Archival Science Commons^™

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 …

More Than A Name: Reparative Description For Women’S Archives, Allison Mccormack, Hallie Oines

Journal of Western Archives

This article describes a reparative description initiative at an academic library aimed at improving access to women’s archival collections. By hiring a metadata specialist through grant funding, the project revised legacy MARC records to update, expand, and standardize collection descriptions. Prioritizing inclusive language and accurate subject headings, the team addressed gaps that previously hindered discovery of women’s materials. Over two years, 818 records were remediated, enhancing creator, topical, and genre/form access points. The article discusses project challenges, strategies for respectful description, and the resulting improved discoverability, offering a replicable model for reparative archival work.

Review Of Selecting And Appraising Archives And Manuscripts, Laura Uglean Jackson

Journal of Western Archives

Review of Selecting and Appraising Archives and Manuscripts edited by Audra Eagle Yun and Chela Scott Weber.

Review Of An Archivist’S Guide To Copyright: Navigating Risk Management, Kimberly Anderson

Journal of Western Archives

Review of An Archivist’s Guide to Copyright: Navigating Risk Management by William J. Maher.

A Brush With History: Shared Authority, Distributed Archives, And Artist M.B. Mayfield, Jeannie S. Latartara

Mississippi Libraries

In 2020, a school librarian volunteered to lead preservation of the papers of visionary artist M.B. Mayfield that were discovered during the restoration of the artist’s Mississippi home. In March of 2020, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic threatened the success of the community-led project, due to the project’s physical isolation, limited resources, and inability to garner support for the paper’s preservation. In early 2021, the librarian and community partners formed a shared authority and distributed archives partnership with public history faculty at the University of Mississippi that would help preserve and increase awareness of the importance of the papers. …

Archeota, Spring/Summer 2026, Diane Curtis, Angela Brooks, Gaby Stephenson, Nana Turkson, Siera Milton Beal, Charlene Hardin, Lola Jalbert, Emily Stockton, Ryan Martin

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: “It’s Virtual, Baby!!”: Creating a Secure Digital Space for an At-risk Community Archives Online Conference by Diane Curtis, My Experience as a MARA Student at Queer History South 2026 by Ryan Martin, AI and Digital Leadership: Transforming Libraries, Archives and Museums for the Future by Angela Brooks, The Threshold …

The Record, Issue 3, Bank Street College Of Education. Archives

The Record

The third quarterly newsletter from the Bank Street Archives

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 …

Archive Your Life: Protecting The Moments That Matter Most, Sarah E. Bull, Ryan Bernard

Faculty Open Access Works

How many photos and videos do you have on your personal device? Where do you store your digital documents? How do you save and select the materials that matter most to you? Get answers to these questions and practical advice on organizing and maintaining a personal archive in this session, led by Librarian Sarah Bull.

Unearthing "Storied Lives:" Building Resilient And Recontextualized Collections At Unh Library Through Community Archives Collaborations, Kai H. Uchida, Eleta Exline, Morgan Wilson

Faculty Publications

A strength of the University Archives at the University of New Hampshire is its strong administrative and institutional history collections through the mid 20th century, with hundreds of linear feet of manuscripts from offices across campus. However, some of these collections were processed more than 30 years ago and are missing descriptive work that would ideally highlight communities of color on campus and their inclusion and self-advocacy in the history of higher education.

In the absence of resources that would prioritize reprocessing these collections, the University Archives has partnered with the Digital Collections Team at UNH to broaden the access …

Diy Archives: Organize And Preserve Your Own Materials, Abbie Weiser Olivas, Ada Negraru

Projects

Zine with information about how to organize and preserve your own records. Based on a 2024 presentation for the Historical Society of New Mexico's annual meeting.

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 …

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 …

Practicing Archival Sustainability Through Degrowth, Hannah Pryor

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

As archives continue to face threats from global climate disasters and increased institutional pressure to accomplish more with fewer resources, there is a need to evolve archival practice through a sustainability lens. While archival literature has frequently discussed sustainability practices such as eco-friendly building standards, how to reduce energy consumption, and other green initiatives, less focus has been placed on the underlying structures of unsustainability. This article proposes degrowth as one framework for considering archival sustainability. Degrowth is an ecological, economic, and political theory that advocates for the deliberate reduction of activities that rely on non-renewable resources. This article draws …

The Fall 2025 Issue, Destiny Dehart, Crystal Walker, Tritan Mioduszewski

Fonds and Feathers

The theme of this issue is "community in shared memory." The past, present, and future of a community's history binds people together through generations and stories,

Review: Archival Virtue: Relationship, Obligation, And The Just Archives, Penny Cliff

Provenance, Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists

Review: Archival Virtue: Relationship, Obligation, and the Just Archives. By Scott Cline. (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2022), 212 pp. Reviewed by Penny Cliff.

