Abstract

In the sixteenth century, Russia underwent a process of unification from a collection of city-states into a centralized power with an increasingly advanced bureaucratic structure. Over the next three and a half centuries, as the nation expanded and evolved, archives and the archival profession followed suit, drawing on the general European experience. By the nineteenth century, a growth in nationalism, the development of the historical profession, and an interest in the past prompted calls for archival preservation and open access. Previously ignored personal papers and regional archives started to receive greater attention. Archival advocates openly debated the questions of reform at national congresses, which lead to attempts at creating a national archives and triggered some of the same issues and tensions as contemporaneous archival reformers faced in the United States. Failing to achieve centralization, Russian archivists nevertheless managed to advance their profession and enter the wider European milieu. This underexplored period of archival development in Russia demonstrates some of the shared roots of the archival profession and provides important lessons still applicable for today's archivists.

Abstract

During the 1970s and 1980s, archivists and historians discussed, in their literature, the ways that oral histories could be used to fill in the documentary record with stories from all parts of society, not just stories from white men of means, whose stories often were retained as part of business, government, and university records. This article analyzes pieces from the journal The American Archivist to determine how frequently archivists actually published about using oral history techniques to document people of color, women, the working class, and other consistently underdocumented populations. A survey also was conducted to determine whether archivists undertake oral history projects currently, and if so, to what extent they focus on these underdocumented groups.

Abstract

During the 1980s and 1990s, electronic records were a source of general concern and debate among Canadian archivists. There was a heightened interest in, and increasing numbers of articles about, electronic recordkeeping projects such as the University of British Columbia (UBC) Project and the National Archives of Canada's Information Management and Office Systems Advancement (IMOSA) Project, as well as non-Canadian projects like the Pittsburgh Project. Such projects often represented a turning away from approaches established and expertise gained during the machine readable archives (MRA) era. Nonetheless, digital archival work outside of these projects continued, much of it moving in trajectories set during the MRA era. This article suggests that MRA methods, ideas, and approaches have reemerged today as foundational to contemporary digital archives theory and practice.

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

The American Archivist is a refereed journal. Each submission will be reviewed by experts in the subject matter of the submission and a final decision for publication will be based on this

The Archival Profession: Looking Backward and Looking Forward

“As Vast as the Sea”: An Overview of Archives and the Archival Profession in Russia from the Time of Ivan the Terrible to World War I

Abstract

“Filling the Gaps”: Oral Histories and Underdocumented Populations in The American Archivist, 1938–2011

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How Soon Is Now? Writings on Digital Archiving in Canada from the 1980s to 2011

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Cultural Heritage and Preservation: Lessons from World War II and the Contemporary Conflict in the Middle East

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Perceptions and Understandings of Archives in the Digital Age

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Teaching Data Creators How to Develop an OAIS-Compliant Digital Curation System: Colearning and Breakdowns in Support of Requirements Analysis

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From (Archival) Page to (Virtual) Stage: The Virtual Vaudeville Prototype

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Linking Special Collections to Classrooms: A Curriculum-to-Collection Crosswalk

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Social Media and Crowdsourced Transcription of Historical Materials at the Smithsonian Institution: Methods for Strengthening Community Engagement and Its Tie to Transcription Output

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Curiosity's Cats: Writers on Research

The Evolving Scholarly Record and Stewardship of the Evolving Scholarly Record: From the Invisible Hand to Conscious Coordination

Dissonant Archives: Contemporary Visual Culture and Contested Narratives in the Middle East

Archives in Libraries: What Librarians and Archivists Need to Know to Work Together

Archives Alive: Expanding Engagement with Public Library Archives and Special Collections

Rights in the Digital Era

The American Archivist Editorial Policy

The Unexpected in Oral History: Case Studies of Surprising Interviews

Front Matter

Black Archives: A Photographic Celebration of Black Life

Turning Archival: The Life of the Historical in Queer Studies

Journalism History and Digital Archives