Archival Science Commons^™

Student-Designed Archival Pedagogy: A Workshop-As-Research Approach To Pluralizing Community Archives Education, Magdalena Wiśniewska-Drewniak

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Community archives are becoming an increasingly important component of the heritage landscape, as well as an observable part of university archival education. This article is part of a research project titled “Teaching about Community Archives in the US and Poland--A Comparative Study” conducted by the author between March and May 2024. Using the student-centered learning approach, the article analyzes a workshop conducted with US-based students on the design of university courses on community archives. The designs included course audience, learning outcomes, course content, grading methods, and possible challenges. The article identifies four groups of learning outcomes (directions of community archives …

Archival Notations Of The Norwegian Charter Material, Juliane Tiemann

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This paper explores archival notations, primarily from the early modern and modern periods, found on the dorse of Norwegian charters dating from the 13th to the 17th century. By examining the notation practices of two prominent Norwegian archivists and collectors, the study further highlights individual efforts in documenting and preserving these materials across various collections. The archival efforts are contextualized historically, noting a transition to systematic archival management. The findings reveal the significance of this largely unexplored component of Norwegian charters as additional historical sources, emphasizing the role of dorsal annotations in provenance research. The textual and visual analysis of …

Chapter 1: A Brief History Of Archival Appraisal. In Selecting And Appraising Archives And Manuscripts, Michelle Light

Library Staff Publications

This chapter traces the evolution of archival appraisal theory and practice in the United States, situating it within shifting technological, social, and intellectual contexts from the late nineteenth century to the present. In this roughly chronological account, the chapter underscores continuity and disruption in selecting and appraising archival records. It highlights the influence and ongoing critiques of Theodore Schellenberg’s evidential and informational values, as well as subsequent expansions by Maynard Britchford and others. It explores transformative moments such as F. Gerald Ham’s call for coordinated documentation, the development of the Black Box model, the rise of documentation strategy, and the …

Beyond Description: Interrogating Narrative Elements In Archival Finding Aids, David J. Williams, Richard Kearney

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

As the archival profession evolves, attention is increasingly paid to the usability of its resources and services. User Experience, or UX, is a contemporary design practice gaining prominence among archivists interested in addressing usability. Information design, the process of organizing and presenting information for efficient and effective use, is a component of UX incorporating both the presentation and content of communication instruments, with plain language writing guidelines applied toward achieving this goal. A prominent information artifact produced by archivists is the finding aid, describing and inventorying archival collections. Those components of finding aids providing “access points” into collections—communicating the …

Associations Among Trauma Exposures, Workplace Factors, And Distress Responses In Archivists, Cheryl Regehr, Wendy Duff, Rachael Lefebvre

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

A growing body of research addresses the emotional impact on archivists from working directly with materials that contain depictions of human suffering and from working with researchers and donors whose own lives are depicted in the records. This study sought to determine the impact of exposures to potentially traumatizing events and ongoing work stressors on symptoms of post-traumatic stress and burnout in archivists, as well as whether organizational factors, including trauma-informed practices, are associated with levels of post-traumatic stress and burnout. Seventy-seven archivists participated in a web-based survey. Findings reveal moderate to strong associations between a variety of potentially distressing …

Community Defining Archives: A Comparative View Of Community Archives Definitions, Britney Bibeault

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Defining community archives has been described as difficult in academic literature because of the wide range of activities the organizations do and who they represent, leading to a lack of an agreed-upon definition in the field. Until now, a comparison between how community archivists describe themselves and academic definitions of community archiving has not been undertaken. This paper explores the definitions of community archives given by practitioners in their digital community archives and compares them with academic literature. Using both qualitative thematic coding and quantitative word frequency counts, this study found Flinn (2007) and Flinn et al. (2009) definitions are …

Review Of Archiving Cultures: Heritage, Community And The Making Of Records And Memory, Emily Homolka

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This short, but densely packed, book aims to extend the disciplinary boundaries of archival studies and the ‘archive’ from its focus on tangible history, most commonly the written word, towards a more holistic understanding which allows for the inclusion of intangible, living culture in the ‘cultural archive.’ Archiving Cultures: Heritage, Community, and the Making of Records and Memory by Jeannette A. Bastian takes an interdisciplinary, transhistorical approach to reframe archivists’ understanding of a ‘record’ with the goal of creating archival equity between tangible and intangible cultural heritage.

Review Of Dissonant Records: Close Listening To Literary Archives, Rachel C. Poppen

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In Dissonant Records: Close Listening to Literary Archives, Tanya E. Clement addresses the 150-year legacy of these audio records and provides a call to action for digital humanists and literary scholars to recognize the research value of archival audio records and to integrate close listening into their research practices. Consisting of case studies on five aspects of close listening (amplification, distortion, interference, compression, and reception), Clement uses these topics to discuss the method of close listening, the use of audio records in research, and access issues to audio recordings in archives.

