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Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

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Full-Text Articles in Archival Science

Read, Evaluate, Cite: Using Chatgpt To Teach Primary Source Literacy, Victoria Jones Sep 2026

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 …

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Review Of Archives And Emotions: International Dialogues Across Past, Present, And Future, Caelin Ross Sep 2026

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' …

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Leveling Up Data Analytics To Understand Patron Interactions, Sasha H. Kim, Keri K. Eason Ph.D. Sep 2026

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.

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A Case For Societal Provenance: Marguerite Harper As Told By The Men She Represented, V. Emily Cranwell Deinert Aug 2026

A Case For Societal Provenance: Marguerite Harper As Told By The Men She Represented, V. Emily Cranwell Deinert

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This paper argues for making societal provenance the grounding framework for archival descriptive standards to ensure that important voices already present in archives are no longer buried. This study reclaims from archival obscurity the career of literary agent Marguerite E. Harper to illustrate the need for this expansion. Harper proves strikingly absent from some of the archives for the authors she represented. Likely an unwitting omission from archivists that uncritically accepted the narratives of these male authors, Harper’s erasure provides a potent example of the ways that archival descriptive standards may unintentionally further silence historically marginalized voices within archives. The …

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An Architecture Of Vanishing: Toward A Protocol Of Archival Disappearance, Edgardo Civallero Aug 2026

An Architecture Of Vanishing: Toward A Protocol Of Archival Disappearance, Edgardo Civallero

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article rethinks the preservationist reflex that equates archival care with permanence. Drawing on post- and decolonial theory, it provincializes endurance as a historically situated ideal and foregrounds global traditions where disappearance, opacity, and cyclical renewal structure memory. It reframes vanishing as custodianship rather than neglect, introducing a taxonomy of protocols of epistemic disappearance—temporal, spatial, relational, semantic, and material—and a grammar of vanishing that operationalizes them as design tools. Extending to institutions, it outlines seasonal, dismantling, shadow, and nomadic archives as forms that measure success by their capacity to end well. A concluding framework articulates five principles—vanishing as care, duration …

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Unpacking Architectural Drawing Literacy: A Critical Pedagogy Approach To Architecture Collections, Shima Hosseininasab, Virginia Ferris, Burak Erdim Jul 2026

Unpacking Architectural Drawing Literacy: A Critical Pedagogy Approach To Architecture Collections, Shima Hosseininasab, Virginia Ferris, Burak Erdim

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This paper explores using architectural drawings as primary sources in instruction sessions at the North Carolina State University Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) with a critical pedagogy approach. Architectural collections are among the SCRC’s most frequently used materials, yet effective engagement with these unique resources requires specialized knowledge that is often lacking among teaching librarians and faculty, who excel in artifactual literacy and archival practices. The research addresses this gap by arguing that additional guidance in architectural history and technical details is necessary to improve teaching methods and enhance student interpretation of architectural drawings. Using a 200-level architecture class …

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Toward Healing And Justice: Building Equitable Relationships With Community Archives In El Salvador, Giada Ferrucci, Amanda Oliver, Tom Belton, Fernando Chacon Apr 2026

Toward Healing And Justice: Building Equitable Relationships With Community Archives In El Salvador, Giada Ferrucci, Amanda Oliver, Tom Belton, Fernando Chacon

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The article examines an archival component of a larger research initiative. Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador is a multidisciplinary, cross-sector partnership. The overall methodology of the project is participatory and survivor-centered. It aims to document and commemorate the history of the Salvadoran Civil War (1980-1992) and prevent future violence. The component of the Surviving Memory partnership the authors describe in this article elucidates the crucial importance of community archival practices undertaken to support memory, healing, and justice in El Salvador. The authors are co-investigators and collaborators who have supported the work of community archivists in El Salvador through a …

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Reflections On Language And Translation: Toward A "Translation Turn" In Archival Studies, Fiorella Foscarini Apr 2026

Reflections On Language And Translation: Toward A "Translation Turn" In Archival Studies, Fiorella Foscarini

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

As the dominant lingua franca, the English language acts as an invisible, hegemonic force that exerts a strong influence over the framing of the global world. By using English unreflexively in research, education, and professional cross-cultural exchanges, we may unwittingly support unequal power structures, the homogenization of research, and the marginalization of traditions and knowledge systems based on languages other than English. In most cases where translation is involved, the translating act is treated as a fait accompli or a mere technical process, without acknowledging that exact equivalence is impossible to achieve, and that translation has important epistemological, methodological, …

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Teach And Care: How Community-Centered Archival Practice May Transform Education, Archives, And Community History, Thuy Vo Dang Apr 2026

Teach And Care: How Community-Centered Archival Practice May Transform Education, Archives, And Community History, Thuy Vo Dang

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Academic librarians and archivists may work toward transforming education, archives, and community history (TEACH) through implementing a CARE approach. This includes a commitment to critical, liberatory, and person-centered praxis in archives co-creation and partnership with community organizations at the frontlines of documenting and preserving marginalized histories. Caring, in the archival context, begins with an acknowledgement of the harm mainstream archival institutions have caused for minoritized groups and then moving towards implementation of non-extractive, flexible and ethical partnership and/or stewardship of historical and cultural heritage materials. Caring also demands critical, rigorous, ongoing commitments to activation of the archival records by centering …

