Library and Information Science Commons^™

Unlocking Rosenberger's Research, Victoria N. Ramsay

Student Publications

Homer Rosenberger's unprocessed collection lies in Musselman Library's Special Collections--a multitude of boxes filled with Pennsylvania research and memorabilia. By examining the first box in the collection, it becomes clear that Rosenberger was more than just an avid researcher, but also a man with his own history and reasons for collecting these documents in the first place.

Ut Archival Collections At The Mcgovern Historical Center, Matt Richardson

TMC Library Newsletter (2015-)

No abstract provided.

How Disillusioned Debate Documentarians Discovered The Silver Lining, Gypsy Moody, Chuck Hodgin

Library Faculty Scholarship

Belmont University was chosen to host the final presidential debate of the 2020 election. Undeterred by even the COVID-19 pandemic, administration was determined to forge ahead with holding this historic event at Belmont. They formed a committee to document the event and archive its materials. As IR managers, we thanked our lucky stars for this huge opportunity and potential spotlight for our relatively unheralded IR. We were tasked with writing a scalable preservation policy and collecting and archiving physical and digital Debate materials. Unfortunately, our pursuit of these goals revealed that the university had some work to do before we …

Digital Repository For Public Archives: The Public Records And Archives Administration Department Of Ghana In Focus, Angela Berkoh Angela Berkoh, Harry Akussah Akussah, Noah Darko-Adjei

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

There is increased growth of digital repositories the world over. Many libraries, academic institutions, governmental and archival institutions are establishing and implementing institutional repositories. In Ghana, despite the growth of institutional repositories in some of the universities, the Public Records and Archives Administration Department (PRAAD), which holds the country’s cultural heritage and history still, manages manual records. Day in and day out archives in their custody deteriorate due to frequent handling and the bad state in which the repositories are. There are no backups for the documents, thus, the archives that deteriorate beyond repairs are completely lost to future generations. …

The Plight Of Managing Audio-Visual Archives In Developing Economies: The Case Of Zimbabwe, Samson Mutsagondo, Sabina Tholanah

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study used the case study of the Audio-Visual Unit of the National Archives of Zimbabwe to interrogate challenges faced in managing audio-visual archives in developing economies despite their centrality as documentary heritage. The study firstly addresses the importance of audio-visual archives such as enhancing collective societal memory, preservation of culture and provision of entertainment. Thereafter, the study addresses challenges faced such as lack of collection development policy, lack of skilled manpower and technological obsolescence. It is against this background that the study proposes a framework that can be used to improve the way audio-visual archives are managed, the Tripartite …

Advocating For Higher Wages For Archival Student Workers: Or How To Stop Exploiting Your Students, Megan M. Mummey

Library Presentations

No abstract provided.

What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons For Every Classroom, Jen Hoyer, Julia Pelaez, Kaitlin Holt

Publications and Research

Build confidence in delivering primary source–based instruction with easily adaptable, skill-based lessons that can be used in a variety of learning environments. Each lesson offers suggestions for differentiating instruction with diverse audiences, worksheets, and activity templates.

What Primary Sources Teach provides practical and transferable lesson plans focused on skill-based instruction, including step-by-step instructions; ideas for differentiation; corresponding teaching tools, such as worksheets and activity templates; and suggestions for assessment. This book includes resources that are intuitive to classroom teachers and easily adoptable by librarians and informal educators tasked with translating their current primary source-based instruction to a K–12 environment.

This …

Suddenly, Everything's Online! What Do We Do Now?, Ruth E. Bryan

Library Presentations

In this presentation, the author, the University of Kentucky university archivist, outlines a problem with acquiring currently-created university documents and offers some initial solutions. The problem is that key university records of historical and strategic importance are being distributed or published online and not routinely transferred to the archives the way they were in the past. Unless these documents are proactively acquired by the university archives, they are likely to be lost because of the ephemeral nature of the Web. Yet, crawling or otherwise capturing dynamic and changing web platforms adds technological complexity and thus requires additional resources. Given that …

Digital Archival Literacy In The Classroom, Rebecca Fitzsimmons, Elliott Kuecker

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

Archival literacy has become a popular mode of literacy in the last ten years, given that archival research is not the exclusive purview of historians. Given the amount of open collections and exhibits, the possibility of teaching archival literacy skills is more accessible than ever. Importantly, archival literacy asks us to critically read against the common narrative that archival objects are pure evidence and archivists are neutral agents. Our presentation describes the importance of digital archival literacy and provides examples of implementation in classes, ad hoc workshops, and community engagement. We emphasize that all knowledge is a synthesis of various …

"To Keep The Church Record And History": The Evolution Of The Church Historian's Office, Cory L. Nimer

Journal of Western Archives

Authors looking at the development of the field of Mormon history have often evaluated it in terms of historiography—as its progression from the domain of amateurs to the output of academics. However, studies of the composition and development of the larger history profession have focused on the discipline's fragmentation and the formation of an "archival divide" between those that write history and those collecting and preserving its sources. This latter approach provides a useful framework for understanding the evolution of the Church Historian's Office of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from its origins in 1831 to its …

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 Archival Virtue: Relationship, Obligation, And The Just Archives, J. Gordon Daines Iii

Journal of Western Archives

Review of Archival Virtue: Relationship, Obligation, and the Just Archives by Scott Cline.