Review Of Teaching Primary Source Research Skills To 21st-Century Learners, Alexandra Y. Bush

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In Teaching Primary Source Research Skills to 21st-Century Learners, Julie Thomas offers guidance and encouragement to instructors of primary source research skills. Largely without sacrificing detail or quality of analysis, Thomas provides information on existing resources, required literacies and competencies, pedagogical theory, and advice on programmatic sustainability that are accessible to readers at a wide range of professional levels. Drawing on benchmarks and taxonomies across disciplines, this book outlines the components and considerations needed to sustain a primary source research skills teaching program. The text offers an accessible and extensible method of deepening one’s understanding of the field while …

Review Of Comic Books, Special Collections, And The Academic Library, Nicholas Wantsala

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Comic Books, Special Collections, and the Academic Library is a pioneering scholarly work by Brian Flota and Katie Morris that documents the integration of comic books into archival special collections and academic libraries. This book, inspired by the donation of Flota's father's extensive comic collection to James Madison University, traces the growth of comic books as scholarly resources and library holdings. Featuring contributions from 35 scholars across 20 chapters, it explores key questions such as the value of collecting comics and their role in library instruction. The essays, enhanced with suggestions for further reading and informative footnotes, offer a comprehensive …

Review Of Averting The Digital Dark Age: The Future Of Digital Literary Heritage, Rebecca L. Hastings

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In Averting the Digital Dark Age: How Archivists, Librarians, and Technologists Built the Web a Memory, Ian Milligan explores the efforts of technologists and information professionals to develop means of preserving information shared on the World Wide Web. The web lacks a built-in archiving function, raising fears of a “digital dark age,” an unprecedented gap in the historical record as information sharing via the web increases. Milligan tracks the development of web preservation debates and activities from the anxiety and turmoil of the early to mid-1990s to the coming of age of web preservation in the wake of the …

Review Of Trans And Gender Diverse Voices In Libraries, Adrian Johnson

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This book review summarizes and discusses Trans and Gender Diverse Voices in Libraries, a compilation of fifty-three individual essays by and for trans and gender diverse people in the library and information science (LIS) profession. Edited by Kalani Keahi Adolpho, Stephen G. Krueger, and Krista McCraken, the 547-page work was published by Library Juice Press in 2023. This review provides a thorough look at each of the book’s seven sections, which are designated by professional focus or career stage, and emphasizes and contextualizes the importance of the title within the landscape of LIS literature.

Tracing Transformations: (Digitized) World War Ii Correspondence Through The Lens Of The Records Continuum Model, Milan M. Van Lange, Carlijn Keijzer

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This paper traces the transformations of a historical archival collection of personal wartime correspondence. Most of the records in this collection were created in the context of the German Occupation of the Netherlands during World War II (1940–1945) and/or the War of Independence in Indonesia (1945-1950). The collection was gathered and curated by the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam from 1945 onwards and was digitised between 2020 and 2023. We navigate the convergence of past and future transformations of the records and illuminate the intricate web of considerations and decisions of historical preservation, archiving, digitisation, …

The Gulf Coast Lgbt Radio And Television Digitization Project: Providing Equitable Access To Houston’S Lgbtq Broadcast History, Emily Vinson, Bethany Scott

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Initiated in 2020 with a multi-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Preservation and Access, The Gulf Coast LGBT Radio and Television Digitization Project aimed to digitize and preserve thousands of hours of LGBTQ broadcast history from the Houston, Texas area. Through meticulous inventorying, digitization, redaction, transcription, publication, promotion, and preservation processes, the project team navigated the delicate balance between equitable access and copyright compliance. The selected programs encapsulate decades of LGBTQ life and culture, covering a diverse array of topics crucial to understanding the community’s evolution in the region.

This paper presents a comprehensive case …

Review Of Building Representative Community Archives: Inclusive Strategies In Practice, Shir Bach

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In Building Representative Community Archives, editor Hannah Leah Crummé sets out to provide a practical guide to building community archives through ten case studies. The volume covers three types of projects: oral history, collection and curation, and reassessment. With some exceptions, community-created and community-maintained archives are sidelined in this collection. The majority of case studies describe academic special collections units embracing community archival principles and practices to meet their own goals, and some chapters do not meaningfully engage with community archives at all. Though many chapters succeed on their own terms, the misleading framing produces a collection that is …

Teaching Archival Intelligence Through An Immersive Class Experience, Dulce Kersting-Lark