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The Dwellings Of Ybor City Project: Using Archival Recovery And Mapping To Examine Historical Erasure, Stephanie M. Mackin Apr 2026

The Dwellings Of Ybor City Project: Using Archival Recovery And Mapping To Examine Historical Erasure, Stephanie M. Mackin

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article examines how digital archives and spatial humanities can address historical erasure. It focuses on reconstructing the lost residential landscapes of Ybor City, a culturally significant Tampa, Florida, neighborhood. The area was transformed by mid-twentieth-century slum clearance and urban renewal. The Dwellings of Ybor City project uses archival theory, participatory ethics, and GIS-based storytelling to geolocate and reinterpret a Depression-era album called "Photographs Showing Dwellings in the Ybor Slum Area." By pairing digitized historical photographs with contemporary rephotography and mapping them to their original sites, the project restores visibility to homes and neighborhoods largely erased from both the physical …

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Planning To Preserve: Creating A Digital Preservation Roadmap At A Small Archive, Amanda Garfunkel Apr 2026

Planning To Preserve: Creating A Digital Preservation Roadmap At A Small Archive, Amanda Garfunkel

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

The preservation of electronic records according to best practices can seem overwhelming for archives with limited staff and resources. Creating a digital preservation implementation plan is a thoughtful exercise that allows archivists from a broad range of institutions to articulate achievable goals and create a roadmap towards a mature digital preservation program. Using tools that are flexible will help small repositories take the first step towards better stewardship of their electronic records. This article will discuss the creation of a digital preservation implementation plan at a small institution that includes activities such as surveys, benchmarking, and creating documentation. Practical steps …

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Archives And Children's Knowledge, Elliott Kuecker, Ashley Rockenbach Feb 2026

Archives And Children's Knowledge, Elliott Kuecker, Ashley Rockenbach

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article argues for the importance of collecting works created by children—not just about and not just for—in formal archival collections. Framed through the ideas of legitimate knowledge and epistemic injustice, this piece combines notions important to children’s rights activists and childhood studies scholars with the role archives can play in preserving children’s knowledge through child-created materials. The authors describe how researchers struggle to find work created by children within archives, impacting the ability to create child-centered research that centers children’s views of the world as prominently as adult views of the world. Some collections that do include child-created materials …

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Accepting And Implementing Virtual Reality In Archives: Archivists' Perspective, Farzaneh Talebhaghighi Feb 2026

Accepting And Implementing Virtual Reality In Archives: Archivists' Perspective, Farzaneh Talebhaghighi

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a transformative technology across various domains, including education, entertainment, and cultural heritage institutions. While libraries and museums have actively explored VR’s potential to enhance user engagement and accessibility, its adoption in archival settings remains limited. This study examines the perspectives of academic archivists regarding the acceptance and implementation of VR in archives, identifying key factors that influence their willingness to adopt or reject the technology. Through qualitative interviews with five archivists from the University of Arizona and Arizona State University, this research explores the perceived benefits, challenges, and institutional barriers associated with VR integration. …

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An Archival Responsibility: A Scoping Review Of Literature Regarding The Documentary Burdens Of Refugees, Ana Roeschley, Kinza Alizai, Crystal Tharayil, Amy Lanier, Merrion D. Frederick, Homero R. Cuevas Feb 2026

An Archival Responsibility: A Scoping Review Of Literature Regarding The Documentary Burdens Of Refugees, Ana Roeschley, Kinza Alizai, Crystal Tharayil, Amy Lanier, Merrion D. Frederick, Homero R. Cuevas

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Documented individuals who do not live in conflict zones can usually access and use their records to migrate, begin new careers, enroll their children in educational institutions, and gain access to healthcare through mostly routine record-related procedures. However, these standard processes become impossible obstacles for refugees when they lose access to their personal records as part of their forced displacement. Though ever-present for refugees, these documentary burdens are compounded in times of societal crises and political upheaval—times when documentation is most critical. If archivists and archival scholars are to address these issues, it is important to understand the scope of …

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Leveraging Consumer-Level Ai For Descriptive Metadata Creation In Archival Collections, Hope Dunbar, Ken Axford Feb 2026

Leveraging Consumer-Level Ai For Descriptive Metadata Creation In Archival Collections, Hope Dunbar, Ken Axford

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This study evaluates the effectiveness of consumer-level AI tools—ChatGPT Pro and Microsoft Copilot—for generating descriptive metadata in digital archival collections. Using a pilot project at the University at Buffalo's University Archives, researchers tested these tools on transcripts from the WBFO radio archives to create program descriptions of varying lengths. Findings demonstrate that both tools significantly reduced processing time for audio collections, with each exhibiting distinct advantages: ChatGPT Pro offered more adaptable outputs while Microsoft Copilot excelled in structured environments with superior privacy protections. The study explores prompt engineering strategies, examines limitations including AI hallucinations when identifying subject headings, and addresses …

