Tag: American Archivist

New Issue: American Archivist

In issue 88.1 of American Archivist, Helen Wong Smith urges the profession to increase collaboration in her Presidential Address from the 2024 Annual Meeting; Megan K. Friedel offers pathways for archivists to apply reparative description practices to disability histories; and Alexandra Chassanoff, Eliscia Kinder, and Elliott Kuecker share experiences teaching MLIS students to use regional primary sources to construct digital history exhibits. Also in this issue, discover six excellent reviews on recent archives publications.

This issue also features a Special Section on Accessioning edited by Rosemary K. J. Davis, Audra Eagle Yun, and Rachel Searcy. The section contains five articles on a diverse range of topics, including a case study confronting the challenges of accessioning in a repository with limited resources, a case study detailing the process of starting a born-digital archival accessioning program and designing workflows scalable for a small institution, excerpts from the National Best Practices for Archival Accessioning Working Group’s Archival Accessioning Best Practices, and an introduction from the co-editors of this special section.

On the Cover: Accessioning-themed embroidery art created by guest editor Rachel Searcy. Based on the iconic “Mom Heart” tattoo motif from the American traditional tattoo style, the banner reads “Accession.” Leaves and flowers around the heart symbolize the growth of accessioning practice in recent years, and the bird represents its flight to new heights. Created by hand with needle and thread, this piece demonstrates the craft of accessioning and highlights the labor required to do accessioning work. Read this issue’s Special Section on Accessioning starting on page 10. Photo courtesy of Rachel Searcy.

American Archivist 88.1 (Spring/Summer 2025)
Table of Contents

(Review access here)

From the Editor

Presidential Address

From the Special Section Co-Editors

Special Section: Accessioning

Articles 

Reviews

New Issue: American Archivist

American Archivist 87.2 (Fall/Winter 2024)
Table of Contents

(Review access here)

From the Editor

Articles 

Reviews

Announcements from SAA and CFP

Introducing: American Archivist Submissions Window
SAA’s leading publication in the archives field, American Archivist, is introducing a submissions window beginning with issue 88.2 (Fall/Winter 2025). The submissions window for this issue opens January 1 through February 15, 2025. For more information on submitting content, including research articles, case studies, perspectives, book reviews, and book review essays, please visit the American Archivist submissions page.

Submit to a Special Section of American Archivist on User Experience
The American Archivist Editorial Board invites proposal submissions for a Special Section in American Archivist exploring the wide-ranging spectrum of user experience topics and initiatives in the archives field. The goal of this Special Section is to showcase the importance of user experience work to the wider professional community. The deadline for proposals is February 1, 2025.

Read the Latest Review on the Reviews Portal 
In the newest review on the American Archivist Reviews Portal, Cheryl Oestreicher (Boise State University) reviews Heritage, Memory and Identity in Postcolonial Board Games, edited by Michal Mochocki (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2024). The book includes authors from a variety of disciplines examining game studies through numerous lenses, especially nostalgia and colonialism. Oestreicher writes, “Archivists are acutely aware that an ‘idyllic past’ does not really exist and thus understand the importance of ensuring a more historically accurate record.” Read the full review here. 

New Issue: American Archivist

American Archivist 87.1 (Spring/Summer 2024)
Table of Contents

(Review access here)

From the Editor

Presidential Address

Theodore Calvin Pease Award Essay

Articles

Perspectives

Reviews

CFP: Archival Accessioning, special issue of American Archivist

The American Archivist editorial board invites submissions for a special section in American Archivist illuminating the wide-ranging spectrum of archival accessioning practices in the archives field today.

This special section will place dual emphasis on the process and output of the National Best Practices for Archival Accessioning Working Group (ABP), along with broader practical experiences and perspectives from folks actively working to implement a diverse range of accessioning labor throughout the archival lifecycle in different contexts. We strongly encourage submissions that are practical in nature, as well as works that explore contemporary accessioning theory and praxis.

Submissions can explore any of the many operational facets of contemporary archival accessioning, including:

  • pre-custodial engagement, donor relations, radical empathy and candor, and relationship building/maintenance
  • packing and transportation of collection material
  • foundational and/or iterative archival description
  • development of an accessioning program, particularly as it relates to operational impact and sustainable stewardship
  • born-digital accessioning
  • ethical concerns and lived experiences related to accessioning practices
  • physical stabilization, preservation interventions, space usage, and stacks management
  • sustainability and climate impact of accessioning practices
  • appraisal, deaccessioning, and reappraisal
  • management of and advocacy for accessioning labor
  • perspectives on the evolution of archival accessioning; critical analysis of foundational concepts; archival concepts (e.g., provenance, respect des fonds, appraisal) in relation to contemporary accessioning practices
  • post-colonial, post-custodial, reparative, and/or community-centered approaches to accessioning
  • applied theoretical frameworks (e.g., critical race theory, feminist theory)
  • perspectives on archival education and training for accessioning 
  • members of the National Best Practices for Archival Accessioning Working Group (ABP) are particularly encouraged to submit pieces that place the newly developed best practices into real world contexts or that expand upon aspects of the best practices

