Historical Resources of the Orthodox Church in America

SUMMARY

Orthodox Christianity has been present in America since the eighteenth century. Starting in Alaska with Russian missionaries, it has now spread to all fifty states. The history of this expansion is reflected in the archival holdings of a number of institutions, the most central of these being the archives of the Orthodox Church in America.     

The Jewish Archival Survey: Tracing Jewish Records in the Former Soviet Archives

SUMMARY

As the rigors of the Soviet-era prohibitions in the post-Soviet archives were eased in the early 1990s, students of Russian-Jewish history in the former Soviet Union, as well as from abroad, have been using this opportunity to search for records of the Russian-Jewish past. The Jewish Archival Survey, a joint program of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and the Russian State University for the Humanities has been among the earliest initiatives in this field.     

Hidden Slavica: Collections of Slavic Religious,Ethnic, and Cultural Materials at Holy Trinity Seminary and Monastery

SUMMARY

This article describes the holdings of the museum, libraries, and archives of Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary in Jordanville, NY, as well as the archives of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in New York City.     

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.     

The Foundation of Russian History,Jordanville, New York: A Decade-Long Travel Account

This column piece describes the Foundation of Russian History located on the grounds of Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary in Jordanville, New York and the author’s knowledge of the state of the collections today, how things have changed over the past decade, as well as future possibilities for development, collaboration and use.     

Records management practices in ecumenical tertiary institutions: the Trinity Theological Seminary in focus

The study aimed at examining the records management practices at the Trinity Theological Seminary in Ghana and was underpinned by the life cycle concept. The researchers drew qualitative inferences from interviews, complementing personal observations, with 25 purposively sampled staff. The study revealed the creation, maintenance and use of records to support administrative and decision-making processes. Problems hampering effective records management included non-existent records management policy, inadequate staff training and erratic power supply. Among the recommendations proposed to overcome these setbacks were: formulating a written policy statement for managing records, providing staff with formal training and installing a standby generator.