Archival Practitioners Research Articles

Exploring the Application of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in GLAM Collections

ABSTRACTIn recent years, considerable work has been done on the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the realm of cultural heritage. The purpose of this panel is to address the following questions: What is the current understanding and implementation status of AI/ML in GLAM collections? What are the associated concerns and challenges in real cases? What does this entail in applying AI/ML in the field of computational archives? To address these questions, the panelists will present: 1) use cases of AI/ML technologies applied within GLAM collections, 2) findings from a systematic review of literature on AI/ML in GLAM collections, and 3) insights from semi‐structured interviews with archival practitioners on their perspectives on AI/ML. Following the panelists' presentations, an interactive discussion session will be conducted to delve deeper into the topics discussed.

History Uploaded: Digital Archives After Thirty Years of Democracy

ABSTRACT This article provides an overview of digital archival projects and online databases developed by scholars and archival practitioners in South Africa since the early 1990s. It sketches key shifts in theory and practice over this period, including the economic and practical perils of digital conservation as heritage and of increasing civic archival activism. It shows that the outlook, aims, and successes of these projects have changed in tune with shifts in the state’s archival legislation, changing publishing economics, decreasing cost of digitisation and equipment, and widening access to the internet. Recent archival projects, such as the Five Hundred Year Archive and EMANDULO Project, illustrate a pioneering trend in South African digital archival practice and are suggestive of the formation of a distinct digital epistemic culture. The article argues that South African scholars and archival practitioners have often been at the forefront of key turns in debates taking place in digital archival practice globally and in Africa.

Application of Artificial Intelligence-based Technology in College Archives Management

This study looks into the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-based technologies, notably Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) models and data augmentation approaches, in college archives management. With the rapid expansion of digital information, archive organizations have enormous issues in maintaining, organizing, and giving access to their vast collections of historical documents and scholarly resources. AI solutions present possible solutions to these difficulties by automating labor-intensive operations and improving the efficiency and accuracy of preservation workflows. In this study, they investigate the transformational potential of CNN models in digitization activities, utilizing their visual data processing skills to automate and enhance the digitization of visual resources within college archives. In addition, they look into how data augmentation techniques might improve the resilience and generalization capabilities of AI models, reducing biases and improving performance across a variety of archive collections. Using empirical research, theoretical analysis, and case studies, they present insights into the opportunities and obstacles of implementing AI-based technology in college archive management. Furthermore, they discuss ethical implications for the deployment of AI solutions, emphasizing the significance of transparency, accountability, and stakeholder participation. This study aims to inform archival practitioners, technologists, and stakeholders about the effective and responsible integration of AI technologies in cultural heritage preservation and promotion within academic institutions by elucidating the practical applications and implications of CNN models and data augmentation techniques in archival contexts.

The Strategic Role of Archives in Public Services in the Licensing Sector

In the current digital era, archive management plays a strategic role in ensuring the efficiency and effectiveness of public services, especially in the licensing sector. Challenges in archival systems that are not yet integrated and limited access to information are the main obstacles to a fast and accurate licensing process. Optimizing archives is needed to support transparency, and accountability and improve the quality of public services. This research aims to examine the strategic role of archives in public services in the licensing sector and identify archive management strategies to support the efficiency of the licensing process. A descriptive qualitative approach was used in this research, with data obtained from relevant literature studies and interviews with archival practitioners. The conclusion of this research shows that effective and integrated archive management is the main key to speeding up the licensing process and improving the quality of public services. Digitization of archives and the application of information technology has been proven to increase information accessibility and operational efficiency. Apart from that, standardization of records management and human resource training are important factors in increasing competence in modern records management. Cooperation between agencies is also needed to ensure the effective integration of archival systems. Thus, optimizing archives has great potential to support the transformation of public services that are more responsive and quality.

“So how do we balance all of these needs?”: how the concept of AI technology impacts digital archival expertise

PurposeThis study aims to explore the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in archival practice by presenting the thoughts and opinions of working archival practitioners. It contributes to the extant literature with a fresh perspective, expanding the discussion on AI adoption by investigating how it influences the perceptions of digital archival expertise.Design/methodology/approachIn this study a two-phase data collection consisting of four online focus groups was held to gather the opinions of international archives and digital preservation professionals (n = 16), that participated on a volunteer basis. The qualitative analysis of the transcripts was performed using template analysis, a style of thematic analysis.FindingsFour main themes were identified: fitting AI into day to day practice; the responsible use of (AI) technology; managing expectations (about AI adoption) and bias associated with the use of AI. The analysis suggests that AI adoption combined with hindsight about digitisation as a disruptive technology might provide archival practitioners with a framework for re-defining, advocating and outlining digital archival expertise.Research limitations/implicationsThe volunteer basis of this study meant that the sample was not representative or generalisable.Originality/valueAlthough the results of this research are not generalisable, they shed light on the challenges prospected by the implementation of AI in the archives and for the digital curation professionals dealing with this change. The evolution of the characterisation of digital archival expertise is a topic reserved for future research.