We seek submissions from authors with a variety of career experiences and diverse perspectives related to archival accessioning practices. The editorial team especially encourages submissions from first-time authors and early-career archives and special collections professionals, as well as from colleagues working in nonprofit organizations; HBCUs, AANAPISIs, and/or HSIs; public libraries; museums; and community archives.

Submissions may take any of the following forms:

  • Research Articles: analytical and critical expositions based on original investigation or on systematic review of literature. (Suggested length: 8,000 words)
  • Case Studies: analytical reports of projects or activities that take place in a specific setting and offer the basis for emulation or comparison in other settings. (Suggested length: 3,000 words)
  • Perspectives: commentaries, reflective or opinion pieces, addressing issues or practices that concern archivists and their constituents. (Suggested length: 2,000-2500 words)
  • Professional Resources: can be annotated bibliographies, other items designed for practical use within the profession, or essays that review the developments (as opposed to the literature) in specified areas in a way that describes particular initiatives and places them in the context of broader trends. (Length varies)

American Archivist is the peer-reviewed, semi-annual journal of the Society of American Archivists. Established in 1938, the journal seeks to reflect thinking about theoretical and practical developments in the archival profession; the relationships between archivists and the creators and users of archives; and cultural, social, legal, and technological developments that affect the nature of recorded information and the need to create and maintain it. 

Submissions will be reviewed by the editorial team, following American Archivist editorial policies. All submissions selected for inclusion in this special section will go through the American Archivist peer review process, the rubric for which can be found here. 

Inquiries and submissions can be sent to: accessioningspecialsection@gmail.com 

The deadline for submissions is October 1st, 2024.

Editorial Team

Rosemary K. J. Davis
Head, Archival Accessioning
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library 
Yale University Library

Rachel Searcy
Accessioning Archivist, Archival Collections Management
New York University Libraries

Audra Eagle Yun
Head of Special Collections & Archives
University Archivist
University of California, Irvine Libraries

American Archivist Generative AI Statement

Introduction:

In Spring of 2023, American Archivist editors learned that authors had used artificial intelligence (AI) platforms such as ChatGPT in submissions to the Reviews Portal. This sparked a conversation within the Editorial Board about the ethical use of AI in American Archivist content. As ChatGPT and other AI programs are becoming ubiquitous, the American Archivist Editorial Board is endorsing the following Norms and Recommendations for AI use within our publications. 

The Editorial Board recognizes that the technological landscape is rapidly evolving with regard to AI in scholarship and journal publication. We recognize that AI has great potential to contribute to archivists’ professional work, including creating summary documents for finding aids and facilitating data analysis for large projects. The American Archivist Editorial Board recognizes the opportunity to engage AI for scholarship and professional growth.

For the integrity of the journal, our goal is to define standards for the journal and the reviews portal, and to encourage authors to be transparent about their use of generative AI platforms, including ChatGPT, in content they submit. While the Editorial Board will not reject a piece solely based on the use of AI, we want to be clear about how AI is used in any context in American Archivist. We value an ethical approach to publishing and transparency for our professional membership and our readership.

We recognize that there is a distinction between using AI for assistance with spelling and grammar, and using AI to generate content. Multiple disciplines are voicing concerns about generative AI, and as a journal representing one arm of the allied information professions, this is what concerns us most. First, generative AI may pose substantial issues for copyright and intellectual property: generative AI uses other publications and writings that appear online, and these may not be appropriately attributed for copyright purposes. AI generated content may also reproduce biases from existing online content, and spread misinformation. In addition, our own editorial experience has shown that AI generated citations may produce references to articles that simply do not exist.[1]

In an effort to discourage the spread of misinformation, in an effort to maintain integrity of the journal, and to value our responsibility to authors, Society of American Archivist (SAA) members, and readers, the American Archivist Editorial Board is setting forth these Norms and Recommendations for the use of AI in our publications.

Norms and Recommendations:

These Norms and Recommendations represent an ethical agreement between authors submitting content to the journal and portal, and the Editorial Board. They are intended to encourage transparency in the use of AI in the research and publication process. They are not strictly enforced, nor do they purport to be a legally binding agreement between SAA, American Archivist, or the authors submitting content. The Editorial Board will review these norms and recommendations on an annual basis.

