Archival Science Commons^™

University Ai At Work: The Impact On Personal Document Creation, Vanessa Reyes, Alec Mullender

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This international study examines the use of AI tools provided through university-issued platforms in the US and Canada. The authors aim to discover how embedded AI tools in the university workplace affect the daily creation of personal documents within their digital workspaces. Using University-Issued Tools, such as Outlook, Teams, and all other Microsoft Suite Products, this study places a hyperfocus on time, efficiency, accuracy, usability, functionality, and how the embedded nature of AI tools facilitates working conditions, functions, intentionality, and purpose.

Key research questions are: (1) How do embedded AI tools support daily work processes? (2) In what ways do …

The Politics Of Remembering: Reconfiguring The Diorama Of Monas As Augmented Living Document, Suprayitno Suprayitno, Zulfatun Sofiyani, Rahmi Rahmi

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This paper examines the Monas diorama as a central apparatus in Indonesia’s politics of remembering, whose narrative consolidation during the New Order rendered it a state-authored monument of national memory. Drawing on Foucault’s distinction between monument and document, Ferraris’s ontology of documentality, and Perret’s concept of document design as projective epistemology, the study reframes the diorama as a documentary assemblage shaped by inscription, power, and institutionalized forgetting. Through diachronic, synchronic, comparative, and experimental analyses, the paper diagnoses failures across the physical, social, and cognitive dimensions of Monas as a document, revealing narrative authoritarianism, representational rigidity, and the absence of plural …

Cerebral Documents And Algorithmic Sensemaking: Searching For Expressions In Human And Artificial Cognitive Collaborations, Rebekah L. Cowell

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Generative Artificial Intelligences (AIs) and current advanced large language models (LLMs) are algorithmically designed to generate text-based conversations as conversational agents (CAs), by replicating human language and conversational communication. Pairing human cognition with generative computationally coded cognition. We have never been here before: cerebral and artificial information collaborations and processing producing expressions that may or may not become visible as second-hand/secondary source documents.

Sensemaking or sense(un)making is a unique autonomous human drive cognitively, our information processing is sensemaking in action and expressions and articulations are evidence of the sensemaking cycle. Documentation [expressed or articulated through various mediums] are a product …

Toward Transparent Bureaucracy: Nlp-Based Document Classification And Power Dynamics In The Srikandi System, Zulfatun Sofiyani, Suprayitno Suprayitno, Faisal Fahmi, Mega Putri Mahadewi

Proceedings from the Document Academy

As the Indonesian government advances digital document management through the SRIKANDI system, challenges persist regarding fragmented and subjective classification practices. This study proposes the integration of Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based classification within SRIKANDI to enhance consistency, transparency, and accountability in document management. Framed by an interdisciplinary theoretical foundation, the study synthesizes Michael Buckland’s document theory, viewing documents as dynamic social evidence, with Michel Foucault’s theory of power, highlighting classification as an exercise of institutional authority, and NLP methodologies that enable automated, content-driven categorization. The study positions documents as both technological artifacts and political constructs, whose classification practices simultaneously structure meaning …

A Qualitative Exploration Of Personal Archiving At The Crossroads Of Ai, Aging, And Documentation, Vanessa Reyes

Proceedings from the Document Academy

As we age, our relationship with our personal archive evolves as we experience cognitive shifts. This is even more so if we experience a reality that is shaped by Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is increasingly managing personal information through automated curation and personalized AI software interactions tailored to users (Hayes & Downie, 2024), sometimes completely unbeknownst to users. Meanwhile, AI-driven automated curation is also helping older adults manage their archives, influencing their ability to maintain agency over their life documentation practices. Older adults use a variety of health-monitoring technologies, such as the Apple Watch, the Samsung Smartwatch, and the Fitbit. …

Ai In The Family Archive: A Collaborative Exploration, Vanessa Reyes, Bhuva Narayan, Annemarie Zijlema, Mary Anne Kennan

Proceedings from the Document Academy

In this paper, the authors engaged in a structured exploration based on their personal experiences and professional expertise. Together they examine how AI impacts personal and collective memory, preservation efforts, and the ethical concerns around personal archives. As GenAI becomes more accessible to anyone with digital online access, new questions arise about the authenticity, continuity, and transformation of our documents. The questions we asked of ourselves and each other are: How has AI changed our understanding of the authenticity of the documents in our personal and family archives? Do AI-generated narratives and images enhance or distort our family and collective …

A Digitized History Of Undergraduate Student Government At The University Of Akron, Samuel Stillion

