparative Archival Pedagogy, International Virtual Exchange, And Community Engagement, Antonia Macdonald, Leah Rosenberg

archipelagos: a journal of Caribbean digital praxis

This article brings together three threads in digital pedagogy: international virtual exchange, archival recovery work, and reparative pedagogy to argue that their convergence generates a transformative framework for reimaging critical archival practice and transnational collaborations. Our argument is supported by two related pedagogical projects that we undertook. The first is a collaboration with Pan Caribbean Sankofa (PCS) and the Panama Canal Museum Collection (PCMC) at the University of Florida (UF). The second is a collaborative online international learning (COIL) exchange that took place between two undergraduate classes at a university in the Eastern Caribbean and UF. Both initiatives were grounded …

Unaccountable Archives: A Review Of Underwriting Souls, Samantha Stephens

archipelagos: a journal of Caribbean digital praxis

No abstract provided.

Measure By Measure: Reflections On Building A Quiz Map For Critical Caribbean Digital Pedagogy, Ra Bacchus, Medardo G. Rosario, Alexander S. Butler

archipelagos: a journal of Caribbean digital praxis

This article reflects on the web development of a digital quiz map designed to help students critically engage with the representation of the Caribbean in digital space. Emerging from workshops organized by Visiones del Caribe—a digital humanities initiative using digitized maps and archives to teach Caribbean history, culture, and cartography—this tool responds to students’ inquiries about the region’s spatial boundaries. The quiz invites students to select on a map those countries and territories they consider part of the Caribbean, prompting reflection on the diversity of perspectives shaping Caribbean identity. Drawing from the discourse of critical cartography and digital pedagogy, we …

Tun Up: Building Digital Dancehall Fashion Archives From An Artist’S Perspective, Grayson Chong

archipelagos: a journal of Caribbean digital praxis

This article investigates the opportunities and challenges of building a dancehall fashion archive with particular emphasis on the transition from the material to the digital. As an artist-scholar, I use my own dancehall fashion collection as a case study to explore the process of digitizing material artifacts (in this case, fashion and textiles). I focus on dancehall fashion in particular because it speaks to themes of resistance, self-fashioning, and creativity in the global fashion market. Throughout the article, I highlight what the transition between material and digital affords scholars and public audiences. In particular, I ask: "How do we retain …

Acervos Documentales De Puerto Rico Y El Caribe @ Upr-Río Piedras: On Designing Digital Strategies For Preservation And Access Of Unique Puerto Rican And Caribbean Studies Collections, Mirerza González-Vélez, Mila Aponte-González

archipelagos: a journal of Caribbean digital praxis

This paper documents Acervos Digitales de Puerto Rico y el Caribe @ UPR-Río Piedras, its origins, goals, activities and participants. It reflects on the team engagement with fundamental discussions regarding the use of Omeka in a Caribbean context, that resulted in the articulation and enactment of ethical principles for digital curation, as well as in its commitment for fundamental digital preservation efforts based on minimal technology requirements. The paper also provides an assessment of its continuity as a DH initiative committed to preserving, improving open access, and building capacity for the effective use of unique digitized humanities collections, and poses …

Digital Research Tools, Newspaper Texts, And Enslaved Fugitives In The Atlantic World, Gunvor Simonsen, Natacha Klein Käfer, Heather Freund, Felicia J. Fricke

archipelagos: a journal of Caribbean digital praxis

This article demonstrates the benefits and pitfalls of utilizing Natural Language Processing to structure a large corpus of newspaper adverts on fugitive enslaved people from the Atlantic World between 1766 and 1821. We evaluate a model for multilingual event extraction trained specifically for fugitive ads and jail lists in its capacity to extract correctly the attributes relevant for historical analysis. Finally, we discuss how the current model may be used to expand and qualify databases concerning enslaved fugitives in the eastern Caribbean.

La Elaboración De Abc_Pr: Un Archivo Digital De La Literatura Infantil Puertorriqueña De Andrés Díaz Marrero, Adriana Morales-Díaz

archipelagos: a journal of Caribbean digital praxis

Andrés Díaz Marrero (1940-2025) was a retired teacher in the Puerto Rican Public Education System. After his retirement as a teacher, he dedicated his life to writing poems, stories, plays, songs, and educational resources that highlight the values of Puerto Rican culture and the importance of education, publicly disseminating them through his website during the period of 1994-2025. This project showcases the development of a digital archive to safeguard the literary creations of this Puerto Rican author. ABC_PR presents itself as a living post-custodial repository, dialogically co-created from a familial, affective grandfather-granddaughter relationship, exploring instances of collaboration between writer-illustrator and …

Tracing Caribbean Narratives At The Intersection Of Language, Identity, And Social Media, Juan-Carlos M.E. Goilo

archipelagos: a journal of Caribbean digital praxis

This article delves into how the creole language of Papiamentu navigates the complexities of cultural identity and decolonial praxis within the social media landscape. Drawing from literature reviews, digital ethnography, content analysis, and an interview with social media influencer Gerald Lijde, I explore Papiamentu’s deep-rooted colonial ambivalence—a legacy that shapes its contemporary online use. While digital platforms offer new avenues for celebrating and formalizing Papiamentu, they also risk commodifying its radical, anti-colonial roots into tourist-friendly narratives. By linking online content production to theories of agency and digital culture, the article illuminates Papiamentu’s enduring role as a vessel of resistance and …

A Metadata Analysis Of Anthropological Scholarship About Haiti And The Dominican Republic, Tess Kulstad González, Pauline Kulstad González, Zoe Grubbs, Hongyuan Zhang

archipelagos: a journal of Caribbean digital praxis

This article presents the results of a metadata and content analysis of anthropological research about Haiti and the Dominican Republic available in the Anthropological Literature database and in the Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology. This analysis shows that anthropological knowledge about Haiti and/or the Dominican Republic, produced in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, is included less than scholarship published outside the island. In addition, our analysis indicates that research that pertains to both countries, or that considers transnational and/or inter-island processes has been infrequent. Furthermore, that which exists is not as discoverable or visible as research that focuses …

“Un Compromiso Con La Tierra”: Digital Placemaking In The Art Of Rosaura Rodríguez’'S Instagram Stories, Jeannine Murray-Román

archipelagos: a journal of Caribbean digital praxis

From a recording of a hot pink flower on a foggy hillside, its leaves trembling slightly in the wind, to the ink made from its petals pooling onto white cardstock, Puerto Rican artist Rosaura Rodríguez shares her experimental processes on Instagram stories, fifteen seconds at a time. Instagram is a fraught platform that encourages aesthetic homogeneity, and yet, continues to function as a site for developing micro-poetic techniques. This article focuses on Rodríguez’s in-process Instagram Stories, and particularly the “Highlights” feature which allows her to archive her working processes for two of her projects: 1. Temporada, a self-published comic that …

Infrastructure Of Lack: Defining Caribbean Vernacular Networks, Luis Rivera Jiménez

archipelagos: a journal of Caribbean digital praxis

This article offers a theoretical reflection on the forms and meanings of networks in the Caribbean, moving beyond traditional definitions rooted in computation and formal infrastructure. By turning to vernacular, improvised, and culturally embedded modes of exchange—such as in "Club Nintendo" culture and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) in the Dominican Republic, the DIY internet practices of Cuban users, and the ubiquity of memes and WhatsApp threads across diasporic communities—this piece reframes the concept of the “network” through a Caribbean lens. Rather than seeing the Caribbean as disconnected or technologically incipient, this approach understands the region as a space of creative, strategic, …