Review: Archivist Actions, Abolitionist Futures: Reimagining Archival Practice Against Incarceration, Lauren Goodley

Provenance, Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists

Review: Archivist Actions, Abolitionist Futures: Reimagining Archival Practice Against Incarceration, CLIR Pocket Burgundy series. Edited by Alison Clemens and Jessica Farrell. (Alexandria: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2025), 47 pages. Reviewed by Lauren Goodley.

Review: The Afterlife Of Palestinian Images: Visual Remains And The Archive Of Disappearance, Cathy Miller

Provenance, Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists

Review: The Afterlife of Palestinian Images: Visual Remains and the Archive of Disappearance, Palgrave Studies in Arab Cinema series. By Azza El Hassan. (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), 180 pp. Reviewed by Cathy Miller.

Review: Teaching Primary Source Research Skills To 21st-Century Learners, Michelle Schabowski

Provenance, Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists

Review: Teaching Primary Source Research Skills to 21st-Century Learners. By Julie Thomas. (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2024), 222 pp. Reviewed by Michelle Schabowski.

Review: Digital Archives And Collections: Creating Online Access To Cultural Heritage, Jessica Wylie

Provenance, Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists

Review: Digital Archives and Collections: Creating Online Access to Cultural Heritage, volume 11 of Anthropology of Media. By Katja Müller. (New York: Berghahn Books, 2021), 250 pp. Reviewed by Jessica Wylie.

Review: The Humanity Archive: Recovering The Soul Of Black History From A Whitewashed American Myth, Shady Radical Phd

Provenance, Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists

Review: The Humanity Archive: Recovering the Soul of Black History from a Whitewashed American Myth. By Jermaine Fowler. (New Egypt, NJ: Row House Publishing, 2025), 448 pp. Reviewed by Dr. shady Radical.

Review: Archives 101, Autumn M. Johnson

Provenance, Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists

Review: Archives 101. By Lois Hamill (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2023), 302 pp. Reviewed by Autumn M. Johnson.

Review: Photo Archives And The Place Of Photography, Alex Brinson

Provenance, Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists

Review: Photo Archives and the Place of Photography, Routledge History of Photography. Edited by Geraldine A. Johnson and Deborah Schultz. (New York: Routledge, 2025), 228 pp. Reviewed by Alex Brinson.

Mexican Bracero Railroaders In The United States During World War Ii: An Endangered History, Emily Mizokami

Journal of Western Archives

Mexican citizens came to the United States during World War II to work the most grueling railroad jobs through a contractual agreement between the U.S. and Mexican governments. These 136,000 Mexican men, however, have been the focus of less academic research than other groups during World War II. The railroaders were part of the larger bracero program which primarily employed farm workers. The railroad arm of the program lasted only two and half years, while the agricultural branch went on for 22 years. The short duration of the program, combined with the difficulty of accessing archival records documenting living and …

What Could Have Been? Surveying The Labor Impact Of The 2025 Executive Orders On Glam Workers, Raegan Stearns, Alphie Garcia, Jina Duvernay

LWLC Faculty Research

What Could Have Been? is a collaborative project designed to document the labor lost as a result of federal cuts and grant terminations, especially within GLAM institutions. This survey was inspired by a sub-group of members of the 2025 Archives Leadership Institute (ALI) Cohort who came together to collect evidence of the personal and professional losses resulting from the current sociopolitical landscape. While the project seeks to document the effects on the GLAM communities, What Could Have Been? also acknowledges the loss of personal livelihoods and vilification of public servants in addition to amplifying the impact of the erasure of …

The Record, Issue 2, Bank Street College Of Education. Archives

The Record

The second quarterly newsletter from the Bank Street Archives

Building Student Historians: A University Archives Research Apprenticeship Program, Daardi Sizemore, Heidi J. Southworth, Jamison Vierstraete

Library Services Publications

This session focuses on the development of a student historian program in the University Archives at Minnesota State University, Mankato. In 2024, the University Archives at Minnesota State University, Mankato participated in the Undergraduate Research Center’s Research Apprenticeship Program (RAP). The RAP provides students new to research with opportunities to collaborate with faculty and staff on mentored research, scholarly, and creative projects. Daardi Mixon, University Archivist will discuss the development and implementation of the RAP program within the archives and how library and university strategic plans were incorporated into the outcomes with a focus on high-impact learning practices and Diversity, …

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 …

Biz Of Digital - Implementing Digital Systems For The Lewis University Archives And The Creation Of An Institutional Repository, Jason Smith

Library Staff Articles

No abstract provided.