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The digitization process of a representative sample of the physical records of the University of Akron's Undergraduate Student Government held in the University Archives and Special Collections, including notes for future archive projects with the larger records of Undergraduate Student Government

Conversations On Cultural Heritage: Confirming The Family Home As An Archive, Vanessa Reyes, Vanessa Irvin

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Family archives, as repositories of cultural heritage, play a crucial role in preserving multi-generational knowledge. The family is the first collaborative unit in which community memory-keeping is operationalized. The family home is an archive or library of data for generations of family members living through historical movements, patterns of migration, and technological advancement. Thus, 'home' is a data-rich repository of local history. Memory-keeping tasks, such as recording events in family Bibles and maintaining photo albums, scrapbooks, and journals, are multi-generational literacy practices. The stories within a family archive endure, but the narrators may change over time. Archiving family cultural heritage …

Thinking With Our Grandmothers: Past, Epidata, And Future In Designing A Proximity Affordance, Laurie J. Bonnici, Brian C. O'Connor, Gary Samson

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This paper examines the limitations of historical documentation, focusing on the lives of mill girls in Manchester, New Hampshire’s textile mills through photographic images and family memories. While photographs, like those by Lewis Hine, provide insight into the physical conditions and harsh realities faced by young workers, they do not capture the inner lives of child laborers or the broader social context shaping their experiences. The authors highlight the shortcomings of traditional archival practices, particularly the subject headings applied to Hine’s photographs, which fail to reflect the complexities of mill girls' lives. Drawing on personal perspectives from the authors—whose grandmothers …

Imagining The Future Of Records Management: An Analysis Of The Srikandi In Indonesia Through Documentation Studies, Suprayitno Suprayitno, Rahmi Rahmi, Zulfatun Sofiyani

Proceedings from the Document Academy

The SRIKANDI application, a cornerstone of Indonesia's digital records management initiative, embodies the nation's commitment to modernizing governance through electronic systems. This study employs Niels Windfeld Lund’s Complementary Documentation Analysis Model to dissect SRIKANDI'S evolution (diachronic analysis) and its current state (synchronic analysis), offering a comprehensive understanding of its role in Indonesia's e-government landscape. Diachronically, SRIKANDI'S development reflects a strategic shift from fragmented, standalone applications towards a unified, interoperable platform, as mandated by Presidential Regulation No. 95 of 2018. This transition aims to streamline government processes, reduce redundancy, and enhance budget efficiency. Synchronically, SRIKANDI is evaluated as a digital platform …

The Mutability Of Personal Documents And Mediated Memories As We Age: A Collaborative Reflection, Vanessa Reyes, Bhuva Narayan, Annemarie Zijlema, Mary Anne Kennan

Proceedings from the Document Academy

How do our personal documentation practices change as we age, and how can we create and save personal evidence of ourselves for our family’s future? All of us continually accumulate information about ourselves in our everyday lives, intentionally, incidentally, or otherwise, for self-presentation, self-fulfillment, reminders of our past, reinforcing identity, as a hobby, for personal documentation, or for peace of mind. Increasingly, this evidence is in digital form, and often in the cloud. The authors use a collaborative autoethnography and narrative methodology, as outlined by Ford (2020), to document how aging affects our personal documentation and our memories. In the …

What Is A Lesbian Document? Platforming Archival Description, Documents, And History In Sweden, Rachel Pierce

Proceedings from the Document Academy

As Joanna Drucker (2014) convincingly argues, “Most information visualizations are acts of interpretation masquerading as presentation" (p. 10). This article investigates the visuality and built-in argumentations of the Alvin interface for digitized Swedish cultural heritage, focusing on how the platform defines a document and the effects this definition has on the accessibility and interconnectedness of documents related to lesbian and feminist histories. This paper addresses how (failed) systematization and an emphasis on large quantities of documents and metadata breathes new life into outdated historiographies and renders documents and information related to feminist and lesbian histories and connections between these histories …

Exploring Artifacts And Documents In Collective Creativity Workshops Applied To Future Studies, Mathilde Sarré-Charrier

Proceedings from the Document Academy

In a context of uncertainty, organizations use creativity methods to anticipate future challenges in relations with the long-term evolutions of the society. These approaches consist in bringing together people with complementary points of view to multiply the diversity of ideas. This paper focuses on the process of transformation and selection of ideas and artifacts from a collective perspective in the unprecedented circumstances that occurred during the pandemic.

We question how ideas are grounded in the documents and artifacts produced at the key moments of the creative process from the perspective of the facilitators and the participants.

