New Issue: Restaurator. International Journal for the Preservation of Library and Archival Material

Restaurator. International Journal for the Preservation of Library and Archival Material, vol. 44 issue 3
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Some Practical Aspects of Nanocellulose Film: Characterization, Expansion and Shrinking Tests, and Techniques to Create Remoistenable Nanocellulose
Robin Canham, Alison Murray, Rosaleen Hill

Hidden Players: Small Paper Nails—Manufacture and Application of Paper Nails in Chinese Double-Leaved Books
Rong Yu, Zhewei Shen, Peng Liu

Barriers to Preservation for Digital Information Resources in University Libraries of Pakistan
Rafiq Ahmad, Muhammad Rafiq, Muhammad Arif

Intelligent Repair Method for Archival Videos Based on the Super-SloMo Technology
Hui Li

Announcing the “Archival Futures: Ethics and Carework in the Archive” Reading Group

From Archive/Counterarchive

If the archive is a remnant, it is one that keeps whispering to me, insisting on its place in my everyday life.

Julietta Singh, No Archive Will Restore You (Punctum, 2018)

How have attitudes about ethics and care in archival research – and other work concerning archives and special collections – changed in recent years? How has this shifted the social, cultural, economic, and political significance of archives in scholarly and creative forms of humanistic inquiry? In the Archival Futures reading group, we will make our way through a curated list of key readings that illustrate the ways that archival scholarship in a variety of disciplines and research areas and features a range of important voices in the field. Selected readings focus on contemporary, evolving critical and generative conversations taking place between scholars and the archive, attending to themes of ethics and carework and the ways relationships between collections and different forms of scholarship are framed and reimagined in recent texts. 

Our first reading will be a selection from Michelle Caswell’s Urgent Archives: Enacting Liberatory Memory Work (Routledge, 2021), a call to action for archivists and others to reimagine and renegotiate the relations between archives, affected communities, and the present.

This reading group is intended for academics, artists, and memory workers from any background interested and/or involved in scholarly and creative research about archives and invites participants to read, discuss, and share perspectives. Some knowledge and experience working and reading in archives and/or archival studies is useful but not necessary.

SCHEDULE AND REGISTRATION

The group will be led by Dr. Julia Polyck-O’Neill (University of Guelph). The first session will take place via Zoom on Thursday Oct 5 at 4:30pm EST. Please register using the Google Form below. Subsequent meetings will also be held throughout the Fall and Winter semesters, with specific dates to be announced shortly. 

https://forms.gle/3WpLKCcv79HG9uDb7

New Issue: Code4Lib

Code4Lib, Issue 57, 2023-08-29
open access

There are several articles of interest to archivists:

Evaluating HTJ2K as a Drop-In Replacement for JPEG2000 with IIIF
Glen Robson, Stefano Cossu, Ruven Pillay, Michael D. Smith

From DSpace to Islandora: Why and How
Vlastimil Krejčíř, Alžbeta Strakošová, and Jan Adler

Creating a Full Multitenant Back End User Experience in Omeka S with the Teams Module
Alexander Dryden and Daniel G. Tracy

The Forgotten Disc: Synthesis and Recommendations for Viable VCD Preservation
Andrew Weaver and Ashley Blewer

Breathing Life into Archon: A Case Study in Working with an Unsupported System
Krista L. Gray

Seeking Managing Editor and Book Review Editor for the Oral History Review

OHA is pleased to announce the first two members of the 2024-26 editorial team for its journal, Oral History Review: Holly Werner-Thomas as editor, and Robert LaRose as copy editor. Holly and Robert bring impressive experience and expertise to lead the next era of this leading oral history research journal published for OHA by Routledge/Taylor and Francis.

The OHA is searching for two additional team members to join Holly & Robert on the new editorial team in the roles of Managing Editor and Book Review Editor. Learn more and apply by September 15th here: https://oha.memberclicks.net/ohr-editor-app

This call is open to oral history practitioners – including oral historians, librarians, archivists, freelance/independent historians, instructors, trainers – located worldwide.

Contact Information

Oral History Association

Contact Email

oha@oralhistory.org

URL

2024-26 OHR Editorial Team Updates

Call for Proposals: AI in OH Online Symposium

AI in OH: How New and Evolving Technologies Will Impact the Profession

Since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the fall of 2022, artificial intelligence, or AI for short, has pervaded our shared discourse and lexicon. Myriad organizations and sectors are at once hurriedly embracing and cautiously considering the impacts large language models and complex algorithms might have on their industries. Oral history is not immune to AI’s influence, and in certain cases the profession might already hold extant examples of its effects on practice.

