Archival Context Research Articles

PROCESSAMENTO TÉCNICO DOS ACERVOS AUDIOVISUAIS NO ARQUIVO NACIONAL

It analyzes the technical processing of these audiovisual documents at the National Archives, the main archival institution in Brazil. The general objective was to prepare an archival diagnosis on the technical processing of audiovisual archival documents at the National Archives, with three specific objectives: to conceptually discuss audiovisual documents and their insertion in the universe of archives; problematize the technical processing of audiovisual documents in archives; identify the profile of the National Archives’ audiovisual collection and its forms of entry; and map the stage of organization, level of description and digitization of the National Archives' audiovisual collection. The research contributes to improving technical treatment practices for audiovisual documents at the National Archives, providing a detailed diagnosis of the current situation. The methodology used involved the collection and analysis of documents, as well as the exploration of the National Archives Information System (SIAN) and research instruments developed by the institution's technical team. The results indicate the importance of a comprehensive and critical study on the treatment of audiovisual documents in the archival context, suggesting the need for innovative approaches to the access and preservation of audiovisual documents in archival institutions.

Identities Classified: Indigenous Knowledge Management Systems and Gender in the “Age of Information”

This paper explores the intersections of Indigenous knowl­edge management systems and gender in knowl­edge organization, reflecting on their potential to shape, challenge, and enrich our understanding of identity. We begin by reviewing the ways that Indigenous Knowl­edge Organization (IKO), knowl­edge management systems, and queer archival theory are converging in information spaces, before presenting two case studies of knowl­edge organization that highlight intersectional problems and tensions inherent in attempting to represent complex identities in archival and knowl­edge management systems. We discuss how two-spirit identities are challenging traditional categories of gender identity in traditional naming conventions. Second, we examine the complexity of Native American boarding schools, the inherent hierarchical structures in knowl­edge management systems, and the relational systems that can be used to create more inclusive and responsive knowl­edge structures. We explore how archival knowl­edge management systems can be made more relational, using the examples within the digital tool Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC), and the challenges of relying solely on written structures to verify embodied knowl­edge and gender identity. We consider practical interventions to modify knowl­edge systems into being more adaptable, and the tension between deconstructing and building upon existing knowl­edge structures, using queering metadata as an example.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at the Intersection of Privacy and Archives

As records are increasingly born digital – and thus, at least ostensibly, potentially much more accessible – archivists find themselves struggling to enable general access while providing appropriate privacy protections for the torrent of records being transferred to their care. In this article, the authors report the results of an integrative literature review study, examining the intersection of AI, archives, and privacy in terms of how archives are currently coping with these challenges and what role(s) AI might play in addressing privacy in archival records. The study revealed three major themes: 1) the challenges of – and possibilities beyond – defining “privacy” and “AI”; 2) the need for context-sensitive ways to manage privacy and access decisions; and 3) the lack of adequate “success measures” for ensuring the actual fitness for purpose of privacy AI solutions in the archival context.

It is a Matter of Perspectives

Digitalization and technological developments lead to increased expectations of instant access to archives and archival information. Concurrently, archival information systems and access tools are becoming more advanced, which opens new arenas for possible users and use in the archival domain. Research on the development of digital archives, finding aids, and archival interfaces, highlight the importance of reflecting the understanding of user needs, behaviors, expectations, and their use of technology. The current study, based on a systematic literature review with thematic analysis, addresses the multiple perspectives of users and their use in the archival context. The results show that a ‘user’ is a complex and heterogeneous conceptualization, pragmatically adapted depending on perspectives and contexts. Studies of users and use are strongly bound to their context and the current study further highlights the question of if and how users and use can be viewed outside of their contexts. Research points to a more individual perspective where different user studies and methods explore the user’s cognition and perception to paint a picture of what a user understands and how they use archival records.