Love (and Loss) in the Time of COVID-19: Translating Trauma into an Archives of Embodied Immediacy

ABSTRACT This article contributes to the emerging body of literature on grief and trauma in archival and records management work through the lens of COVID-19. The pandemic has put into stark relief the fragility of our individual and collective lives and livelihoods. Now, more than ever, we must take seriously the mental health and well-being of archivists. Inspired by the loss of a lover due to coronavirus-related symptoms, which brought on a deep grief that had profound professional, academic, and personal affects, this article—in a nod to Michelle Caswell's writing on feminist standpoint epistemology—represents the author's effort to “[value] the view from the margins.” More acutely, it speaks from the vantage point of a queer, Filipino, precariously employed archival student and practitioner grasping for meaning during a global pandemic. Engaging with affect theory, queer studies, and work on grief in archives, the author develops the concept of affective porosity, a means through which archival practitioners might seek a richer sense of relationality. Grounding theoretical expansiveness within contemporary practice, this article concludes by using field reports on archival trauma and case studies on BIPOC student labor to productively interrogate the state of archival labor today. As a profession, it is critical that archivists strive toward a path of embodied immediacy, caring for fellow archivists as much as we do archives.

Working Toward Best Practices for Design Records

We, the cochairs of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Design Records Section (DRS), write to you with excitement and enthusiasm for this special section of American Archivist dedicated to design records. We extend a heartfelt thank-you to Karen Trivette, guest editor, who conceived of this special section and asked us to write an introductory letter.The mission of the DRS is to support archival professionals working with design records by conducting research, setting best practices, and providing solutions related to the arrangement, description, preservation, conservation, and storage challenges inherent to these specialized materials. We aim to provide an open, engaging, and inclusive forum for discussion, and we encourage all SAA members to reach out to our network of specialists who work at a variety of institutions. These may include architectural firms, design schools, special collections and facilities, and academic and government archives, among others. Designers, architects, and engineers produce a variety of records for myriad reasons in multiple formats, including drawings, sketchbooks, models, photographs, and presentation boards.Many archivists may hesitate to address design records because they can seem daunting in both size and scope. The good news is that our knowledge does not exist in a vacuum. The DRS seeks to reach out to current and potential members, as well as to stakeholders such as architectural historians, technologists, and those in similar specializations who are also managing visual and complex collections. Though design records may seem a siloed subject area, it shares many of the same issues and challenges as other specialized subject areas, such as aerospace and geospatial engineering, archaeology, and so on. Architectural archivists are not the only ones who struggle with the varied, complex, and unique challenges posed by design records; all archivists and archival practitioners may one day encounter these types of records.As the design field has moved toward producing mostly born-digital records using complex proprietary software, the section's original mission to establish best practices for design records has become paramount. To advance the work of our profession, the DRS actively works with members of the community to investigate and set best practices for the appraisal, description, and preservation of born-digital design records. We continue to conduct scholarly research and to discuss and report findings during section meetings and other communications.As this special section illuminates, sharing our research, experiences, and solutions in scholarly publications supports the work of all design records professionals and extends our visibility to a broader audience. The DRS encourages all archival professionals managing design records to contribute to American Archivist outside of this special section. The last issue dedicated to architectural materials was published in 1996, and, while it is still relevant today, much has changed since then. Publishing articles related to design records in American Archivist positions this centralized resource to draw on best practices, research, and perspectives from a variety of practitioners and, at the same time, keeps us at the forefront of emerging trends.

Integrating Equity and Reconciliation Work into Archival Descriptive Practice at the University of Waterloo

Despite sustained calls for a critical review of harmful content within archival descriptive records, there remains much to be explored by way of implications for Canadian academic archives. This article addresses the absence of Canadian archival practitioners in broader discussions about the revision and remediation of descriptive records by exploring how staff in Special Collections & Archives at the University of Waterloo Library are working to integrate equityand reconciliation-informed thinking into the department’s archival practice by revising their approach to language in archival descriptions. Beginning with an overview of the department and the landscape in which it operates, this article provides a brief review of guidance available in the Rules for Archival Description. It then provides the rationale behind the recent changes to descriptive practice before exploring a series of examples of how and where this work is newly underway. The article concludes with a consideration of current identified challenges and the related work ahead.