For this online symposium, OHA invites oral history practitioners and scholars from all disciplines who utilize oral history in their work to submit paper or roundtable proposals detailing any number of intersections between artificial intelligence and oral history. Topics could include, but are not limited to:

  • Augmenting/Improving oral history workflows with AI tools
  • Impacts of utilizing oral histories for large language model training
  • Influences of AI in representations of racial/ethnic identity or racial power structures
  • Creative/Productive uses of oral history material via AI tools
  • Ethical considerations regarding AI behaviors or products
  • Ruminations on the future of the field in an AI-driven world

The symposium is tentatively set for the work week of July 15, 2024, with its ultimate timing/length determined by the strength of the submission field. Proposals may either be submitted as stand-alone papers/presentations, a panel of topically coherent papers/presentations, a roundtable centered around a central theme, or a two-hour workshop. Your proposal should include:

  • The title of each paper, presentation, and/or proposed panel/roundtable/workshop
  • An abstract of no more than 500 words for each individual paper/presentation/workshop, or a single abstract for a proposed roundtable
  • Name, affiliation, and email address for each prospective participant
  • A short bio of no more than 250 words for each prospective participant

For those looking to find fellow presenters for their panel, roundtable, or workshop idea, feel free to use OHA’s collaborative Google Doc for the symposium found HERE.

Submit your proposals within the OHA Symposium Portal by January 1st, 2024. If you have any questions about the submission process, please reach out to AI in OH program co-chairs Steven Sielaff (steven_sielaff@baylor.edu) & Sarah Milligan (sarah.milligan@okstate.edu).

Proposals will be reviewed by a program committee in early 2024, with applicants being informed of their acceptance or declination by March 1st, 2024. The full program will be released and registration for the symposium will open shortly thereafter. For future news and updates, please visit the official symposium website: https://oralhistory.org/ai

Contact Information

Steven Sielaff – Associate Director, Oral History Association

Contact Email

Steven_Sielaff@baylor.edu

URL

AI in OH Virtual Symposium (July 2024)

CfP (Special Issue): Culturally-Specific Museums and Archives: Between Diasporic Culture and Australian Heritage

Call for Papers

Culturally-Specific Museums and Archives: Between Diasporic Culture and Australian Heritage

To migrant communities in Australia and their descendants, dedicated archives and museums documenting culturally-specific material and experiences have been significant spaces for activism, integration, reflexion and community identity. These archives and museums first emerged in the 1950s and 60s, possibly fulfilling similar roles to community associations. Some may have been inspired by a growing interest in local Australian history at this time when many historical societies in regional areas were established; others adopted a more explicitly activist role, viewing their diaspora and its cultural maintenance as a form of opposition to homeland political developments. These early museums and archives include the Estonian Archives in Australia (Sydney, 1952), Lobethal Archives and Historical Museum (Loebethal, 1956), Lithuanian Museum (Adelaide, 1961), Jindera Pioneer Museum and Historical Society (Jindera, 1968), Latvian Museum, (Adelaide, 1970), Ukrainian Museum (Adelaide, 1979), and the Jewish Museum of Australia (Melbourne, 1982).

After the introduction of multicultural policies from the 1970s onwards—in response to grassroots activism emanating from the migrant rights movement and ethnic welfare societies—local and state governments have also funded culturally specific museums as a part of tourism initiatives, particularly in culturally specific precincts, including the Museum of Chinese Australian History (Melbourne, 1984) and the Museo Italiano (Melbourne, 2010), which grew from Co.As.It. Italian Historical Society. At other times, policies around social cohesion in the wake of major events like September 11, 2001 led to the funding of culturally specific museums by Federal and State governments, such as the Islamic Museum of Australia (Melbourne, 2014).