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

While the University of Idaho does not offer course work in library and information sciences, there is a growing interest in humanities and social science departments on campus to offer skill-based classes that are often found in MLIS programs with an emphasis in archival studies. In particular, building skills considered essential to a public historian has become a goal for the history department's graduate program. As a result, the head of the university library's archives was approached to teach a credit-bearing course on working in archives as well as developing strategies for making archival material engaging to the public. This …

Review Of Decolonial Archival Futures, Taylor F. Henning

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This review of Decolonial Archival Futures asserts that the book is about colonial roots of Western archival practice, challenging traditional archival standards, and archival power. The book provides case studies from the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to demonstrate examples of recentering archival recordkeeping practices on Indigenous communities and post-custodial models of recordkeeping. Decolonial Archival Futures is highly recommended for any archivists working with records by our about Indigenous communities, as well as any information professionals interested in learning about challenging traditional archival paradigms.

“What The Heck Am I Looking At?”: A User-Based Examination Of The Metadata Associated With Digital Archival Objects, Donald Force

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Digital archival collections are invaluable resources for many different types of users. These collections, and the digital objects within them, allow users to remotely access primary and secondary sources that are often too difficult to view in person due to time and cost. These resources, however, are not without their limitations. One of the most significant challenges that users face in using these collections is understanding the original context of the object. Ideally, the metadata that accompanies most digital surrogates should serve as a bridge between the digital object and its physical counterpart. The project discussed in this paper examines …

Listening To Ghosts In The Appalachian Mountains: The Western North Carolina Tomorrow's Black Oral History Project As A Community Archive, Elizabeth Harper

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This case study invites archivists to broaden our understanding of what constitutes a community archive using the Western North Carolina Tomorrow Black Oral History Project as its focus. The oral history project captured the experiences of Black elders in Western North Carolina in the 1980s and provides a unique insight into a Black community in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The leaders and participants wanted this project to increase Black representation in Appalachian history and intended the materials be distributed widely. However, university staff kept the collection closed for almost forty years, and it was only opened in 2018. Fitting definitions, …

Factors Associated With The Implementation Of The Protocols For Native American Archival Materials: An Exploratory Study, Kimberly D. Anderson (Kliewer)

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This study examines motivations for adopting the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (PNAAM), the factors that might impact implementation of PNAAM in practice, and an exploration of how and why new ethical standards are accepted or rejected. The researcher conducted a survey in 2023 of archivists and/or memory workers working at non-Tribal institutions that have some materials about Indigenous people. The study was designed around the respondent’s perceptions of authority, skills, knowledge, relationships, and resources both as individuals and within their repositories. The study also incorporated Albert Bandura’s framework for moral disengagement hypothetically as a mechanism for assessing ethical …

Beyond The Grant: Cultivating Sustainable Next Steps, Virginia A. Dressler, Michelle Sweetser, Nicholas Pavlik, Michael C. Hawkins, Kaysie Harrington

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The paper will highlight ongoing work at three cultural heritage institutions in northern Ohio (Bowling Green State University, Kent State University, and the Lakeside Heritage Society) to extend the work begun during grant-funded digital projects beyond the term of a grant. Sustaining related work after the grant funding period has expired is a concern for many practitioners and to date, is a topic that has not been discussed in-depth in the literature. While each institution has its own unique staffing and operational demands, the article will outline a number of sustainable approaches that can be tailored to different scenarios for …

“Forget The Rest ...”: Notes On Magnetic Tape And Other Antiquated Media As Archives Of Afro-Atlantic Liturgy, David Font-Navarrete

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The virtuosic complexity of Afro-Cuban orisha music has led scholars and artists to enshrine it as a “classical” tradition, and it has become one of most iconic and closely-studied sacred music traditions of the historical Afro-Atlantic. This essay traces the legacies of several analog-era multimedia technologies in orisha music traditions: reel-to-reel and cassette tapes; limited edition and out-of-print books and phonograph discs; ephemeral texts such as album liner notes; and photographic negatives, prints, and slides. The tapes and photos — along with a vast body of informal, unpublished, and out-of-print documents of Afro-Cuban orisha liturgy — are seldom archived by …

Review Of War On Record: The Archive And The Afterlife Of The Civil War, Rose Buchanan

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In War on Record: The Archive and the Afterlife of the Civil War, historian Yael A. Sternhell explores the creation, compilation, and publication of official records of the American Civil War and how archival processes shaped what we understand Civil War history to be today. This book is a logical outgrowth of Sternhell’s previous examinations of Confederate records and Civil War historiography and reflects the “archival turn” that she and other humanities and social sciences scholars have embraced in recent decades. Written in a clear, narrative style and punctuated by a wealth of interesting anecdotes uncovered in the records, …