• No article will be summarily rejected because of the use of AI.

• Articles containing purely generated AI content are prohibited. 

• Authors must disclose the use of AI when a manuscript (review or article) is submitted. This includes, but is not limited to, AI generated content and data analysis. For maximum transparency, this disclosure should appear at the beginning of the article—in an author’s note, the abstract, or a statement prior to the article’s introduction.

• All content—regardless of the use of AI—will go through normal review channels (double blind peer review and/or editorial review, as appropriate).

• Editorial decisions are made based on peer/editorial review, quality of writing, and content. 

• Editors reserve the right to request AI transcripts from authors as well as additional information about its specific use, including where and how AI was used in the piece.

• Editors reserve the right to provide AI transcripts to peer reviewers as context for the piece.

Adopted February 15, 2024

Next scheduled review: February 2025

[1] Why does ChatGPT generate fake references? – TECHE (mq.edu.au) 

Read other submissions guidelines here. 

Lunch and Learn: How to Write for American Archivist

The Society of American Archivists- Archivists of Religious Collections Section invites you to a Lunch and Learn: How to write for American Archivist.

Join Amy Cooper Cary for a presentation on how to write for the flagship periodical, American Archivist.

Nov 16, 2023 01:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Register here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/…

American Archivist Editor Amy Cooper Cary is Head of Special Collections and University Archives at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She has served as Editor of Archival Issues, Reviews Editor for RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts and Cultural Heritage and American Archivist, and has been a member of the Editorial Board for Journal of Archival Organization. Outside of her editorial work and writing about archives, she has published various nonfiction articles, encyclopedia contributions, translation from French, and original poetry. She is a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists.

New Issue: American Archivist

American Archivist vol. 86 no. 1

FROM THE EDITOR
Mirror, Mirror
Amy Cooper Cary

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
“Show? To Who?”
Courtney Chartier

A*CENSUS II
A*CENSUS II Building a Baseline of Archival Data with A*CENSUS II
Jennifer Gunter King; Beth Myers

A*CENSUS II: All Archivists Survey Report
Makala Skinner; Ioana G. Hulbert

ARTICLES
“Sometimes I feel like they hate us”: The Society of American Archivists and Graduate Archival Education in the Twenty-first Century
Alex H. Poole; Ashley Todd-Diaz

The Academic Enclosure of American Archivist
Eira Tansey

College and University Archivists: Doing It All for Less
Michelle Sweetser; Tamar Chute; Elizabeth James; Jane LaBarbara; Krista Oldham

Adapting for Distance: A Perspective on Team-based Archival Processing during a Pandemic
Sarah Jones; Ryan DiPaolo

REVIEWS
Archives in Conversation
Rose Buchanan; Stephanie Luke

What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom
Sara Lyons Davis

Engaging Undergraduates in Primary Source Research
Kayla Harris

Exhibiting the Archive: Space, Encounter, and Experience
Claire Du Laney

Viral Cultures: Activist Archiving in the Age of AIDS
Marissa Friedman

Rescued from Oblivion: Historical Cultures in the Early United States
Amber Glen

Narrative Expansions: Interpreting Decolonisation in Academic Libraries
Heather Mulliner

Cultural Humility
Jessica Tai

American Archivist Call for Microreviews

Are you interested in reviewing the latest archives resources for your colleagues? The American Archivist wants to hear from you!

We are actively seeking microreviews of archives-related books for our Reviews Portal. Microreviews are short, informal contributions (about 100–400 words) that summarize a work and share your reaction to it. An example is Samantha Cross’s 2022 microreview of the podcast The Magnus Archives.

Microreviews are a great way to contribute to the archival literature no matter where you are in your professional journey. Never written a review before? No problem! Our Reviews Editors, Rose Buchanan and Stephanie Luke, are available to answer questions and guide contributors through the entire review process.

For more information about writing a microreview, please see our guidelines for preparing a microreview. If you’re interested in writing a review, please contact us at ReviewsEditor@archivists.org.

We look forward to hearing from you!

——————————
Rose Buchanan & Stephanie Luke
Reviews Editors, American Archivist

Survey: Tell us about your American Archivist reading experience!

What do you love about the digital American Archivist? What would you like to read more of? Tell us in this 15-minute survey.

Take the Survey

In the last decade, the Journal has seen a tremendous shift in how readers engage with it. Established in 1938 in a physical format, American Archivist launched a companion digital format in 2010. Then in 2021, the Journal shifted to a digital-only format. With these recent changes, the Editorial Board seeks your input on how you interact with the digital American Archivist, what you think of it, and how your reading experience can be improved. Take the survey by March 1 and send additional comments to AmericanArchivist@archivists.org.