In this paper we …

“Arsip Kacau”: How Messy Records Are Perceived By Indonesians In The Context Of Document Disease, Suprayitno Suprayitno, Rahmi Rahmi, Dian Novita Fitriani

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This paper examines how the Indonesian people perceive and construct arsip kacau (messy records). Messy records as documents seem to have the power to make humans psychologically ill by becoming uneasy, discomfort, stressed, burnout, and uncomfortable, all of which are diseases. This is similar to documentality introduced by Frohmann that documents can enable, produce, encourage, permit, and influence a person to experience document disease. This paper uses a qualitative approach with data collection in the form of literature and surveys from Indonesian people. The perception of archivists and the general public in Indonesia concerning the cause of the “messy records” …

Documents In The Dynarchive: Questioning The Total Revolution Of The Digital Archive, Rachel Pierce

Proceedings from the Document Academy

The digital archive is often described in opposition to its physical counterpart. Media theorist Wolfgang Ernst has coined the term “dynarchive” to describe the former, a phrase that neatly contrasts digital archival remixability with the statis of the physical archive and its hierarchical fond structure. The article both uses and questions this characterization by examining the archive’s physical and digital document practices in three areas: (1) Hierarchical collection description versus individual document description; (2) Original order versus relevance-based results; and (3) Archival selection practices and the illusion of completeness. Archival structure and description have been central to the authority and …

Commuters’ Health Certificate As Social Control During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Suprayitno Suprayitno, Rahmi Rahmi, Lydia Christiani

Proceedings from the Document Academy

In Indonesia, a regulation on large-scale social restrictions (“Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar” or PSBB) restricted citizens’ activities in the cultural, social, and economic sectors. These large-scale social restrictions also impact Jakarta’s activities from the commuting communities of Central Java, the Yogyakarta Special Region, and East Java Provinces. As a result, these commuters have become accustomed to travelling back to their hometowns every Friday afternoon. On Sundays, they return to Jakarta and arrive in Jakarta on Monday mornings to go to work. This activity is often referred to as “Pulang Jumat Kembali Ahad” (PJKA) or Going Home Every Friday Evening and …

A Lot On My Plate: Family Dishware Serving Up A History Of Global Commercialization, Grace Thanasiu

Student Projects from the Archives

The “Hearthside” shaped plate was created by the Homer Laughlin China Company sometime between 1963 and 1973. My family owns such a plate, and ours originally belonged to a set of plates that was “purchased” by my grandmother, Mary Ruhlin, with books and books full of redemption stamps. Redemption stamps were literal stamps that stores distributed to customers, who could later redeem them for cash or merchandise at affiliated redemption centers that partnered with grocery stores and businesses; redemption stamps functioned as a precursor to the modern loyalty card! The need for a reputable pottery company like Homer Laughlin to …

Humans Of Ua: A University Of Akron Unclass 2020, Kaylie Yaceczko

Student Projects from the Archives

No abstract provided.

Taking A Different Look At The University Of Akron: Researching In The Archives, Katelynn Olsen

Student Projects from the Archives

No abstract provided.

Embracing Monsters, Laurie J. Bonnici, Brian C. O'Connor

Proceedings from the Document Academy

We propose monsters are documents. Monsters show us, make evident to us, teach us. An exploration of five monsters, both popular and unknown, reveals they fit within a standard model of message making; the binary nature of that model separates meaning from message enabling explanation of evolving interpretations of a monster. We examine the coding and decoding of monster documents through a functional ontology lens. We posit that monsters defy protype and thus serve as attempts at documenting the undocumented. Simultaneously monsters present clues to understanding through imagery that spans the unfamiliar and the familiar allowing the recipient to engage …

Art Is Data Is Art, Nicole Orchosky

Student Projects from the Archives

The Digital Humanities field is rapidly introducing new and innovative ways in which we can analyze and explore large bodies of humanities material in order to make new discoveries and connections. This project serves as an introduction on how to use simple Digital Humanities tools to examine a dataset. In this project, data collected about the body of artwork exhibited in the 1913 Armory Show like medium, subject, or year of creation is analyzed using three different free-to-use tools. The data is then presented in a visual format that brings new questions and connections to light. The limitations and frustrations …

A Prized Memento Of The Civil Way: Joseph Abbott's "Lightning Brigade" Medal, James Brenner

Student Projects from the Archives

This silver medal commemorates Joseph N. Abbott's Civil War service with Wilder's Lightning Brigade, 1861-1865. The engraving on the reverse reads, "Jos. N. Abbott, Co. B, 98th Illinois. Dating to about 1887, these medals were features at post-war veterans' reunions.