Review Of “All Shook Up”: The Archival Legacy Of Terry Cook, Grant G. Mandarino

Journal of Western Archives

Review of “All Shook Up”: The Archival Legacy of Terry Cook.

Understanding The Unseen: Invisible Disabilities In The Workplace, Ann Abney, Veronica Denison, Chris Tanguay, Michelle Ganz

Faculty and Staff Publications

Approximately 61 million (or 1 in 4) adults in the United States have a disability. Despite this prevalence, many people cannot name a coworker who is disabled, possibly due to the number of people who have invisible disabilities. This lack of understanding of both causes and prevalence can cause both the disabled and their supervisors or managers to be unaware of how to address a disabled person’s needs. In this article, the authors shed light on how to improve the professional environment for disabled archivists, staff, and patrons. People without disabilities or those with unrealized disabilities can all benefit when …

Betrayed By The Bibliographic Record: How Catalogs Construct Authorship And Constrain Their Own Authority, Rachel E. Scott

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

This cautionary tale outlines how a librarian with an understanding of and respect for cataloging processes was the perfect candidate to be duped by a false attribution in a bibliographic record. In the process of compiling a list of compositions attributed to Alma Mahler for my dissertation, I encountered a handful of works not yet addressed in the scholarship on her compositional work. Despite numerous red flags, and much to my detriment, I invested a great deal in one of these unqualified and unsubstantiated attributions that turned out to be false. In the wake of this false attribution, I have …

The Personal Papers Of American Sailors, 1890s–1940s, Annie E. Tummino

Publications and Research

Personal papers in the archives at Maritime College, State University of New York, document the lives of alumni from the school’s founding in 1874 through the early decades of the 20th century. Journals, diaries, memoirs, and reminiscences located in these collections provide evidence of what it was like to work on a ship, far from home, travelling to foreign lands. In this article, I explore first-hand accounts of maritime life by Van Horne Morris, my maternal grandfather and a 1938 graduate of the Massachusetts Nautical School (now known as Massachusetts Maritime Academy), and several alumni of the New York Nautical …

University Treasure – Collections Of Secrets: How Utah State University Libraries Modernized Their University Archives, Paul Daybell, Quinn Gerber, Heather Housley, Kelly Rovegno, Becky Skeen, Liz Woolcott

Library Faculty & Staff Presentations

Starting in 2018, Utah State University Libraries undertook a largescale cataloging project to modernize the University Archives. Before 2018 the University Archives was largely inaccessible to patrons with only 2% of collections having online finding aids and no existing electronic shelf list inventory. Using a workflow-driven approach, a team of catalogers, archivists, and student technicians embarked on a four-phase journey to inventory over 21,000 items, create EAD finding aids and MARC catalog records for over 2700 unique collections, and ingesting all collections into the Library’s newly implemented archival management system. Presenters will discuss the process developed, tools used, and outcomes …

Challenges Of Maintenance Practices Of Paper Based Archival Information Materials And Strategies For Enhancement In Academic Libraries In Nigeria, Chika Phoebe Madumere Dr. (Mrs)

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The paper examined the challenges of maintenance of paper based archival information materials and strategies for enhancement in academic libraries in South East, Nigeria which doubled as the objectives of the study. Descriptive survey research method was used for the study. The population consisted of 277 library staff in academic libraries of government owned institutions. Questionnaire and structured interview guide was used to collect data which was analyzed using the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Mean scores and standard deviation were used to analyze data generated for the two research questions while t-test was used for the …

Review Of Metadata, Greg Reeve

Journal of Western Archives

Review of the third edition of Marcia Lei Zeng’s and Jain Qin’s monograph Metadata. Metadata is the definitive guide to the metadata landscape for information professionals in the Information Age.

Digitizing And Cataloging A Corporate Annual Reports Collection: A Canadian Perspective, Alie Visser, Elizabeth Marshall, Joyce Cheung

Western Libraries Publications

Corporate annual reports provide a snapshot of a company's operations and financial status. Reviewing and comparing years of annual reports can provide a rich history of knowledge on a corporation. Preserving, storing, and digitizing Canadian annual reports has been a mission of the C.B. “Bud” Johnston Library in London, Ontario, Canada. In late 2019 when Western Libraries migrated to a new library services platform, Alma, there was a new opportunity to catalog and provide access to the digitized annual reports collection. This article describes a decade long plan to digitize the print collection by library staff and a subsequent project …

Mcgovern Medical Medallions Ready For Research, Sandra Yates

TMC Library Newsletter (2015-)

Archivists at the McGovern Historical Center are proud to announce the availability of the MS 200 John P. McGovern Medical Medallions Collection.