Visual methods for desire and wonder in the digital heritage

The digitalisation of cultural heritage creates expectations for improved research methods and more diverse and inclusive memory institutions. However, it is difficult to take advantage of the opportunities the quantification might give owing to deficient and inadequate metadata. The diversity of standards and wilfulness in different historical archive practices creates problems when aggregating data from various sources. The ambition to create more diverse and inclusive memory institutions, compensating for the historical lack of justice, also creates the risk of excluding important contexts from the digital collections. To develop research methods that take this archival wilfulness into account, in this study I have used speculative design to explore images from Europeana, the digital archive that aggregates data from memory institutions all over Europe. Instead of seeing this archive as something lacking in terms of shared standards and inclusive vocabularies, I suggest we see Europeana as a queer collection of wilful archival practices, by showing the desires and imaginations represented in the archival context. By contrasting the visual content of an image with the metadata that describes the image, the norms and desires in the archival practice come into focus, as the metadata points out what at the time was considered interesting about an image, and the reason the photograph was taken. Images described as ‘Swedes’, for example, rarely show pictures of Swedes in Sweden. Swedes are described as Swedes when they are outside Sweden. It is the exotic and foreign that are categorised. Most importantly, the person who controls the camera is not in the picture, but the choice of perspective and the metadata description of the image tell us something about the photographer’s and archivist’s will and desires. By visually reversing the perspective and making visible both norms and deviations, I show how one can approach this digital heritage with a methodology of feminist wonder.

‘De Arca Noe’: An Early Lewis-Barfield Collaboration

This essay brings to light a newly identified and previously unpublished poem by C.S. Lewis and Owen Barfield. The poem is written in Latin and is entitled ‘De Arca Noe’. The essay presents the poem for the first time, transcribing the Latin (with a prose translation) and providing detailed context. The contextual discussion situates the poem within other poetic collaborations by Lewis and Barfield, explains why it has hitherto slipped under the radar of Lewis and Barfield scholars based on its archival context (particularly at the Bodleian), considers earlier fragmentary texts which are closely related to ‘De Arca Noe’, proposes a date (with rationale) for this undated manuscript text, and provides a full transcription with discussion of the physical copies of the collaborative working draft of ‘De Arca Noe’, as well as a translation with notes to the Latin text. Finally, it considers ‘De Arca Noe’ in relation to Lewis’s other more famous poetic handling of the Noah story, ‘The Sailing of the Ark’.

The impact of GDPR on the access to archives and the creation of finding aids

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Personal Data Protection Code, which has been updated to comply with the principles of the Regulation, have produced significant consequences with regard to the access to archives and the creation of finding aids, which must be subject to certain rules in order to comply with the principles laid down and avoid sanctions. Without claiming to be exhaustive, given the complexity and vastness of the topic, the proposed contribution aims to provide an overview of the situation on this issue, which is still in many ways little known, by offering some thoughts on the key principles of the GDPR and their application to the archival context of access and description.

EDUCATIONAL FAIR USE & DIGITAL LEARNING: COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN INDONESIA & MYANMAR

The utilization of copyrighted works for educational purposes under the doctrine of fair use is globally accepted, however, the limit and the implementation measures are not clearly defined. In the age of digital learning where the creation, utilization, and dissemination of information in general and copyrighted works, in particular, have become borderless, it’s critical to analyze the proper implementation of educational fair use. Using juridical normative approach combined with analytical study and comparative study between Indonesia and Myanmar Copyright Law, this research found that both Indonesia and Myanmar Copyright Law provide important exceptions that are specifically aimed at non-commercial educational purposes and public library archival context, however, the implementing regulations of the educational fair use still non-existence. To optimally and effectively implement the doctrine of fair use for educational purposes in the digital age it’s important to adopt globally accepted official guidelines to determine educational fair use more comprehensively followed by synergy, partnership, and collaboration between government, academics, and libraries in formulating both legal and digital infrastructures to guarantee that the implementation of educational fair use in digital age learning complies with national legislation and compliance with international copyright regulations. Keywords: Copyright Law, Digital Learning, Educational Fair Use.