Mcguffey's Second Eclectic Reader, Lisa Van Gaasbeek

Student Projects from the Archives

McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader

By: Lisa M. Van Gaasbeek

This article focuses on the life of William H. McGuffey and how he created his series of eclectic readers for children in school.

The Story Behind My Uncle's Copy Of Il Milione, Janos M. Jalics

Student Projects from the Archives

In 1983, a 1948 copy of Marco Polo’s Travels was given to my Uncle Laci by my Great-Aunt Kristi and Great-Uncle Paul. It was translated by William Marsden. The story of this book is surrounded by adventure.

Recovering Thirty-Five Years Of A Factory Worker's Life, Kristie Zachar

Student Projects from the Archives

The Westinghouse Electric Corporation's plant in Sharon, Pennsylvania operated from the 1920s till the 1980s and saw a number of significant events during that period. This article uses a belt buckle that was given to one company employee as a 35-year service award, and it explores the historical significance of the object by focusing on the major events its owner was involved in during those 35 years. It looks closer into the life of one Westinghouse employee while also exploring significant events that influenced the company itself as well as the small town of Sharon, Pennsylvania.

Hot Dog Vs. Christian Fundamentalism In 1920s America, Nicole Orchosky

Student Projects from the Archives

Hot Dog: the Regular Fellow’s Monthly was a satirical magazine published by the Merit Publishing Company in Cleveland, Ohio throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Editor Jack Dinsmore included crudely humorous short stories and poems, images of scantily clad women, and editorials and opinion pieces offering his own commentary on current events. In the case of the December 1921 issue, Dinsmore offers scathing criticism of religious Prohibition supporters, namely Billy Sunday and Reverend John Roach Straton. This paper examines how an opinionated independent publication representative of its anti-Prohibition readership reacted to the Temperance Movement and subsequent outspoken Fundamentalist Christian figureheads.

On The Reactionary Treatment Of American Radicals By J. Edgar Hoover's Fbi, Sonia Potter

Student Projects from the Archives

African Americans, who had been systematically oppressed from the very beginning of their time in the United States, were calling more and more loudly for freedom and equality in the mid-twentieth century. Compounded with the fear and hatred of communism was also a fear of black Americans ascending to the same societal plane as white Americans, especially among individuals and groups of people who held racist views and had reservations about equality between blacks and whites.

One of the groups of people who seemed to have reservations about such a concept was the United States’ own Federal Bureau of Investigation …

Tuberculosis Patient Number 296 In The Daniel Harris Papers, Margaret Stehura, Cristopher Shell, Zachary Piette

Student Projects from the Archives

This essay examines Susan Sontag's _Illness as Metaphor_ alongside Daniel Harris's studies of those admitted for tuberculosis care at the Saranac Lake Sanitarium. While both Sontag’s perceptions and Patient 296’s tubercular reality may not be 100% aligned with one another (i.e., lived experience of someone with tuberculosis versus historical perceptions of the disease itself), by combining both aspects we are able to develop a fairly crystalline image of what it was like to actually have tuberculosis at this point in time. In doing so, it becomes clear that while some perceptions of tuberculosis may have been fairly misguided, it was …

“Failure Of Will”?: Tb Patient Narratives And Susan Sontag’S Illness As Metaphor, Bryon Dickon, Ashley Gonzalez

Student Projects from the Archives

Susan Sontag outlines in Illness as Metaphor the romantic narratives of what she called a “tubercular personality.” Sontag writes the following in doing so, describing one key aspect of romantic tuberculosis: “TB was understood, like insanity, to a kind of one-sidedness; a failure of will or an overintensity…the tubercular was considered to be someone quintessentially vulnerable, and full of self-destructive whims” (63-64). “A failure of will” and “quintessential vulnerability” form a set of characteristics through which a narrative of the “tubercular personality” is constructed. The tubercular narrative Sontag describes is based on a wide variety of stereotypes. This creates a …

“Ships, Vol. 2” Beyond Transport, Combat And Tourism: A Study Into Ships On Postcards, Janos Jalics

Student Projects from the Archives

Over several millennia, ships have been displayed in all sorts of media ranging from commercials to diaries and newspapers. When the postcard was invented in 1869, various ships began appearing on them. Postcards with ships became far more than a way to message. They became advertisements, showcases of paintings, and repositories of information. Postcards gave ships a new purpose and unique audiences in the name of advertisement, art, and knowledge, as this essay will show by examining “Ships, Vol. 2”of the David P. Campbell Postcard Collection at The University of Akron.