A great deal has been written on the question of community engagement and cultural diversity in museums, as well as diasporic heritage and memory in the Australian context (Szekeres 2011; Darian-Smith and Hamilton 2019; Dellios and Henrich 2021; Kornfeld 1997; Witcomb 2013). The special edition of Humanities Research edited by Claire Farago and Donald Preziosi in 2009, for example, was instrumental in thinking critically about the tensions between multiculturalism, pluralism, and the dictates of national cohesiveness in Australian museums. It was in this context of inquiry that further attention started to be paid to culturally-specific museums and archives, with seminal contributions documenting their history in Australia and the specific place they hold in the museum landscape (Viv Szekeres 2011; Light 2016). Conversations about migrant heritage, however, has remained primarily focused on state-funded museums, often overlooking how these dynamics unfold within community-operated, culturally-specific museums and archives.

We are seeking contributions about culturally-specific museums and archives in Australia, the social roles they have played for migrant and diasporic communities in Australia and beyond, the multilayered identities they promote, their relationship to multiculturalism (as a prescriptive policy framework and as a descriptor of the social milieu), as well as the opportunities and the challenges they represent for the communities that operate them. We are also interested in contributions that examine their relations to local government, state and national museums, libraries and archives dedicated to social history in Australia, exploring differences and similarities in terms of curatorial practices (collecting, preserving and exhibiting), community engagement and institutional features.

Questions underlying this special edition include:

  • How and why did culturally-specific museums and archives emerge in Australia?
  • What do museums or archives have to offer to migrant/diaspora communities in Australia that other means of representations do not?
  • How can culturally-specific museums and archives act as both cultural repositories and dynamic spaces to continue national, transnational, and cross-cultural imagining?
  • To what extent do culturally-specific museums and archives share in a common discourse of interculturality, or alternatively, respond to localised debates and frames of reference?
  • How specific is museum and archival practice in a culturally-specific/community-operated museum?
  • What engagement have culturally-specific museums and archives make with First Nations’ heritage and experiences?
  • How have culturally-specific museums and archives handled relationships with the governments of their places of origin, which can include being involved with Australia’s diplomatic relations with those governments?

Interested participants, please submit your abstract by 20 December to Dr. Virginie Rey at virginie.rey@deakin.edu.au; cc Dr Alexandra Dellios alexandra.dellios@anu.edu.au and Dr Karen Schamberger at kschamberger@nla.gov.au

Contact Information

Contact Email: alexandra.dellios@anu.edu.au

Rejoinder Call for Submissions — The Archival is Political

The Archival is Political

This issue of Rejoinder addresses the power and politics of the archive as an object of fascination for feminist/queer scholars and activists. Carolyn Steedman states that “you find nothing in the Archive but stories caught half way through: the middle of things; discontinuities” (2002, 45), while Gracen Brilmyer argues that archives are assemblages of “people, places, policies, attitudes, environments, and materials across time” (2018, 98). At the same time that archives can be sites of radical hope for the preservation of the histories of women, queer folks, people of color, and otherwise marginalized groups, they are also institutions that have historically enacted immense violence. As Saidiya Hartman asks: “is it possible to exceed or negotiate the constitutive limits of the archive?” (2008, 11). In other words, what is the past, present, and future of feminist and queer archival practice?

We invite interdisciplinary submissions that address the “archival turn” in feminist and queer studies. Submissions may include essays, commentary, criticism, fiction, poetry, and artwork from any discipline. We particularly welcome work that connects archival practice to activism, whether this be archival collections focused on activist history or archival collection as a political project for historical redress. Other topics may include digital archives, fictional archives, archival silences and violence, archival management, and information sciences. Together these contributions will reflect the contradictions of, and aspirations for, feminist and queer archives.

For manuscript preparation details, please see our website at: https://irw.rutgers.edu/about-rejoinder. Rejoinder is published by the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University in partnership with The Feminist Art Project.

This special issue of Rejoinder will be edited by Alexandra Southgate (Temple University). Please send completed written work (2,000-2,500 words max), jpegs of artwork, and short bios to irw@sas.rutgers.edu with “Rejoinder Submission” in the subject line by December 15, 2023.

Special Issue, Internet Archaeology: Digital Archiving in Archaeology: The State of the Art II

This issue of Internet Archaeology is jointly sponsored by COST Action SEADDA (CA18128) (funded by the European Union) and the European Archaeological Consilium (EAC).