Advancing representation in ethnographic archives: examples from the American Folklife Center

ABSTRACT This paper explores the importance of ethnographic approaches to cultural documentation and corresponding preservation processes, and in enhancing inclusivity and ‘representational belonging’ of diverse communities and cultures in the archival context. Specifically, we trace past and present efforts of folklorists, archivists, and librarians at the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress, to increase representation in and access to the Center’s archives and related programming. As a cultural heritage institution at the national level, and home to one of the largest ethnographic archives in the world, we examine how enriching representation is at heart about ethical and equitable recognition, inclusion, and uplifting of diverse voices, firsthand experiences and stories, particularly those of marginalised communities and groups, as shared in their words and on their terms. We conclude with a new initiative dedicated to advancing community control of and self-representation in ethnographic research, documentation, and archival projects, including the Center’s archives. Our discussions aim to align with broader movements to decolonise heritage institutions, their collections, and practice, especially at the national level.

Attributing Authorship to Bodleian MS Douce 171: A Seventeenth-Century Comedy by Arthur Wilson

Abstract This article argues that the anonymous dramatic fragment at the end of Bodleian Library, MS Douce 171, recently catalogued as ‘Comedy of Stella and Alexis’, is an authorial draft written by the seventeenth-century playwright Arthur Wilson (1595–1652). It does so through a careful consideration of the manuscript’s bibliographic features, as well as through palaeographical and stylistic comparison to Wilson’s extant plays and other documents in his hand. While scholars have long recognized the play’s existence, they have overlooked the identity of its author, in large part due to a neglect of the archival context in which the manuscript appears. This article not only assigns the play to a known early-modern dramatist, but also offers an exercise in attributing authorship to a theatrical document that gives very few hints about its origins.

The Blister Club: The Extraordinary Story of the Downed American Airmen Who Escaped to Safety in World War II

The Blister Club: The Extraordinary Story of the Downed American Airmen Who Escaped to Safety in World War II

Becoming Visible: Travel Documents and Travelling Ayahs in the British Empire

This article explores the lives of Indian travelling ayahs (nannies and servants), who are usually hard to find in the historical records of the imperial state, using travel documents, such as ships’ manifests, passage slips, passage permissions and most significantly passports. Passports have recently been studied as sites of colonial and anti-colonial politics. This article puts passports and other travel documents to a different use, exploring the way they expose fleeting voices and choices in personal representation (in those documents) which reveal elements of the identities, experiences and agency of these colonised subjects. The central argument of this article is that, whilst travel documents, particularly passports were hegemonic documents, created as means of surveillance which enabled discrimination between coloniser and colonised, they also compelled colonial administrators to recognise and even humanise certain subaltern subjects, whose individual identities had often been erased in other documents. In an archival context wherein written and visual records left by travelling ayahs are scarce, this article thus also highlights the value of surviving passports for historians in re-visioning the histories of subaltern subjects.

Remnants of Jenkinson: observations on settler archival theory in Canadian archival appraisal discourse

ABSTRACT This paper aims to critically reflect on Jenkinson’s archival appraisal methods and concepts and whether they may still influence practice within the Canadian archival context and, if so, is that influence reconcilable within the evolving archival landscape? The Manual provided a concrete set of guidelines created in a particular time period, within a specific societal context, under specific circumstances that no longer reflect postcolonial realities and decolonization efforts. The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action and the subsequent response work by the Steering Committee on Canada’s Archives indicate that the profession is necessarily evolving with the aim of an inclusive, community-based approach to archival appraisal and practice. A contributing element to these changes to praxis must be a confrontation of all colonial and settler archival theory, such as Jenkinson’s writing, that is often presented as foundational within archival education, and as a mainstay in our professional mythology.

Domain analysis as an approach to the classification of cinematographic documents

Information Science and Archival Studies do not yet have a relevant theoretical production on the classification and organization of documentation originating from cinematographic production. This exploratory research aims to understand how domain analysis can assist knowledge organization applied to cinematographic documentation in the archival context. One of the main problems concerns the documents generated during cinematographic production not being custodied together with the movie, which is the main product of a complex artistic, technical, and administrative process. A constructivist perspective is adopted, in which the domain of cinema is explored concerning its language. The aim is to understand the domain that influences the materialisation of information, thus producing records of a diverse range of genres, from audio-visual to textual. The concept of domain analysis and its relationship with archival studies is explored, including the benefits of provenance as a domain analysis approach to the classification of cinematographic documentation. The importance of cultural and social context is revealed to link the different dimensions of cinematographic production, which allows knowledge to be built from its information.