Document Wars and the Local Archives: The Case of Mogalakwena Local Municipality

In this article, I explore the flows of official paperwork in the troubled Mogalakwena Local Municipality in the Waterberg District of Limpopo Province from 2009 to 2015. The documentary environment of this municipality exhibits many of the challenges identified in existing scholarship on contemporary records management in the state. In this paper, I raise another aspect which has not been interrogated sufficiently by South African archival scholars: the role that divisive political conflicts play in shaping records practices. This study takes cues from the work of scholars of paperwork elsewhere, who have called attention to the social and political climates in which state functionaries write. What lies beneath the gridwork of generic terminology that letters the documentary productions of the state is a world of competing human designs, of antagonistic strategies, and, in particularly contested settings, of emotional distress and bitter fights for political survival. In Mogalakwena, an intensifying political conflict came to directly influence documentary practices in the institution, resulting in a ‘war of documents’. This study offers another reminder to both archival practitioners and historians to consider the document in context, and understand it as an instrument of power through which broader social struggles are refracted.

On the crest of a wave: transforming the archival future

The profession of digital archivist is crystallising, fundamentally challenging traditional archival roles. The very nature of digital records also challenges the sustainability of archival systems and collections. Records that used to stay stable for decades in an analogue world now risk being lost or damaged within moments of creation. How should archivists react to these changes? Archivists have to lift ourselves out of our analogue environment and focus more effort on forging a new path, to reposition archives, archival institutions and archival practitioners more strategically for the future. To do this, archivists must resist the temptation to think that we and we alone – as people, as archivists or as today’s archivists as opposed to yesterday’s archivists – can come up with the ultimate solution to the world’s recordkeeping problems. Archivists must keep innovating, absolutely. But we also need to be agile and flexible, remembering that anything we come up with today will be superseded at some point in the future – increasingly, in the very near future. Archivists need to forge links with archives, systems and people in order to come up with approaches to records and archives care that remain usable now and flexible well into the future.

Towards an Archival Critique: Opening Possibilities for Addressing Neoliberalism in the Archival Field

Neoliberalism, as economic doctrine, as political practice, and even as a "governing rationality" of contemporary life and work, has been encroaching on the library and information studies (LIS) field for decades. The shift towards a conscious grappling with social justice and human rights debates and concerns in archival studies scholarship and practice since the 1990s opens the possibility for addressing neoliberalism and its elusive presence. Despite its far-reaching influence, neoliberalism has yet to be substantively addressed in archival discourse. In this article, we propose a set of questions for archival practitioners and scholars to reflect on and consider through their own hands-on practices, research, and productions with records, records creators, and distinct archival communities in order to develop an ongoing archival critique. The goal of this critique is to move towards "an ethical practice of community, as an important mode of participation." This article marks a starting point for critically engaging the archival studies discipline along with the LIS field more broadly by interrogating the discursive and material evidences and implications of neoliberalism.

Educating for the Archival Multiverse

Diversity addresses issues of inclusivity and the systemic nature of exclusivity in various settings, including the role of archival education in preparing new generations of archival practitioners, educators, and researchers. This article discusses why pluralist approaches might help to achieve greater diversity and cultural sensitivity in practice and scholarship. It addresses three key components of such approaches: identifying ways in which dominant cultural paradigms narrow archival pedagogy and practice; envisioning and exploring alternatives to these paradigms; and developing an archival educational framework to promote a critique of professional and societal norms and include diverse perspectives on archival theory and practice. The article calls for a broader conversation on these issues engaging archival academics and students, professional associations, roundtables and caucuses, accrediting bodies, archival employers, funding agencies, and the diverse communities who create, manage, and use records.

Passive keepers or active shapers: a comparative case study of four archival practitioners at the end of the nineteenth century

This paper takes up Terry Cook’s idea that through their work, archivists are active shapers rather than passive keepers. In taking this idea further, this paper discusses a case study comparing the custodial history of two archival groups of East India Companies’ archives, the VOC and EIC Archives, during the second half of the nineteenth century, and how archival practitioners influenced their arrangement and description. Consideration is given on how archival practice (good and bad) and professional discussion contributed to the understanding of the importance of provenance and original order and the need for sound methodology for analysis of the records to precede arrangement and descriptions. The work undertaken by the archivists on the VOC Archives in the Netherlands in particular, took place at a time during the development of the landmark archival standard (The 1898 Dutch Manual). This study looks at how the arrangement of the VOC and EIC Archives reflects these contemporary theoretical discussions. The VOC Archives in the Netherlands were one of the first archival groups of business records to be arranged using the 1898 Dutch Manual’s advice. At the same time, in England, those working on the EIC Archives in London understood the importance of custodial history and its influence on the arrangement of the EIC Archives. Through an analysis of the work of those involved in the arrangement and description of the VOC and EIC Archives, this paper argues that it is possible to see the emergence of fundamental archival principles such as the difference between physical arrangement and intellectual control, and the development of these ideas derived from discussions during the writing of the 1898 Dutch Manual and their translation into archival practice.