Month: September 2017

2017 SAA Research Forum Documents Available

The presentation slides and posters from this year’s SAA Research Forum are now available.

9:00-9:30 AM: Opening and Session 1

Welcome and Overview
Research Forum Program Committee [Slides]

Towards a Wicked Problems Research Agenda for Archival and Recordkeeping Scholarship
Eliot Wilczek (The MITRE Corporation) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

Teaching Research Data Management to the World
Dr. Helen R. Tibbo (UNC-Chapel Hill) [Slides]

9:30-10:00 AM: Session 2: Examining Our Practice

Simple and Expedited Digital Appraisal/Processing: Testing Software and Developing a First Simple Workflow
Susanne Belovari (University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign) [Abstract/Bio]

Show Me Archives and the Community Engagement Legacy of Aurora Davis
Sarah Buchanan (University of Missouri) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

A Model for the Social Construction of Risk in the Audit and Certification of Trustworthy Digital Repositories
Rebecca D. Frank (University of Michigan) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

10:30-11:00 AM: Session 3: Repositories in Practice

Beyond the Repository: Exploring Integration Between Local and Distributed Digital Preservation Systems
Laura Alagna (Northwestern University) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

How Do Small Archives Steward Their Moving Image and Sound Collections? A Qualitative Study
Anthony Cocciolo (Pratt Institute) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

Archives & DAM
Alice Cameron (Northwestern University) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

11:00-11:30 AM: Session 4: Architectural Records and Innovation

Actors, Artifacts, and Enduring Value in Architecture
Katie Pierce Meyer (University of Texas at Austin) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

Asks and Answers: Interviews with Archivists on Born-Digital Design Records
Suzanne Noruschat (Yale University), Pamela Casey (Columbia University) [Abstract/Bios] [Slides]

Memory Happens Now: A Collaborative Strategy for Digital Preservation of Organizational Records
Nancy Hadley (The American Institute of Architects) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

11:30 AM-Noon: Session 5: Adventures in Discovery

Evaluating How Archival Websites Allow Researchers to Prepare for an In-Person Visit
Scott Pitol (University of Illinois at Chicago) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

Proof of Existence: Methods for Adding Archival Resources to Wikipedia
Emily Vigor (UC Berkeley) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

Access Strategies for Born-Digital Archives: Lessons of the International Fellowships Program Project
Jane Gorjevsky (Columbia University), Dina Sokolova (Columbia University) [Abstract/Bios] [Slides]

1:00-1:30 PM: Session 6: SAA Metadata and Digital Practice Review

Mark Matienzo (Stanford University) [Bio] [Slides]

3:00-3:30 PM: Session 7: Lightning Talks

Archiving the Websites of Contemporary Composers
Bess Pittman (NYU) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

Software Preservation: Building a Community of Research Practitioners
Wendy Hagenmaier (University of Texas at Austin), Alexandra Chassanoff (MIT) [Abstract/Bios] [Slides]

Teaching with Primary Sources: Building Resources for Success
Margery N. Sly (Temple University) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

Archiving Spotify: How and Why to Track Your Music Streaming Data
Jennifer Eltringham (University of Denver) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

Good/Bad, Happy/Sad: Conducting Sentiment Analysis on User Survey Data from Houghton Library with R
Emilie Hardman (Harvard University) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

Adapting Archival Descriptions to the New Technology Environment
Jinfang Niu (University of South Florida) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

3:30-4:30 PM: Session 8: Exploring Diversity and Community Archives

“Her Own Version of History”: A Case Study of the Guerilla Girls Oral Histories at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Erin Dickey (UNC Chapel-Hill) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

“Are You a Spy?”: Methodological Challenges to Studying Community Archives
Michelle Caswell (UCLA), Joyce Gabiola (UCLA) [Abstract/Bios] [Slides]

Diversity and Inclusion: Building the Texas Disability History Collection
Samantha Dodd (University of Texas at Arlington) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

Cultural Diversity Competency’s Role in Diversity, Inclusion and Community Engagement
Helen Wong Smith (Kaua’i Historical Society) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

