R H's List: ARK - Records, Archives, and Ideas

ABSTRACT
Independent community-led archives have been a feature of the archival landscape in the UK for several decades, with numbers growing steadily. Only in more recent years, however, has this informal activity been recognised by the formal heritage sector, and efforts made by professionals to engage these independent groups. This research investigates the position of community archives from the perspective of the formal and accredited archives sector, including analysis of the scope and nature of the outreach projects initiated by professional archival bodies, as well as the motivations, both stated and perceived, for doing so. The results of the research will be used to form a discussion of the nation’s ‘archival community’, and the place of independent archives in relation to the formal, established sector. The thesis will conclude with speculation about the potential for future collaboration between archive services in the UK, and aims to offer a perspective on the evolving role and function of both archives and archivists.

Studia Universitatis Babes­Bolyai – Sociologia Iss. 1, 2014 pp93–117

ABSTRACT
This essay tries to sketch some possible avenues for a critical historiography through an inquiry into the status of archival documents, the main (re)source for historical narratives. Drawing on the Romanian post-socialist context, it focuses on the various ways in which archival documents are engaged and deployed in local political struggles. These struggles evince novel forms of employing archival records, different from both professional constraints and the public debates over the national past which have characterised the post-socialist period. Moreover, these ways of dealing with archival records represent local, institutionally-embedded historiographical operations which may bear significant social consequences. The main contention of this essay is that the historian’s methodological toolkit should be reconstructed through a constant dialogue with these historiographical operations while paying attention to the manner in which social actors frame their social critiques in these everyday struggles. By switching the attention to the archives as an institution, the second part of the essay makes the case for a historical anthropology of bureaucratic practices that may help aid historians and marginalized social groups in engaging in debates over the status of the archives. This may help in undermining the monopoly that archivists and state institutions have over archival records.

ABSTRACT:
In an attempt to understand the multiple lives of an object - specifically a death inquest register from the year 1976 - this dissertation examines five moments in the objects life (referred to as the Ledger) that invest it with 'capital'. They are;
* The Cillié Commission of Inquiry.
* Sam Nzima's photograph of Hector Pieterson.
* The destruction of apartheid documents in the early 1990's.
* Kendell Geers' appropriation of the Ledger.
* Museum Africa's purchase of the Ledger.
By applying a biographical methodology to this object, this dissertation examines how the shifts in the multiple lives of the Ledger address the different roles that the archive plays in the construction of memory in South Africa.

Paper presented at the South African Society for Research in Music, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, June 2011.

Extract: using the international library of african music as a case study I will seek to interrogate the methodological mechanisms of the archive, focussing on its structure, design and conventions.

M.Information Studies, Victoria University of Wellington.
ABSTRACT
Research problem: Despite a significant amount of research on archival users, only a small number of studies have focused solely on the non-user. This study investigated non-user understandings of archives in Aotearoa New Zealand to learn about their awareness of archives, perceptions of accessibility and use, and views on an archives’ purpose and societal role. This included whether non-users valued archives and what this said about the democratic archival contract.
Methodology: A qualitative research design influenced by critical theory was employed. Eight non-user samples of individuals over the age of 18 were purposively selected within the population of Aotearoa New Zealand, covering variables of geographical location, socio-economic status, education, gender, age, and ethnicity. Three activist samples were also included. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews and analysed thematically.
Results: While their image of an archive was generally accurate and positive, participants had little knowledge of how they were organised. Archives were highly valued and viewed as accessible places for those who needed it, but with clear differences to other institutions. These differences prevented half of the sample with a need to use an archive from doing so. The archival contract was generally accepted, but was problematized in terms of access and cultural bias.
Implications: The findings support the view that understandings of archives greatly influence use. Although limited to a small and geographically specific sample, this study enables archives to know more about potential users, and design, target and implement outreach in order to raise awareness and increase use.

J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists 2(1) 2014

Themed section containing some interesting articles on the nature and use of archival evidence for humanities scholarship. Includes discussions of the effect of digital era on archives and 'the archive', the growth of digital humanities, and the tension between traditional 'close-reading' hermeneutics and newer data-focused approaches.
Unfortunately, not open access.

"Paper Knowledge is a remarkable book about the mundane: the library card, the promissory note, the movie ticket, the PDF (Portable Document Format). It is a media history of the document. Drawing examples from the 1870s, the 1930s, the 1960s, and today, Lisa Gitelman thinks across the media that the document form has come to inhabit over the last 150 years, including letterpress printing, typing and carbon paper, mimeograph, microfilm, offset printing, photocopying, and scanning. Whether examining late nineteenth century commercial, or "job" printing, or the Xerox machine and the role of reproduction in our understanding of the document, Gitelman reveals a keen eye for vernacular uses of technology. She tells nuanced, anecdote-filled stories of the waning of old technologies and the emergence of new. Along the way, she discusses documentary matters such as the relation between twentieth-century technological innovation and the management of paper, and the interdependence of computer programming and documentation. Paper Knowledge is destined to set a new agenda for media studies."

