Iam writing this as I am returning from SAA's Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. There were excellent sessions and great posters. Terry Baxter's Presidential Address, which you will read in American Archivist 87.1, was thought provoking and compassionate. It was, in most ways, a very typical annual meeting. However, the thing that struck me the most—and this is partly because this was my first in-person annual meeting since the pandemic—was the people. There were almost 1,400 of us in a space that was familiar to some of us and new to others. People were meeting in the lobby,
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A*CENSUS II
This second comprehensive Archival Census and Education Needs Survey in the United States (A*CENSUS II) was funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The surveys were conducted by Ithaka S+R in conjunction with SAA. The All Archivists Survey, which garnered 5,699 responses, targeted self-identified archivists/archives workers in the United States to gather information about their demographics, educational background and needs, job placement and status, and salaries, as well as their perspectives on key issues in the field. The All Archivists Survey Report is published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of American Archivist. The Archives Administrators Survey, which garnered 746 responses, targeted the directors of archival organizations to gather data about institutional characteristics, resources, strategic directions, and equity, inclusion, diversity, and access issues. Both datasets are open access in the SAA Dataverse at https://dataverse.unc.edu/dataverse/ACENSUS.
FROM THE SPECIAL SECTION CO-EDITORS
The region of North Africa and the Middle East (sometimes called Southwest Asia) rarely appears in American archival literature unless it is used as a metaphor for a stark cultural opposite. As a result, the depth and intricacies of its long and diverse histories and vibrant living cultures are seldom given adequate consideration. Archives and archival collections in the region tend to be described (solely) in the negative—as absent, decaying, violently destroyed, or totally inaccessible. And while this may be the case in some instances (the Palestinian poet, Tamim Barghouti writes in reference to a museum in Iraq, “A leaf
C.A.
The 2022–2023 academic year has been one of significant change for me professionally. My thirty-plus career was transformed from a tenured archivist and endowed professor in the archives at Texas A&M University to a teaching professor with minimal connection to the work I was dedicated to and which has been instrumental in defining my career. Despite this upheaval, I have continued championing marginalized communities’ voices, interests, and collecting focus in my teaching, mentoring, publishing, and scholarship. When fellow Editorial Board member Sumayya Ahmed suggested this Special Section on Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) archives for American Archivist,
SPECIAL SECTION: MIDDLE EASTERN AND NORTH AFRICAN ARCHIVES
In this article, through a historical and theoretical reflection on the Amir Hassanpour Fonds, held at the University of Toronto, the author investigates the role of personal and community archives in counter-archiving in the Middle East, especially in Iran. He expands on his experience working on appraising, describing, and arranging the Amir Hassanpour Fonds at the University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services (UTARMS) to argue that archiving a diasporic and revolutionary counter-archive calls for more than a procedural and habitual institutional practice. To activate such a counter-archive, there should be, first, close attention paid to the memory institutions against which the counter-archive has been developed. Such close attention calls for an investigation into the larger political structures in which the memory institutions are embedded. Second, the counter-archive should be understood in the broader modes and methods of cultural and memory resistance in that specific political structure, engaging analytically and theoretically with the creator's counter-archiving praxis, in this case Amir Hassanpour's Marxist internationalist revolutionary approach. The article ends with a brief discussion of the various ways UTARMS attempted to enliven this specific fonds.ABSTRACT
KHOYA: Jewish Morocco Sound Archive is a pioneering project to repatriate, digitize, record, and classify the remaining sonic memory of Morocco's dwindling Jewish community. This article probes into the necessary sociological cognitive rupture that either allows or disallows the formation of archival repositories of minority memory. Stemming from interventions since the eighteenth century, Morocco's Jewish archives have mainly been kept in the diaspora by Jewish communities and higher education institutions. Contextualizing them within the long durée of Jewish presence in Morocco, this article develops the challenges posed by efforts toward establishing centralized digital archival repositories of the Jewish minority within Morocco itself. This case study proposes a shift into crowdsourced archiving, thus allowing for the alternate grassroots history of Morocco to be maintained and told by intersectional minority actors themselves, while simultaneously engaging with the sonic role, gender, and memory of nonhegemonic and grassroots members of this minority community until today with the formation of an other-archives.ABSTRACT
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Southeast Michigan is home to one of the largest, most highly concentrated populations of people of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) descent in the United States. This case study includes summaries of MENA-related collections at four separate repositories: the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, the Arab American National Museum, the Dearborn Historical Museum, and Eastern Michigan University Archives. This region not only provides unparalleled archival holdings, but researchers and archivists are actively working with local MENA communities to create future collections. In this study, staff from each of the four profiled institutions have contributed a summary that links collections across institutions and illustrates the importance of visiting two or more sites to fully understand the region's Arab American community. The authors reveal how researchers can find a rich collection of artifacts and photographs, oral histories, personal papers and organizational records, published materials, and government documents all within a half-hour drive of the Detroit Metro Airport. These collections, which are local, national, and international in scope, make metropolitan Detroit a crucial research site for historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and other scholars examining the life and culture of MENA communities across the United States.ABSTRACT