Artefacts, Archives, and Documentation in the Relational Museum

Artefacts, Archives, and Documentation in the Relational Museum

Reading Room Encounters in the Archival Context

Reading Room Encounters in the Archival Context

Dialogue with the past in contemporary choreography

The present paper starts from the idea of “archival return” in scientific discourse and its possible uses in choreographic practice. In Poland, many choreographers have tried to reconstruct the works of famous artists from the 20s and 30s of the XX century. The works of Pola Nireńska, Yanka Rudzka and Marie Rambert are brought to the stage from today’s perspective. This phenomenon would contribute to the completion of a history with new valences. In the context of reconstructing the choreography of the past, we will refer to the memory of the body and “the body as an archive”. We will analyze how contemporary choreographers work with memory and bodily memories, trying to find traces to get in touch with historical stagings. The research is based on the concept of the body as an archive and the experience of previous generations in choreographic practice. At the same time, we will try to find the answer to the question: how is the process of including choreography in the archival context treated and how does it manifest itself as such today. We will highlight the connection with the past, but also the contribution to knowing and promoting choreographic values.

Archivists' Information Work Lines: Affective, Information Management, and Hybrid Onsite‐Remote Work Performance

AbstractThis paper is among the first to investigate information work concepts in the archival context. A qualitative case study, it relies on two rounds of semi‐structured interviews with information professionals at medical history collections in Philadelphia. These interviews bracketed the six months before and after COVID‐19's onset. We analyze three lines of information work that evolved as these archivists shifted the work context to their home environments: affective effort, information management, and hybrid onsite‐remote work performance. Findings suggest that tasks such as processing, digitizing, and curating resources (invisible pre‐pandemic) and reference services (visible pre‐pandemic) overlap in archivists' hybrid onsite‐remote work performance during the pandemic. In recognizing the links between archivists' information work and work performance as a holistic approach to studies of the information‐intensive archival context, this research has implications for the centrality of work context, purpose, and value in the archival context.

ACT UP Documentaries and the Question of Intermediate Archival Context

This article considers the status of preexisting footage used within contemporary documentary when that footage originates from another discrete nonfiction work. It proposes a category for these earlier titles (intermediate archival context) and offers terms to examine the translation of preexisting material from one documentary context to another (recognition, formal fidelity, and intentional proximity). Through an analysis of the use of AIDS activist media footage within two modern-day documentaries on the activist group ACT UP, the article argues that the influence of intermediate archival context can be understood not only in the appropriation of individual images but in the citation and interpretation of formal strategies seen within historical nonfiction practice.

Preservation for diverse users: digital preservation and the “Designated Community” at the Ontario Jewish Archives

PurposeConventional approaches to digital preservation posit that archives should define a Designated Community, or future user group, for whom they preserve digital information. Archivists can then use their knowledge of these users as a reference to help them deliver digital information that is intelligible and usable. However, this approach is challenging for archives with mandates to serve wide and diverse audiences; these archives risk undermining their efforts by focusing on the interests of a narrow user group.Design/methodology/approachA unique approach to this challenge was developed in the context of a project to build a digital preservation program at the Ontario Jewish Archives (OJA). It draws from previous research on this topic and is based on a combination of practical and theoretical considerations.FindingsThe approach described here replaces the reference of a Designated Community with three core components: a re-articulation of the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) mandatory responsibilities; the identification of three distinct tiers of access for digital records; and the implementation of an access portal that allows digital records to be accessed and rendered online. Together with supplemental shifts in reference points, they provide an alternative to the concept of a Designated Community in the determination of preservation requirements, the identification of significant properties, the creation of Representation Information and in the evaluation of success.Originality/valueThis article contributes a novel approach to the ongoing conversation about the Designated Community in digital preservation, its application and its limitations in an archival context.