ABSTRACT:
This research paper explores strategies to integrate commercial and community processes into the business model of archives within the political and economic context of the Big Society programming in the United Kingdom. The present study draws on literature from the libraries and museums sector, as well as strategic plans from within the archival sector to synthesize effective strategies for adapting cultural resources to commoditized systems while maintaining the integrity of collections and core. This methodology includes figures on volunteering in UK heritage organizations as a means of establishing a profile for volunteers in archives and better assessing the equity of access to opportunity at the lower levels of the career structure. Issues directly pertinent to this study include volunteerism, localism, the value of postgraduate training, displacement, talent acquisition and development, and the long-term diversification of the professional profile.

"This article is an interview with Jake Smith, a PhD student at the University of Chicago who spent over a year in Germany conducting his dissertation research in archives. Many of the archives he visited in support of his project, “Häuserkämpfe: Squatting, Urban Renewal, and the Crisis of Dwelling in West Germany, 1970-1995,” were small, do-it-yourself (DIY) collections curated and cared for by motivated individuals within squats. This interview delves into his experiences conducting research in this environment." (From the blog In the Library with the Lead Pipe)

FROM INTRO: "The papers address five themes that characterize David’s career and scholarly interests: education of archivists; advocacy for archives; archival description; intersections of libraries, archives, and museums; and local records."

FROM INTRO
In his brilliant essay “I Barbari” (“The Barbarians”) the Italian writer and philosopher Alessandro Baricco describes a fundamental change in our society. That change goes far beyond a gradual development of our existing values. According to Baricco we live in an era where almost everything is turned upside down. ...
... Records managers will recognize traces of these fundamental changes. ... This essay is an exploration in three parts into the present environment of records managers [very broadly defined, including archivists]. The bandwidth is quite large. Therefore it is necessary to sometimes only scratch the surface of a part of the new landscape. The triptych starts off with a sketch of developments and fields of interest concerning information in government organizations. According to me, all of these are of vital importance to (the future of) records managers. Then we proceed with what is called nowadays “storytelling”. This second part describes some experiences I have had in the administration I work in. The third part of the triptych is an attempt to go underneath the surface and look for explanations, possible fields of further research and a definition of the (future) role in government organizations of those who are used to be labelled as archival professionals and records managers. In Baricco’s terminology one could say that the first part consists of surfing, the second part is about storytelling and the third part is a very non-Barbaric old-style reflection. ...

VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture 2(4) 2013

ABSTRACT:
In this article I will argue that we need to create new archival models in order to preserve and share knowledge of historical, 'hidden' television professions and production cultures. Oral history traditions of recording life stories give us a useful starting point. Engineering 'encounters' between skilled television technicians, and the now obsolete equipment they operated in the 1970s and 80s, is challenging for a myriad of reasons, but videoing the interaction of man and machine provides us with a rich insight into how analogue television was produced and broadcast. Social media enables us to disseminate these histories in new and innovative ways.

"Features a number of articles from different fields, reaching from cultural and media studies to literature, film and art, and from philosophy and information studies to law and archival studies. Questions addressed in this book are: Will handwriting disappear in the age of new (digital) media? What happens to important cultural and legal concepts, such as original, copy, authenticity, reproducibility, uniqueness, and iterability? Where is the writing hand to be located if handwriting is performed not immediately 'by hand' but when it is (re)mediated by electronic or artistic media? Sign Here! Handwriting in the Age of New Media is the first part in the series Transformations in Art and Culture."

Mak,B.; Pollack,J. (2013) 'The Performance and Practice of Research in, “A Cabinet of Curiosity: the Library’s Dead Time”', Art Documentation 32(2) pp.202-221. [Preprint version.]

ABSTRACT
The article describes “A Cabinet of Curiosity: the Library's Dead Time,” an exhibition that investigated how the materiality of information shapes the making of meaning. By showcasing the materiality of the codex, PDF, online catalog, and librarian, the exhibition fabricated an archive of the “dead time” of research in the humanities, and thus made visible for analysis some of the oft-overlooked practices around the production of knowledge. The following discussion explores the ways in which information is constituted, configured, and communicated, and suggests how the influential role of materiality in the transmission of ideas might be further exploited by both the librarian and humanities scholar.

From C. Brown (ed) 'Archives and Recordkeeping: Theory into Practice London: Facet Publishing (Forthcoming)

Aims to bridge the gap between contemporary digital archival practices and academic theory regarding the image of and the image in the archive. It is only through studying the historicity of visual practices and the historical imagination that we can understand the potential of new technologies. Until now, it is only the history of science that has investigated the role of the image as an epistemic tool. Given the growing role of visual material in both researching and presenting historical data, and leading on from recent research endeavors in arts, media, film and literary studies to explore changes in the notion of the archive in the digital era, we invite dialogue between theorists and practitioners on the following questions:

-What are the images and concepts that frame our understanding of both traditional and digital archives today?
-What new approaches are developed when working with visual imagery in the archives?
-How do visual representations of historical data shape users’ expectations and influence the identity of archival institutions?
-How might scholars influence the forms that knowledge takes in digital environments?

Prospective participants are invited to envisage their intervention at one of the proposed panels:

1. The evolution of historical/scientific imagination and archival practices
2. Audio-visual collections and new archival epistemes in the digital era
3. Digital humanities potential in archival practices
4. Performing the archive
5. Displaying evidence

The zombified, stuttering archive ...

Warren,M. (2013) 'Ar-Ar-Archive'. Adapted from oral presentation for Surface, Symptom, and the State of Critique, a conference for the 25th anniversary of Exemplaria (9-12 February 2012, University of Texas-Austin)