Also see: Digital Archiving in Archaeology: The State of the Art (2021). Issue 58

Archaeological Data Archiving in Croatia

Filomena Sirovica and Ivan Radman-Livaja

Cite this as: Sirovica, F. and Radman-Livaja, I. 2023 Archaeological Data Archiving in Croatia, Internet Archaeology 63. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.63.1

The State of the Art of Digital Archiving in Romania­

Marius Streinu and Bogdan Șandric

Cite this as: Streinu, M. and Șandric, B. 2023 The State of the Art of Digital Archiving in Romania, Internet Archaeology 63. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.63.2

Digital Archaeology in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Current State and Future Challenges

Meliha Handzic and Ivana Pandzic

Cite this as: Handzic, M. and Pandzic, I. 2023 Digital Archaeology in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Current State and Future Challenges, Internet Archaeology 63. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.63.3

Developing Access to Digital Archaeology Data Resources in Ireland

Anthony Corns, John O’Keeffe and Rónán Swan

Cite this as: Corns, A., O’Keefe, J. and Swan, R. 2023 Developing Access to Digital Archaeology Data Resources in Ireland, Internet Archaeology 63. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.63.4

The State of the Art of Digital Archiving for Archaeology in Cyprus

Valentina Vassallo, Luciarita Nunziata, Maria Makri, Aspasia Soula Georgiadou and Sorin Hermon

Cite this as: Vassallo, V., Nunziata, L., Makri, M., Georgiadou, A.S., Hermon, S. 2023 The State of the Art of Digital Archiving for Archaeology in Cyprus, Internet Archaeology 63. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.63.5

Archiving Digital Archaeological Data – Evaluation of a Survey in Germany

Reiner Göldner, David Bibby and Henriette Senst

Cite this as: Göldner, R, Bibby, D. and Senst, H. 2023 Archiving Digital Archaeological Data – Evaluation of a Survey in Germany, Internet Archaeology 63. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.63.6

Digital Archaeological Archiving Policies and Practice in Europe: the EAC call for action

David Novák, Agnieszka Oniszczuk and Barbara Gumbert

Cite this as: Novák, D., Oniszczuk, A. and Gumbert, B. 2023 Digital Archaeological Archiving Policies and Practice in Europe: the EAC call for action, Internet Archaeology 63. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.63.7

Understanding Data Reuse and Barriers to Reuse of Archaeological Data. A quality-in-use methodological approach

Kristy-Lee Seaton, Rimvydas Laužikas, Peter McKeague, Vera Moitinho de Almeida, Keith May and Holly Wright

Cite this as: Seaton, K-L., Laužikas, R., McKeague, P., Moitinho de Almeida, V., May, K. and Wright, H. 2023 Understanding Data Reuse and Barriers to Reuse of Archaeological Data. A quality-in-use methodological approach, Internet Archaeology 63. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.63.8

CFP: Cultural Heritage Institutions SWPACA 2024

Call for Papers: Cultural Heritage Institutions, Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)
45th Annual Conference, February 21-24, 2024
Marriott Albuquerque
Albuquerque, New Mexico
http://www.southwestpca.org

Submissions open on September 1, 2023

Proposal submission deadline: October 31, 2023

Proposals for papers and panels are now being accepted for the 45th annual SWPACA conference. One of the nation’s largest interdisciplinary academic conferences, SWPACA offers nearly 70 subject areas, each typically featuring multiple panels.  For a full list of subject areas, area descriptions, and Area Chairs, please visit http://southwestpca.org/conference/call-for-papers/

The Cultural Heritage Institutions area solicits proposals from librarians, archivists, curators, graduate students, faculty, collectors, writers, independent scholars, and other aficionados (yes! including people who use libraries, archives, and museums!) of popular culture and cultural heritage settings of all types. We also encourage proposals for slide shows, video presentations, panels, and roundtables organized around common themes.

Some suggested topics include:

  • Histories and profiles of popular culture resources and collections in cultural heritage institutions; a chance to show off what you’ve got to scholars who might want to use it
  • Intellectual freedom or cultural sensitivity issues related to popular culture resources
  • Book clubs and reading groups, city- or campus-wide reading programs
  • Special exhibits of popular culture resources, outreach programs, etc. of cultural heritage institutions
  • Collection and organization of popular culture resources; marketing and ethical issues
  • Web 2.0, gaming, semantic web, etc. and their impact on libraries, archives, museums, and digital humanities collections
  • The role of public libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions in economic hard times and natural disasters
  • Oral history projects
  • Digital humanities and other digital/data-based projects on popular culture, the Southwest, and other relevant subjects, both those based in cultural heritage institutions and those in academia or other organizations.

