K-12 Instruction and Digital Access to Archival Materials

Abstract

Providing K-12 schools with digital access to archival materials can strengthen both student learning and archival practice, although it cannot replace direct physical access to records. This article compares a variety of electronic and non-electronic projects to promote teaching with primary source materials. The article also examines some of the different historiographical and pedagogical approaches used in archival Web sites geared for K-12 instruction, focusing on differences between the educational sites sponsored by the Library of Congress and the National Archives and Records Administration.     

Archival Reference and Outreach

Abstract

The archival profession is dynamic, adaptive, and undergoing continual change. This is particularly true in the areas of reference (or researcher) services and outreach. This article advocates reexamination of these functions, relating them more closely to each other. It maintains that archival records are underutilized and that archivists should address this issue by proactively reaching out to researchers and encouraging research use. Special skills are required to assist researchers to ensure that their use of archival records meets their information needs. The increasing creation and use of electronic records occasions even more attention to archivists' relations with researchers. Finally, there are several areas where archivists and researchers can and should work together to address common needs.     

Social Networks and Archival Context: From Project to Cooperative Archival Program

This article highlights the objectives and outcomes of the multi-year Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC) research and demonstration project and discusses related developments to establish a large-scale sustainable cooperative for maintaining information about creators of archival collections, leveraging the Encoded Archival Context—Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (EAC-CPF) standard. The article discusses processes developed to derive EAC-CPF records from existing EAD finding aids, MARCXML records, and original authority records, enrichment of those records from other sources, and the creation of a prototype research resource, providing integrated access to dispersed archival collections and the social-historical context of the collections.     

Cataloging Digitized Continuing Resources in a Shared Record Environment

ABSTRACT

Cataloging digitized continuing resources is a challenging task for many libraries because of their complex cataloging rules and characteristics of format. As libraries provide their digitized content and catalog records in shared environments, like HathiTrust, and use them as an access point, libraries also have to work with holdings and item records created by each contributing institution's local practice. This article discusses common challenges imposed on libraries when creating and providing access to digitized continuing resources available in a shared environment, stresses the importance of having shareable holdings and items records, and suggests possible ways to work with those challenges.     

An Opportunity for Change: College Accreditation and the New Library Manager

Abstract

Administering special collections within an academic branch library presents challenges in the areas of public services, collection management, facilities planning, and staffing. In art and architecture libraries, special collections can include a variety of materials such as rare books, trade catalogs, builder's guides, graphic and visual materials, artists' books, archival records in many formats, and files of ephemera. Public service issues relating to the administration of special collections housed in an architecture branch library (and its off-site repositories) will be addressed. Collection care and access services will be examined in light of recent technologies.     

Mapping the Socio-Technical Complexity of Australian Science: From Archival Authorities to Networks of Contextual Information

SUMMARY

This article examines the evolution of a national register of the archives of science and technology in Australia and the related development of an archival informatics focused initially on people and their relationships to archival materials. The register was created in 1985 as an in-house tool for the Australian Science Archives Project of the University of Melbourne. Its potential as a public reference guide for historians of science and technology soon became apparent. The story of the computerisation and publication of the register provides the background for the examination of the use of archival authority records as a means of finding better ways of connecting archives with their potential users. The success of this approach led to demands from the community for a generic database tool using a framework based on the authoritative entities associated with archival materials-an activity that we started to call contextual information management. The Online Heritage Resource Manager (OHRM) was created in response to these calls, and the story of its development as a tool for mapping networks of contextual information is told in the latter part of the article.     

档案行业面临的十项挑战

21世纪开始之际，档案行业面临着严峻的挑战。本判断和分析了档案工作所面临的十项最为迫在眉睫的挑战，其中包括：电子献的管理；将更多的资源投入到非字资料方面；对于件的全球性的认识：为档案录和利用提出新的方法；档案利用和馆藏发展重点的扩大；对档案馆的信息管理进行更多的研究；美国档案工作协会的发展；档案事业各方资源的丰富；以及使档案行业不负众望地承担社会利益的保障的角色。     

Reflecting the Census

Abstract

This article discusses ongoing changes and future challenges in collecting multi-ethnic and multi-cultural archival materials, as viewed in the context of several collecting projects undertaken by the former Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies in Philadelphia.     

Blogging for the Record: A Study of Blogging from an Archival Point of View

ABSTRACT

This article examines the current phenomenon of blogging from an archival point of view. To better understand the nature of blogs, the author conducted an informal survey of bloggers at Princeton Theological Seminary. The results of this survey show that blogs represent a dynamic but ephemeral new form of electronic record and writing practice. This article concludes that blogs have archival value and that archivists should proactively preserve them along with other electronic records.     

Dang An: A Brief History of the Chinese Imperial Archives and Its Administration

ABSTRACT

Archives are preserved records of human activities. An account of Chinese archival development is as long as the written records of the Chinese history. Oracle bones, bronze ware, and wood and bamboo strips are the three most important recording forms of the early Chinese civilization, as they represented three major stages of archival development in China. Early Chinese archival documents were exclusively administrative records of the state. The basic guiding principles of archival organization throughout ancient China were the essential, imperial orders of the feudal society. This article presents a brief account of the Chinese imperial archives and its administration from the beginning of the Chinese civilization to the end of the Qing Dynasty, the last empire in the Chinese history.     

Contemporary Archival Diplomatics as a Method of Inquiry: Lessons Learned from Two Research Projects

This article explores the use of contemporary archival diplomatics as a method of inquiry in two recent electronic records research projects, namely,The Protection of the Integrity of Electronic Records Project (the UBC Project) and theInternational Research on the Preservation of Authentic Records in Electronic Records Systems Project (the InterPARES 1 Project). The first part of the article examines the historical and contemporary literary warrant underpinning diplomatics as a method of inquiry; the second part provides case studies of two illustrative examples of the process and results of the application of contemporary archival diplomatics in the abovementioned research projects; the third part considers the current status and possible future directions for the use of contemporary archival diplomatics as a research method and concludes with some observations about the value of multiple methods and alternative interpretive frameworks in archival research.     

“Contact Us”: Archivists and Remote Users in the Digital Age

SUMMARY

Archive repository web pages have become more sophisticated in the past several years, and information about repository holdings is often readily available online. However, so long as full archival records are not available electronically, archivists will have to contend with the increase in reference requests from remote users. The author surveyed one hundred university archives web pages to examine the current availability of archival records on the Web and to explore the possible effects of this presence on archivists' efforts to provide remote users with access to repository holdings through “ask an archivist” forms, electronic mail, and other modes of communication.     

Beyond Title Lists

Abstract

Librarians and patrons can access many thousands of electronic journals today. Librarians who incorporate records for these journals into their OPACs will maximize the journals' access and use, but accurately tracking them can be difficult. This paper describes a commercial solution to the problem. Serials Solutions combines aggregator title lists with CONSER MARC records to improve access to these titles. This paper reviews the benefits and challenges associated with this process, and identifies several areas in which aggregators and OPAC vendors can improve the services they provide, to facilitate this process.