Descriptive Practices on a Human Scale: Lessons from the StoryCorps Archive
Virginia Millington (StoryCorps) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

Cataloging in Spanglish: Capturing the Puerto Rican Experience Stateside Through Metadata (with Some Help from the Community)
Lindsay Wittwer (Hunter College, CUNY) [Abstract/Bio] [Slides]

4:30-5:00 PM: Session 9 and Closing

OSSArcFlow: Researching Archival Workflows for Born-Digital Content
Christopher (Cal) Lee (UNC-Chapel Hill), Jessica Meyerson (Educopia Institute) [Abstract/Bios] [Slides]

Looking Ahead to Next Year
Research Forum Program Committee [Slides]

Posters

C2Metadata Project
Jared Lyle (ICPSR, University of Michigan) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

“Thinking About Appraisal”: Defining Appraisal Frameworks as a Continuum
Joshua Kitchens (Clayton State University) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster] [Notes]

Curating Software: Practice and Promise
Alexandra Chassanoff (MIT) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Development of an Ontology of Functional Activities for Records Management and Archival Systems
Georg Gaenser (University of British Columbia) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

The State of Reappraisal and Deaccessioning in Archives
Marcella (Wiget) Huggard (University of Kansas), Laura Uglean Jackson (UC Irvine) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Providing Access to Community Archives within Government Archives
Patricia Galloway (University of Texas at Austin) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Crowdsourced Transcription of Handwritten Mental Health Records
Unmil P. Karadkar (University of Texas at Austin) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

In Search of Longitudinal Health Data: Bridging the Divide Between Historical Medical Records and EHRs
Lorrie Dong (University of Texas at Austin) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Digital Preservation Storage Criteria: Community Document for Discussion
Gail Truman (Truman Technologies) , Kate Zwaard (Library of Congress), Sibyl Schaefer (UC San Diego), Jane Mandelbaum (Library of Congress), Nancy McGovern (MIT), Steve Knight (National Library of New Zealand), Andrea Goethals (Harvard University) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Understanding (Mis)perceptions of Archives
Kelsey Duinkerken (Thomas Jefferson University) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Gender Identity and Performance in Library Work
Tatiana Bryant (University of Oregon), Hilary Bussell (Ohio State University) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Juggling Priorities: Lessons Learned During a Community Documentation Project
Tammi Kim (University of Nevada, Las Vegas), Emily Lapworth (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Mix and Match: Exploring Processing Efficiencies for Born-Digital Materials
Karla Irwin (University of Nevada, Las Vegas), Cyndi Shein (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster] [Notes]

Moving Image Social Tagging: Professional vs. Amateur Production Comparison
Edward Benoit (Louisiana State University) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Decisions Are Never Easy: Establishing Processing Priorities
Amy Cooper Cary (Marquette University), Pam Hackbart-Dean (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Collections, Discovery, Users, and Use: A Systematic Assessment of Statistics for the University of Nevada, Reno Special Collections
Jeremy Floyd (University of Nevada, Reno), Jessica Maddox (University of Nevada, Reno) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Fostering Stakeholder Engagement by Building Archivist Competencies in Technology: A Preliminary Discussion
Amanda Jamieson (Western University), Anne Daniel (Western University), Amanda Oliver (Western University) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Festival Caravan: Diversity in Action
Nathalie Proulx (Carson Brierly Griffin Dance Library) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Capturing the Current Scope: A Holdings Survey Initiative at the Detroit Institute of Arts’ Research Library and Archives
Danae Dracht (Detroit Institute of Arts) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Manuscript Cookbooks Survey: Building a Research Portal for Manuscript Cookbooks and Kitchen Artifacts
Alyse Hennig (Manuscript Cookbooks Survey) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Edit This! Enhancing Collaborative Public Programming Through Wikipedia Events
Rose Sliger Krause (Eastern Washington University), James Rosenzweig (Eastern Washington University), Logan Comporeale (Eastern Washington University) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster] [Handout]