We encourage proposals for panels and roundtables organized around common themes.

All proposals must be submitted through the conference’s database at http://register.southwestpca.org/southwestpca

For details on using the submission database and on the application process in general, please see the Proposal Submission FAQs and Tips page at http://southwestpca.org/conference/faqs-and-tips/

Individual proposals for 15-minute papers must include an abstract of approximately 200-500 words. Including a brief bio in the body of the proposal form is encouraged, but not required.  

For information on how to submit a proposal for a roundtable or a multi-paper panel, please view the above FAQs and Tips page.  

The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2023.  

SWPACA offers monetary awards for the best graduate student papers in a variety of categories. Submissions of accepted, full papers are due January 1, 2024.  SWPACA also offers travel fellowships for undergraduate and graduate students. For more information, visit http://southwestpca.org/conference/graduate-student-awards/

Registration and travel information for the conference will be available at http://southwestpca.org/conference/conference-registration-information/

For 2023, we are excited to be at a new venue, the Marriott Albuquerque (2101 Louisiana Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM 87110), which boasts free parking and close proximity to dining, shopping, and other delights.

In addition, please check out the organization’s peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, at http://journaldialogue.org/

If you have any questions about the Cultural Heritage Institutions area, please contact its Area Chair, Suzanne Stauffer, Louisiana State University, stauffer@lsu.edu. If you have general questions about the conference, please contact us at support@southwestpca.org, and a member of the executive team will get back to you.

This will be a fully in-person conference. If you’re looking for an online option to present your work, keep an eye out for details about the 2024 SWPACA Summer Salon, a completely virtual conference to take place in June 2024. However, do keep in mind that the Summer Salon is a smaller conference with limited presentation slots and no student funding assistance.

Call for Submissions: Collaborative Librarianship

Countering Weaponized Tradition: Libraries and Archives Using Collaboration and Tradition as a Catalyst for Progress

Guest edited by Erin Renee Wahl and Arlene Schmuland

A lot has been written on the benefits of understanding the history and traditions of organizations when you join the team, but not a lot has been written on the ways history and tradition can be used to affect an organization negatively, or what actual tangible progress comes from understanding this history and using it to instigate positive change. This special issue seeks to open a dialogue that might offer a broader, honest perspective of progress informed by organizational history and traditions in libraries and archives. This issue will explore how librarians or archivists have taken institutional history and tradition and pivoted the narrative towards progressive changes. A relevant topic even prior to 2020, the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic showed libraries and archives where their organizations were weakest and has left even the strongest organizations wondering how to leverage tradition for future diversification…and who else to bring into the process. In addition, library and archives employees who were already taxed by the tough realities of work are now asking more serious questions about their work environments and wondering how to leverage traditions and collaborations to create a more progressive work environment.

Some topics you might want to consider include:

  • How do you create buy-in in your library/archives/department to change legacy practices?
  • What pre-COVID traditions has your library/archives shifted as you return to normal? What led you to make this change?
  • What assessment methods do you use to inform shifting traditional practices? Where is your change originating from?
  • How do you encourage new librarians and staff members to utilize their expertise to implement change?
  • Legacy and tradition are not necessarily bad. What legacy practices have you deliberately maintained and why? What led you to this decision?
  • How do you create balance between legacy practices and progressive momentum?
  • It’s not just about planning for shifts: almost every practice shift requires significant labor to achieve. Whether that’s temporary work or changing existing workloads: how have you managed the labor costs of practice changes?
  • How do you work flexibility for change into strategic planning and core library documents?
  • And any other topics you think might be relevant to this!

Don’t forget the collaborative focus…

In keeping with the overall focus of the journal Collaborative Librarianship, all proposals and articles must focus on collaborative approaches to changing weaponized traditions. These approaches will have utilized cooperation between multiple departments, organizations, libraries, archives, etc. rather than an approach handled by single entities. Collaborating entities can be from the same institution but it must be made clear how this cooperation entailed working outside of what departments, etc. have done in the past, and what is “typical” in our field. In addition, we hope to prioritize articles written by co-authors in different libraries, archives, departments, and other disciplines who did this work together.

Please make sure you familiarize yourself with what Collaborative Librarianship prefers to publish by perusing recently published issues and visiting these webpages:

Authors should submit proposals or fully finished articles using the form and instructions to the guest editors via this link: https://forms.gle/QPC1GxbhKe1c5sfo8