Variegated Order: Making Space For Neurodiverse Perspectives In Archives, Sophie Penniman

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article aims to envision how archives could better reflect and represent neurodivergent records creators—people whose brains function in ways that diverge significantly from dominant societal standards of “normal". It discusses how neurodivergent records creators and their recordkeeping behaviors often do not fit within traditional archival paradigms which center verbal, written, and linear documents in specific organizational systems. The article then brings together sources from disability studies, feminist and gender studies, library studies, literary analysis, and archival scholarship to imagine ways in which the principle of provenance could be expanded to fit the archives of neurodiverse creators (and archives that …

How Accessible Are European Public Archives? An Assessment Of The Compliance With The Council Of Europe Recommendation R(2000)13 On A European Policy On Access To Archives, Michael Friedewald, Ivan Szekely, Murat Karaboga

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This paper takes as its starting point the lessons learned from the second pan-European study on access to archives conducted 20 years after the first one – with the understanding that these results may also provide global lessons. The principal aim of the study was to assess the European archives' compliance with the Council of Europe Recommendation No. R(2000)13 on a European policy on access to archives, which was adopted in July 2000 and was the first international norm in this field. Although the overall access situation in Europe has significantly improved over the past 20 years, several practices still …

Use Of Social Media In Public Archives: Perspectives About Ghana’S Readiness And Perceived Challenges., Reuben Saah, Samuel Abban, Esther White

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The study explored the readiness and challenges of social media adoption at the Public Records and Archives Administration Department (PRAAD) in Ghana and was guided by the Iacovou, Charalambos L., Izak Benbasat, and Albert S. Dexter model of Electronic Data Interchange adoption. Using the qualitative approach, 13 participants drawn from the Archives Division were interviewed to explore their perspectives. The results showed that besides the participants high understanding and awareness of the benefits of social media adoption, clients were interested to engage PRAAD on social media. However, PRAAD’s readiness to adopt and effectively use social media was inadequate due to …

Archiving “Sensitive” Social Media Data: ‘In Her Shoes’, A Case Study, Lorraine Grimes Dr, Kathryn Cassidy Dr, Murilo Dias, Clare Lanigan, Aileen O'Carroll Dr, Preetam Singhvi

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Social media play an increasingly significant role in activist and social movements around the globe. Archiving social media is a relatively new phenomenon and an area which needs greater clarity, understanding and uniformity. When it comes to archiving and cataloguing sensitive social media collections, such as personal abortion stories, the process is even more ambiguous. The campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment (a constitutional ban on abortion) in Ireland saw many such stories shared through online media, particularly in the lead-up to the 2018 referendum. Using the ‘In Her Shoes: Women of the Eighth’ Facebook dataset as a case study, …

Improving Access And Discovery Of Lgbtqia+ Materials Across Collection Services Workflows, Alexandra Degraffenreid, Gideon Goodrich

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Archival descriptive practices have traditionally obfuscated the existence of or excluded entirely the experiences of LGBTQIA+ people. The development of reparative archival description practices compels archivists to reassess how best to elevate the voices of queer creators and subjects within their collections. In addition, the development of LGBTQIA+ community-generated resources allow archivists to more easily understand and implement the perspectives of queer communities to make archival resources more accessible to and discoverable by those communities. This article will discuss how a special collections library is improving the accessibility of their holdings relating to LGBTQIA+ histories by: 1) auditing archival description …

Review Of Residencies Revisited: Reflections On Library Residency Programs From The Past And Present, Keahi Adolpho

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In Residencies Revisited, editors Preethi Gorecki and Arielle Petrovich compile essays and narratives from current and former diversity resident librarians, residency scholars, and other residency stakeholders to discuss challenges, opportunities, success, and the future of residency programs. The opportunities that diversity residency programs provide for recent graduates have been discussed for decades. This collection, which centers the experiences of diversity residents, will help academic librarians and administrators better understand the harm of these programs, if they are not carefully planned, well-structured, supported, and resident-centered. Residencies Revisited is long-awaited and essential reading for those involved in planning, implementing, and proposing …

Review Of Museum Archives: Practice, Issues, Advocacy, Will J. Gregg

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This book review examines Museum Archives: Practice, Issues, Advocacy edited by Rachel Chatalbash, Susan Hernandez, and Megan Schwenke and published by the Society of American Archivists (SAA) in 2022. This volume is the first holistic work concerning museum archives since the publication of the second edition of Museum Archives: An Introduction in 2004, also by SAA. Museum Archives: Practice, Issues, Advocacy is a welcome addition to the body of professional literature on museum archives. This review provides a comprehensive examination of the book, giving the reader an introduction to its three parts, while also critiquing the book's effectiveness in presenting …