ABSTRACT

For several decades, museums and other cultural organizations have aspired to be more inclusive. Often, this has been through community engagement or outreach efforts. This article argues that inclusion is primarily an internal effort, focused on creating an inclusive work environment and inclusive work practices. Using systems theory, the Minnesota Historical Society is applying new approaches to inclusion to create an organization that embraces diversity and embeds inclusion into everyday work practices.

ABSTRACT

In a practical and user-centered model for online archival description, what navigational features are effective, efficient, and user-valued components for an academic archives' online finding aid? Using Princeton University's finding aid website as a prototype, this research study collected quantitative as well as qualitative data from ten relatively inexperienced online finding aid users as they interacted with and reacted to the finding aid interface. Major navigational difficulties experienced by users included ambiguous and/or unintuitive labeling, unclear relationships between tabs, and insufficient visual cues for certain navigational features. In contrast, user-valued navigational aids included centralized hyperlinked content, nested and hierarchical content tabs, and a collection-level search bar. The article concludes with ten pragmatic guidelines for archival professionals trying to solve the ongoing puzzle of online finding aid usability.

ABSTRACT

Hamilton: An American Musical has been the focus of much theatrical and historical praise, critique, and commentary since its off-Broadway premiere in February 2015. The discussion has only intensified since the show opened on Broadway in August of that year. In September 2016, the musical's composer, lyricist, and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda; its director, Thomas Kail; and its historical consultant, Ron Chernow, were awarded the 2016 Records of Achievement Award from the National Archives Foundation, following the presentation of the Society of American Archivists' J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award to Miranda and Chernow the previous summer. Other prizes have included the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and eleven Tony Awards. The popularity and acclaim of the musical, as well as its use of historical documents to tell its story, merit an examination from an archival perspective. How are records used and represented in Hamilton? Taking as a foundation (though not as a framework) the “iconography of archives” first outlined by Barbara Craig and James O'Toole and since updated by Lindsay Mattock and Eleanor Mattern, this article examines records' presence both onstage and in the narrative of Hamilton. Records are used as props and appear as subjects throughout the show's two acts. Records are also represented as historical evidence, providing the authority for the historically inspired story onstage. Yet, at the same time, Hamilton depicts the archival record as incomplete, asking audiences to reflect on the constructed nature of “who lives, who dies, who tells your story.”

Editor's Introduction

When I became editor of The American Archivist six years ago, I expressed an interest in publishing translations of key articles that originally appeared in another language. My continuing belief is that English-speaking archivists have much to learn from the professional literature of other nations.

It has taken longer than I expected to begin publishing articles in the series Archives in Translation. Translating and editing an article is a time-consuming task. Bartosz Nowożycki undertook this important professional activity to acquaint readers of The American Archivist with Kazimierz Konarski, one of the leaders of the

The Breadth of Archives

Bare Necessities

Getting Our House in Order: Moving from Diversity to Inclusion

ABSTRACT

Looking for Answers: A Usability Study of Online Finding Aid Navigation

ABSTRACT

“Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story”:The Use and Representation of Records in Hamilton: An American Musical

ABSTRACT

Collecting Water: An Analysis of a Multidisciplinary Special-Subject Archives

ABSTRACT

Pinkett's Charges: Recruiting, Retaining, and Mentoring Archivists of Color in the Twenty-First Century

ABSTRACT

Public Records in War: Toward an Archival History of the American Civil War

ABSTRACT

The Whole Story: News Agency Photographs in Newspaper Photo Morgue Collections

ABSTRACT

Accessing Archives: Teaching with Primary Sources in K–12 Classrooms

ABSTRACT

On the Issues of Modern Polish Archival Science

Editor's Introduction

Out of the Closet, Into the Archives: Researching Sexual Histories

Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing

Alva Ixtlilxochitl's Native Archive and the Circulation of Knowledge in Colonial Mexico

Personal Digital Archiving: DPC Technology Watch Report 15-01

Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala

The No-Nonsense Guide to Archives and Recordkeeping

Description: Innovative Practices for Archives and Special Collections

When We Are No More: How Digital Memory Is Shaping Our Future

The American Archivist Editorial Policy

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