ABSTRACT

Disability history is everyone's history. However, existing archival literature on disability focuses almost exclusively on issues of accessibility. Relatively little has been written on the challenges and opportunities present in strengthening disability history representation in archives. The author uses their experience as a contractor for a regional nonprofit to explore the nature of working with community members to strengthen disability history representation in archives and proposes documentation strategy as an ideal framework for such collaborations.

ABSTRACT

This article describes a collections survey project undertaken by the staff of the University Libraries' Special Collections and University Archives Department at the University of Nevada, Reno, to begin the archives' alignment with the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials. The method devised to survey the collection is assessed for its validity and potential application to further survey work. The analysis of the Protocols alignment survey as a case study also offers insights about critical self-reflection and ways for non-Indigenous archivists to strive toward social justice and Protocols alignment using existing discovery and description frameworks as a starting point.

ABSTRACT

The authors examined the Wade Hall Consolidation Project at the University of Alabama Libraries Special Collections. The project involved the physical consolidation of more than 1,400 small, discrete collections donated by Wade Hall into larger, subject-based collections along with the merger of 287 existing digital collections to mirror the physical arrangement. This project's goal was to improve access to and discovery of these collections by researchers. During physical consolidation, the archivists created subject-based collections with new finding aids and addressed issues including unclear provenance, legacy descriptions, inaccurate metadata, varying levels of processing, and lack of alignment with current archival best practices and standards. Digital consolidation of existing digital collections coincided with the migration to a new digital asset management system and presented its own challenges, including legacy descriptions, metadata transformation, digital preservation, and dealing with existing metadata shared on the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and other multi-institutional digital content aggregators. The authors sought to fill the gap in the literature concerning the consolidation of physical and digital collections and to provide guidance to others considering a consolidation project.

Many queer researchers tell stories about deeply moving archival encounters––experiences of profound connection, validation, and self-identification that occur as researchers discover themselves in documentations of the past. Rebecka Taves Sheffield's monograph, Documenting Rebellions: A Study of Four Lesbian and Gay Archives in Queer Times, pays fitting homage to the transformational power of such encounters with this meticulously researched and thoughtfully composed consideration of four gay and lesbian archives. This book exudes the author's deep love and reverence for queer archives, despite (and often because of) their circuitous histories, quirky casts of characters, and shifting cultural locations.

Rebecka Taves

EDITOR

Amy Cooper Cary (2020–2023), Marquette University
Sumayya Ahmed (2019–2023), Simmons University
Caroline Daniels (2017–2021), University of Louisville
Benjamin Goldman (2019–2023), Pennsylvania State University
Katharina Hering (2019–2023), German Historical Institute
Eric Hung (2020–2024), Music of Asian America Research Center

Reviews Editor

Bethany Anderson (2015–2021), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Shadrack Katuu (2019–2022), United Nations Mission in South Sudan
Jessican Lacher-Feldman (2020–2024), University of Rochester
Kathryn Puerini (2020–2024), Archival Consultant
Alison Trulock (2017–2021), U.S. House of Representatives
Sylvia Welsh (2020–2024), Harvard University

GENERAL INFORMATION

American Archivist (ISSN 0360-9081)

Something New

WE Are SAA

Documenting Disability History in Western Pennsylvania

ABSTRACT

Surveying as Unsettlement: The Protocols Alignment Survey at the University of Nevada, Reno

ABSTRACT

How to Wrangle Multiple Discrete Collections from One Donor: A Case Study of the Subject-based Physical and Digital Consolidation of the Wade Hall Collections

ABSTRACT

Context Lost: Digital Surrogates, Their Physical Counterparts, and the Metadata that Is Keeping Them Apart

ABSTRACT

Bit Rosie: A Case Study in Transforming Web-Based Multimedia Research into Digital Archives

ABSTRACT

Dusting Off that Old Projector: Preservation through Projection

ABSTRACT

Providing Restricted Access to Mental Health Archives within Government Archives: The Subject Stakeholder

ABSTRACT

Reviewing the Past

Documenting Rebellions: A Study of Four Lesbian and Gay Archives in Queer Times

Transparência e opacidade do estado no Brasil: Usos e desusos da informação governamental

Archival Returns: Central Australia and Beyond

Archives and Special Collections as Sites of Contestation

“All Shook Up”: The Archival Legacy of Terry Cook

Zwölf Wege ins Archiv. Umrisse einer offenen und praktischen Archivwissenschaft

A Future in Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage, and the Dream of Peace

Distant Horizons: Digital Evidence and Literary Change

Producing the Archival Body

Reference and Access for Archives and Manuscripts

Front Matter

GENERAL INFORMATION

Front Matter

Black Archives: A Photographic Celebration of Black Life

An Impossible Balance: Navigating Archival Work and Caregiving Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

Turning Archival: The Life of the Historical in Queer Studies

Archival Authority Records and the Potential of Human-centered Archival Description