President Danna C. Bell delivered her presidential address on August 14, 2014, during the Joint Annual Meeting of the Council of State Archivists, the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators, and the Society of American Archivists in Washington, D.C. She was introduced first by SAA Fellow and past president Frank Boles, director of the Clark Historical Library at Central Michigan University, and then by her mother, Marlyn Jews.

Abstract

This study describes interviews with twenty-three archivists across the United States who currently maintain Facebook pages for their respective institutions. The interviews were conducted to determine why these institutions have chosen to utilize Facebook and social media more broadly, what guidelines could be drawn for future archival participation on Facebook, and whether Facebook-based outreach is effective. Based on the interviews as well as on analytical data, most of the institutions included in this study have had success using Facebook as an outreach tool. They use Facebook to conform to expectations, raise the public profile of their institutions, and share collections. The interviews also reveal four guidelines that could help archivists have further success on Facebook: highlight visual items; work collaboratively with other institutions to take advantage of Facebook's sharing tools; profile items with intrinsic value; and establish a narrow identity that focuses on one or two specific subjects.

Abstract

Although some archives have begun to embrace Web 2.0 technologies in their outreach activities to facilitate greater access to their collections, many archives continue to promote traditional hierarchical methods of access. This article posits that archives should develop a more radical approach to user engagement. To begin to conceptualize this new approach, the authors introduce Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the rhizome, an open, nonhierarchical, and acentric system, as opposed to the arborescent model that currently informs and structures the way archivists arrange, describe, and provide access to their archival materials. They then describe recent collaborative projects and techniques that encourage a reworking of the traditional arborescent model and make new rhizomatic connections into the archives, including social media crowdsourcing projects, gamification techniques, GIS interactives, mobile applications, and remixed archival photographs. The concluding section discusses the implications of supporting these types of initiatives and the need for professional guidelines for dealing with the ethical issues that may arise with a more radical approach to user engagement.

The Khmer Rouge photographed prisoners at Tuol Sleng prison before executing them. These mug shots mutely attest to human rights crimes by the former Cambodian regime. As Michelle Caswell deftly examines the archival evidence of genocide, these photographs witness atrocities that are at once both “unspeakable” in their horror and also unspoken, due to the silence of the 5,109 killed at Tuol Sleng. Taking a “records-centered approach” to this topic, Caswell both explores the contributions archival theory can make to “the ongoing discussion about evidence, power, and historical production” and challenges archivists to “embrace their own power to counter the

The American Archivist Online: Version 2.0

Introduction to President Danna C. Bell

An Archival Roadmap

To Like or Not to Like: Understanding and Maximizing the Utility of Archival Outreach on Facebook

Abstract

New Uses for Old Records: A Rhizomatic Approach to Archival Access

Abstract

Forget the Past? Or History Matters? Selected Academic Perspectives on the Strategic Value of Organizational Pasts

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Minutes, Migration, and Migraines: Establishing a Digital Archives at a Small Institution

Abstract

Not Waiting for Godot: The History of the Academy of Certified Archivists and the Professionalization of the Archival Field

Abstract

The Notion of Ramification of Archival Documents: The Example of the Fonds Related to the Brazilian Political Movement Araguaia Guerrilla

Abstract

Archival Literacy Competencies for Undergraduate History Majors

Abstract

Community Archival Practice: Indigenous Grassroots Collaboration at the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre

Abstract

Collaborations between Tribal and Nontribal Organizations: Suggested Best Practices for Sharing Expertise, Cultural Resources, and Knowledge

Abstract

Saving All the Freaks on the Life Raft: Blending Documentation Strategy with Community Engagement to Build a Local Music Archives

Abstract

Conceptualizing 21st-Century Archives

Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia

Identity Palimpsests: Archiving Ethnicity in the U.S. and Canada

Keeping Time: An Introduction to Archival Best Practices for Music Librarians

Rare Books and Special Collections

Front Matter

Teaching Primary Source Research Skills to 21st-Century Learners

An Individual Approach: A Case Study on Oral History Accessioning

Another Throat: Twenty-First-Century Black US Persona Poetry & the Archive

Accessioning: The Always-Already Function of Archival Practice

Front Matter (Front Cover, Masthead, Table of Contents, From the Editor)

MicroMARC:amc: A Case Study in the Development of an Automated System

Front Matter (Front Cover, Masthead, Table of Contents, From the Editor)

Professional Reading

Reviews