Student Employment Matters: Mapping Literacies and Learning Outcomes in Special and Digital Collections
Erin Passehl-Stoddart (University of Idaho) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Extracting Metadata from Digital Records Using Computational Methods
Ann Marie Mesco (Carnegie Mellon University), Kate Barbera (Carnegie Mellon University) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

BitCurator NLP: Natural Language Processing for the Rest of Us
Christopher (Cal) Lee (UNC-Chapel Hill) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Where Are the Original Documents?: Comparison of Several “Captured Japanese Air Technical Documents” Lists
Yayoi Tsutsui (Hototsubashi University) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster] [Notes]

Paradigms & Possibilities of Incarceration-Related Records
Rhiannon Cates (Portland State University) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Archival Description and Network Analysis
Cory Nimer (Brigham Young University) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

Using the Archiving Lab: Values, Impacts, and Discourses
Amy Wickner (University of Maryland, College Park) [Abstract/Bio] [Poster]

CFP: disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 27: Archives

Call for Papers

Submission Deadline: December 1, 2017

http://uknowledge.uky.edu/disclosure/call_for_papers.pdf 

The editorial collective of the open access journal, disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory, calls for submissions that explore “Archives” for an issue to be published summer 2018. As early as the 1970s when French philosopher Michel Foucault published The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse of Language (1972), archives have undergone a conceptual shift from mere repositories of historical documents to representing processes of knowledge production and forms of social meaning. Two decades later, another French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, contemplated the power and authority of archives in his Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (1996). Today, archives continue to receive attention from scholars in the social sciences and the humanities. From the archival memory-work of Karen Till (2005; 2008) and Caitlin DeSilvey (2007), to recent scholarship on (post-)colonial archives and tribal knowledge (Christen 2012; Caswell 2014), the topic of archives has come to occupy a central space in the discourses of a vast array of disciplines and approaches. In addition to providing new insights, these works also serve to question widely held institutional beliefs and practices. In this vein, we seek submissions that look at a range of archives, including national, personal, and community archives to investigate the ways in which documents, images, objects, and places serve various purposes and occupy different types of cultural, intellectual, and physical spaces. Possible topics may include:

  • Archives in practice
  • Bodies in archives / bodies as archives
  • Participatory approaches to archives
  • Community archives
  • Archival methodology
  • Digital archives
  • Memory and archives
  • Rhetoric of the archive
  • Literary archives
  • Art and archive
  • Archives and (post-)colonialism
  • Race, culture, and archives
  • Silence and speaking / absence and presence
  • Hauntings
  • Queer and queering archives
  • Affect and archives
  • The future of archives

Additionally, submissions may explore memory institutions, broadly conceived, in order to touch on the constitution of libraries, museums, and universities, and their relation to social practice and theory. Finally, we welcome submissions that investigate archives and archival practices beyond the borders of the United States and outside of the global west.

More details can be found here: http://uknowledge.uky.edu/disclosure/call_for_papers.pdf

New Issue: Fonds d’Archives

Fonds d’Archives No. 1 (2017)
(open access)

Introduction
Braden Cannon, Michael Gourlie

Four Views on Archival Decolonization Inspired by the TRC’s Calls to Action
Greg Bak, Tolly Bradford, Jessie Loyer, Elizabeth Walker

Archives 101: Engaging Post-Secondary Students with Primary Sources
Emily Lonie, Ashleigh Androsoff

CFP: Special Issue of Critical Interventions: Journal of African Art History and Visual Culture