This collection consists of medallions commemorating people, conferences, and other events in the history of medicine. While many of the these were produced as commemorative items in the 1960s and 1970s, others date back as far as the late 1700s.

Archeota, Spring/Summer 2022, Laura Darlington, Kate Goodwin, Alice Wynne, Claire Kelley, Sharon Kosach, Max Rosen

Archeota

Archeota is a platform for SJSU iSchool students to contribute to the archival conversation. It is written BY students, FOR students. It provides substantive content on archival concerns and issues and promotes professional development in the field of archival studies. Archeota upholds the core values of the archival profession.

Contents:

From Ashes to Archive: Photojournalist Elizabeth Sunflower’s Body of Work

By Laura Darlington

Accessibility in Archival Spaces: Breaking Down Barriers for Archival Workers with Disabilities

By Kate Goodwin

Queer Zine Archive Project:

Building a Community Archive of Living History

By Alice Wynne

Brewster Kahle’s Vision for the Future of Libraries …

“Describing Without Identifying”: The Phenomenological Role Of Gender In Cataloging Practices, Travis L. Wagner

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores gendering practices of visual information catalogers. The work aims to understand how catalogers perceive gender when describing persons within visual information. The qualitative study deployed queer interpretative phenomenological analysis to understand how catalogers think broadly about describing identity. The infused queer theoretical tenets helped to understand that while participants may not directly name gender as challenging, the conflation of gender into cisnormative monoliths (assuming every person's gender matches their sex-assigned-at birth) or silence around gender produce telling opinions concerning nonbinary gender. The research also utilized a Think Aloud exercise wherein participants undertook in-the-moment cataloging three moving images. …

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 …

Archives And Cemeteries, Jeffery Hirschy, Ph.D.

SLIS Connecting

After a conversation on alternative definitions of archives in LIS 646: Introduction to Archival Theory, Mandy Hornsby, of the Biloxi Public Library, invited classmates to a tour of the Old Biloxi Cemetery in Biloxi, Mississippi. These types of valuable experiences offer connecting with students and fostering a sense of community here at the School of Library and Information Science.

Review Of Compact Copyright: Quick Answers To Common Questions, Amanda D. Howard

Journal of Western Archives

Review of Compact Copyright: Quick Answers to Common Questions by Sara R. Benson.

The Los Seis De Boulder Sculpture Project: A Case Study Of Socially Engaged Archivist/Artist Collaboration At The University Of Colorado Boulder, Megan K. Friedel, Jasmine Baetz

Journal of Western Archives

As academic institutions and archivists around the nation grapple with the question of how to address existing monuments to racist histories at their institutions, how can archivists support the creation of new monuments on college and university campuses that reflect suppressed or oppressed histories of people of color? This case study explores the Los Seis de Boulder Sculpture Project, a socially engaged art project at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), in which archivists in the CU Boulder Libraries' Archives supported and collaborated with a student artist and community members to create a public monument commemorating the deaths of …

Depauw University School Of Nursing Alumni Presentation, Bethany Fiechter

Library Faculty publications

No abstract provided.

Level Up And Slay The Beast Of Processing, John D. Thomas, Jessica E. Johnson, Sarah C. Clay

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

VCU SCA's processing team used the qualities of legacy, recently-processed, and in-process collections to establish a system metrics to measure any given collection's level of processing. These metrics were then adapted into a series of leveled tiers (gold, silver, bronze, and partially processed) to easily assign to collections fitting the criteria. Since then, the tiers have been used to identify collections of need as well as collections with model processing, informing how we process collections in the future and guide departmental standards of quality.

This breaks down the internal levels of processing into its basic components and graphically represents their …

Recommendations On Using Artificial Intelligence In Archival Appraisal And Selection, Rebecca Y. Bayeck, Giovanni Colavizza, Jenny Bunn, Mark Bell, Souvick Ghosh

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This article reports on discussions from a three-day webinar about artificial intelligence (AI) in archival appraisal and selection. Increasingly, workshops and research are conducted to discuss AI and archives. This article is an example of this growing interest in the potential of AI for the field of archives. Yet, within the field, discussions about how AI can be applied in archival appraisal and selection is still limited. To advance a conversation on the issue, and particularly on ways to use AI in archival appraisal and selection, we organized a three-day webinar in 2022 with a diverse group of researchers and …