Digitization practice in archives and libraries is now generating digital content and associated tools and practices that are transforming the relationships among archivists, users, and archival collections. The transformative nature of digitization derives in part from the power of the complex technologies to represent images and facilitate their use. This article explores how experienced, but for the most part nonacademic, users see the visual, material, and archival properties of digitized photographic archives while undertaking innovative and insightful projects that push the boundaries of visual interpretation. The study is a qualitative investigation involving independent case studies of seven people who have extensive experience using the photographic archives preserved by the Library of Congress. This article contextualizes the research in a range of literatures, summarizes the research methodology, and presents findings from in-depth interviews that focus on how visually experienced users choose digitized photographs for inclusion in a given project. By understanding these "modes of seeing" the contemporary digitized visual archives, archivists are in a better position to understand the representational implications of their digitization processes.

For the past two decades, scholars in archival science have begun to question traditional assumptions about the nature of the record. Drawing on theories from fields such as sociology, organization theory, and science studies, and on their own ethnographic studies, they propose more inclusive definitions and widening the contexts of analysis of record making and recordkeeping. This paper continues this critical consideration of the concept of record by examining the nature of nonprototypical records in the scientific world. The paper focuses on the system of specimens and field notes established by biologist Joseph Grinnell at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (University of California, Berkeley) as a means of examining several aspects of the nature of the scientific record: materiality, representation, and the triad evidence/memory/accountability. Focusing on the creation and management of these scientific records, the paper argues that further analyses of scientific record making and recordkeeping are bound to benefit both scientific work, which depends more and more on databases and archives, as well as archival science, which is becoming more relevant beyond its traditional realm of the legal/business/administrative world.

Although the fire risks associated with nitrate film stock are widely known, understanding of the relationship between nitrate decomposition and combustibility remains weak. This paper surveys the contradictory descriptions of decomposition and combustibility of motion picture film in current archival and safety literature, evaluates their sources, and compares them to descriptions by image stability researchers and chemists. Throughout, the author argues that the dialogue among the archival, safety, and scientific communities is inadequate and that no community has satisfactorily established the evolution of flammability as nitrate decomposes. The author concludes by outlining a plan for nitrate research and advocacy over the short, medium, and long terms.

This study introduces the use of a rubric to assess student learning from archival instruction. The researcher undertook a field study to examine what students in an undergraduate history course at a large state university learn from archival instruction. The study also builds upon previous work in the archival literature to introduce a reliable measure of archival literacy skills. The results of this study demonstrate that archival instruction can have a positive impact on student learning.

This article reports on a series of retrieval experiments using online finding aid systems in two archival institutions to identify heuristics for successful search in archival systems. The project analyzes the success rates of search strategies of forty-three participants and finds that highly successful searchers possess prior archival experience and use both Boolean searches and the browser's page find functionality. Successful searchers also utilize a broader range of search strategies and query reformulation techniques. Many searchers had difficulty choosing appropriate search terms and understanding archival terminology. The results of this study have implications for archival instruction, federated search, and the design of interfaces for online finding aids.

This paper reports on the Archival Metrics Project, which developed, tested, and evaluated a set of toolkits designed to overcome some of the challenges of conducting user-based evaluation in college and university archival repositories. The Archival Metrics Project is ongoing. The initial toolkits result from a five-year, two-phase project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The project involved academics from three North American universities and twenty partners from academic archival institutions. At the completion of the study, the researchers interviewed ten archivists at partner institutions who took part in the testing of the toolkits and one year later gathered data using a questionnaire from fifty-nine individuals who downloaded the toolkits. The paper describes previous research on user-based evaluation in archives and similar projects conducted in the library field, the process of developing and testing five questionnaires and various methods to administer the questionnaires, as well as the evaluation of the toolkits. It concludes with a discussion of the issues raised about adoption and diffusion of these instruments.

The 2006 SAA A^*CENSUS study identified a generational shift in the archival profession and recommended "making room in the archival profession for new workers" and working to "engage younger professionals in leadership roles within organizations." This study asked working archivists age 35 and under about their satisfaction with their work duties and work environment, as well as about their relationship with professional associations, to determine how to address the A^*CENSUS action items. Results indicate that young archivists are generally satisfied with their day-to-day work. However, many young archivists have yet to serve in SAA positions and are unclear about the qualifications for service.

As archives and libraries digitize and make their collections available online, they are faced with the challenge of meeting growing patron expectations in the online environment while still adhering to copyright statutes. This article reports on a case study investigating the copyright status of materials from a recent effort to make the Thomas E. Watson Papers, a manuscript collection housed at the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, accessible online. The article also explores fair use as a possible approach for digital publication of archival collections containing materials protected by copyright.

Some fifty years ago, Virginia embarked on a strategy of "massive resistance" to desegregation that locked out over 14,000 primary and secondary public school students for up to five years. Collections that document this period often contain individual student records and politically sensitive information. Contradictory laws (FERPA, HIPAA, and FOIA) affect access to these collections. This case study examines decisions regarding access and privacy made by three repositories with such collections. The author raises questions about the legality and ethics of restricting access to collections that contain confidential records and calls for the establishment of best practices to guide the archivists through conflicting access laws.

This paper is a case study of an active deaccessioning program at the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. The essay discusses decision making and methods for incorporating deaccessioning as a collection management tool. It reasons that a structured approach on the part of the repository can increase the value of the remaining collections, mitigate the anger and disappointment of donors whose material is being deaccessioned, build relationships with other repositories, and make more collections accessible.