Sources and Resources: Photography and Archives in Africa

Special issue of Critical Interventions

edited by Jürg Schneider, Marian Nur Goni, and Érika Nimis

Since the “discovery” of photography in Africa and photographs from Africa as sources for academic research or marketable goods on the international art market some 25 year ago, photo archives have increasingly attracted the attention of scholars, art dealers, artists and curators, who also act as resource persons and main intermediaries between the archives and the public. From the early 1990s on, various individuals from the global North have been ploughing the African continent, mainly focussing on early photo studios, in search of historical photographs which also engendered important material gains. Researchers working in and with photo collections of professional studio photographers, state press agencies, para state institutions and families have created from these sources an impressive though still incomplete corpus of scholarly work that touches on a great variety of topics such as biographies of early and contemporary African photographers or the various forms of photographic practices on the continent. Photo exhibitions and festivals in the North and South organized by a rather exclusive group of curators have mushroomed in recent years and so have exhibition catalogues and monographs. Not least, the last ten years have seen a number of projects that focussed on the digitization (and to a lesser extent material preservation) of photo collections in Sub-Saharan Africa with the common goal of conserving the visual heritage of the continent and making it accessible to a wider public. All this has had and still has a deep impact on the circulation, accessibility, perception and use of historical photographs from Africa. Likewise, all these activities have profoundly changed our understanding of photographs’ materiality, the ways how it is perceived, dealt with and addressed as well as the cultural and economic value that is attributed to them.

But not only was the photograph as the material, or after its digitization, immaterial carrier of visual information of the past affected by these activities but also the archive. Answering to changing societal processes and discourses, market logics and explicit or implicit policies with regard to access, reproduction and preservation photo archives are more than ever exposed to troubling dynamics of reconfiguration and profound transformations. New technological resources – the Internet, digitization and databases – have qualified the materiality of photo archives and challenge the boundaries between form and content. The archive has lost much of its status as a national or personal patrimony, but increasingly circulates “in global systems of loan, exchanges and markets” (Hall 2002, 337)*. What is more, photo archives, and the control over the inclusion, exclusion, circulation and access of and to the materials they hold, have now increasingly become tokens in a struggle for political, social or economic power and the formation of cultural and national identities.

Contributors to this special issue of Critical Interventions on Photography and Archives in Africa are invited to rethink in new terms all issues addressed above, based on the notions of sources (the photographic archive itself in all its forms) and resources (encompassing all of the persons, means and technological tools involved in the valorization of photographic archives), in order to offer new readings of these two key notions in this specific field of research.

* Hall, Martin. 2002. « Blackbirds and Black Butterflies. » In Refiguring the Archive, edited by Carolyn Hamilton, Verne Harris, Michèle Pickover et al., Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 333-361.

Please submit your abstract by Sept. 1st, 2017 to: juerg.schneider@unibas.ch, m.nurgoni@gmail.com, and nimis.erika@uqam.ca

Submitted abstracts should be no longer than 500 words, and be sent as an attachment in Microsoft Word or PDF format.

New Page: Awards

I’ve previously posted announcements about awards, and slowly I’ve collected information. Explore my new page about Awards, and I encourage authors to apply. Promote your scholarship!

I took liberties with the list; they are not all archival scholarship-specific. However, I did this purposely to create awareness of not just award opportunities, but publishing opportunities. The more we can publish outside our profession (even in library journals), the better.

I compiled the list primarily by looking at SAA’s list of archival and allied organizations, plus a few others I came across. If you know of others, please comment below. I’ll continue to post announcements when I’m aware of them.

Award: LPC Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Library Publishing

Announcing the 2017 recipients of the LPC Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Library Publishing: Charlotte Roh and Harrison Inefuku

February 14, 2017 — The Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2017 Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Library Publishing. This year’s award recipients are Charlotte Roh (University of San Francisco) and Harrison Inefuku (Iowa State University) for their chapter “Agents of Diversity and Social Justice: Librarians and Scholarly Communication.” Eds. Smith, Kevin and Dickson, Katherine A. in Open Access and the Future of Scholarly Communication: Policy and Infrastructure. Rowman and Littlefield, 2016. p.107-28.As participation in library publishing grows, the development of a strong evidence base to inform best practices and demonstrate impact is essential. To encourage research and theoretical work about library publishing services, the LPC offers an annual Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Library Publishing, which recognizes the best publication from the preceding calendar year. The LPC Research Committee evaluates submissions and selects a recipient for the award.Roh and Inefuku’s work will be formally recognized at the 2017 Library Publishing Forum in Baltimore, Maryland. They will receive a cash award of $250, travel support to attend the Forum, and an opportunity to share their work with the community.