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Review Of Ethics In Linked Data, Rebecca Fried Feb 2026

Review Of Ethics In Linked Data, Rebecca Fried

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

"Ethics in Linked Data," edited by B. M. Watson, Alexandra Provo, and Kathleen Burlingame, offers a critical examination of the ethical challenges and opportunities in linked data practices within GLAM institutions. In its sixteen chapters the anthology blends theoretical frameworks with practical case studies to address the social and cultural implications of linked data systems. Divided into three parts, the book explores the theoretical and contextual foundations of ethical considerations, addresses institutional and structural challenges shaped by colonial and hegemonic forces, and focuses on community-centered projects that amplify marginalized voices. By highlighting issues such as sustainability, inclusivity, and privacy, the …

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Review Of Land In Libraries: Toward A Materialist Conception Of Education, Anna Z. Szapiro Feb 2026

Review Of Land In Libraries: Toward A Materialist Conception Of Education, Anna Z. Szapiro

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Extractive practices of colonial land theft and environmental exploitation have produced intolerable global conditions leading to climate collapse. As the information field grapples with its culpability in colonial violence and climate change, Lydia Zvyagintseva and Mary Greenshields’s incisive Land in Libraries: Toward a Materialist Conception of Education draws contributions from practitioners in the United States and Canada to chart a way forward. Through historical analysis, case studies, critical theory, and autoethnography, authors in this volume take up land – and our relation to it – as the epistemological catalyst for systemic change. At once austere critique and lyrical contemplation, Land …

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Review Of Scattered And Fugitive Things: How Black Collectors Created Archives And Remade History, Kai H. Uchida Feb 2026

Review Of Scattered And Fugitive Things: How Black Collectors Created Archives And Remade History, Kai H. Uchida

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

In Scattered and Fugitive Things: How Black Collectors Created Archives and Remade History, historian and archivist Laura E. Helton tells the story of six individuals – Arturo Schomburg, Alexander Gumby, Virginia Lee, Dorothy Porter, Vivian Harsh, and Lawrence Reddick – whose practices of radical collecting revalued and recast the importance of Black history. Helton combines innovative methodological readings of previously undervalued archival sources with a keen understanding of archival practice to illuminate Black archives as a site of radical collecting, intellectual inquiry, and community empowerment. Compellingly written with insights about the theory of their curation and the story of …

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Enrolled Deeds As Records And Archives In Jamaica, Andrew Williams Dec 2025

Enrolled Deeds As Records And Archives In Jamaica, Andrew Williams

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This paper examines the history of the enrolled deeds record series in Jamaica, from its creation in the mid-seventeenth century through to the present day. It is a critical examination of a single record series through colonialism and independence. It examines the purpose of deeds and the context in which deeds registries were created before examining the history of the series through the periods of slavery and emancipation. It examines in close detail the late nineteenth century, when the Island Record Office—which has custody of the enrolled deeds—was created and several other important changes happened. It situates the enrolled deeds …

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Enhancing Archives And Records Management In Low-Resourced Organizations Through Experiential Learning, Jinfang Niu Dec 2025

Enhancing Archives And Records Management In Low-Resourced Organizations Through Experiential Learning, Jinfang Niu

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Master’s students in Archives and Records Management could help low-resourced organizations address their Archives and Records Management needs while gaining practical experience. Archives and Records Management education programs could facilitate this mutually beneficial relationship by offering internships and service-learning courses. This paper analyzes the strengths and limitations of these two experiential learning mechanisms and discusses solutions to overcome the limitations. It argues that service-learning is especially suitable for addressing the Archives and Records Management needs of low-resourced organizations and proposes a service-learning model for that purpose.

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Student-Designed Archival Pedagogy: A Workshop-As-Research Approach To Pluralizing Community Archives Education, Magdalena Wiśniewska-Drewniak Dec 2025

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 …

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Archival Notations Of The Norwegian Charter Material, Juliane Tiemann Dec 2025

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 …

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Beyond Description: Interrogating Narrative Elements In Archival Finding Aids, David J. Williams, Richard Kearney Sep 2025

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 …

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Associations Among Trauma Exposures, Workplace Factors, And Distress Responses In Archivists, Cheryl Regehr, Wendy Duff, Rachael Lefebvre Sep 2025

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 …

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Community Defining Archives: A Comparative View Of Community Archives Definitions, Britney Bibeault Sep 2025

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 …

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Review Of Archiving Cultures: Heritage, Community And The Making Of Records And Memory, Emily Homolka Sep 2025

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.

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Review Of Dissonant Records: Close Listening To Literary Archives, Rachel C. Poppen Sep 2025

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.

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Review Of Teaching Primary Source Research Skills To 21st-Century Learners, Alexandra Y. Bush Jul 2025

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 …

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Review Of Comic Books, Special Collections, And The Academic Library, Nicholas Wantsala Jul 2025

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 …

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Review Of Averting The Digital Dark Age: The Future Of Digital Literary Heritage, Rebecca L. Hastings Jul 2025

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 …

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