This article argues for the collection-level redescription of the Middle East Institute's Colbert Held Archive, a collection consisting of more than 18,000 color Kodachrome slides of photographs taken by Held throughout his time in the region as a diplomat and geographic field researcher. After discussing the importance of the collection and its possible uses for researchers in the field, this article details how any description of the archives should contextualize the American presence in the Arabian Peninsula during the photographer's time in the region. Arguing that the archives places a dual emphasis on geography and ethnography (the concerted combination of which might be called geo-ethnography), the author argues that the archives would be best served by a collection-level, rather than an item-level, redescription. The article draws from academic literature on reparative description, the More Product, Less Process (MPLP) approach, and Total Cost of Stewardship to suggest that this path forward is the most feasible and meaningful step that can be taken by a small special library to contextualize Held's work and his photographs.ABSTRACT
Institutional archives in Southwest Asia (or the “Middle East”) typically reflect the crises that have plagued the region since the advent of modernity. Documentation practices were scarce to begin with, and, if state-sponsored archives were ever established after independence, they usually remained inaccessible. This article ponders the fate of scholarship when the historical record is subjected to another degree of erasure, namely through the systematic destruction wrought by conflicts, as has been the case in Iraq over the past few decades. Using the challenge of accounting for the art-architectural movement that emerged in post–World War II Baghdad as a case study, this obliteration may provide an opportunity for redefining the role that scholars can play in writing histories of modernism in the region. Rather than dwelling on the incompleteness or loss of traditional archives, this article questions and decenters dominant archival practices, especially in places that have experienced, and continue to endure, organized violence. It adopts the notion of the “counter-archive” and demonstrates how alternative sources such as oral accounts, fieldwork, press coverage, memoirs, and private collections can shift the course of research and yield equally valuable alternative histories. Careful interpretation of these nonconventional and typically discredited sources, aided by novel digital representation methods, can not only produce more situated chronicles, defined by the agency of local protagonists, but can also demonstrate that crossing disciplinary boundaries can create richer, layered, and unexpected narratives.ABSTRACT
This case study discusses the absence of a national archives and archives legislation in Kuwait and the shortcomings of Kuwait's Archives Regulation, introduced in 1971 to manage the government's records and archives. Since then, there has been a series of ineffective efforts and little support by the government to establish a national archives and to enact proper archives legislation. As a result, no comprehensive framework exists to govern records and archives management nor does a national repository for preserving and providing access to archives. The author conducted several semistructured interviews with ministry employees and relied on local newspaper articles that indicate a vacuum in managing records and archives across government ministries. The study explains the failures of the Kuwaiti government's efforts and calls for the establishment of a national archives and the enactment of archives legislation. It argues that the most effective approach to establishing a national archives in Kuwait is for the government to amend the constitution and for the amir (ruler) to issue a decree emphasizing the pivotal role of a national archives in ensuring government accountability, legitimacy, and credibility. The national archives would standardize procedures and guidelines and oversee records and archives management. These governmental actions have proven successful in other Gulf countries that have established national archives. The study also calls for the introduction of records management and archival studies programs in Kuwait's academic institutions to train records managers and archivists to oversee government ministries’ records and for future staffing of the national archives.ABSTRACT
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In today's Middle East, a number of institutions of research and higher education have American origins, and several maintain archives and special collections. This article offers case studies of repositories at four of these institutions: the American University of Beirut (AUB), the American University in Cairo (AUC), the American Center of Research (ACOR) in Jordan, and New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD). The article traces the origins of these archives and how those were shaped by the development of each one's parent organization as an American-inspired institution, as well as by the historical, social, and cultural framework of their host countries. The authors also consider the landscape of archives in the nations where these institutions are based: Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. The evolution of the collecting program of each repository is outlined, with strategies and key acquisitions and collections mentioned. Access and dissemination methods, including digitization initiatives, are also covered. In presenting such activities, the ways in which American traditions and standards of archival practice contrast with or complement those of local archival traditions are examined. A central theme is the way that the archives at AUB, AUC, ACOR, and NYUAD go about documenting not only institutional history but also the heritage of their host countries and the challenges and opportunities inherent in that work.ABSTRACT
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Within the last decade, interest in community archives has increased in the field of archival studies. Calls to evaluate programs and services have caused scholars and archival professionals to seek new ways to understand how effectively a program or organization performs, to gather input for evidence-based decision-making, and to demonstrate an organization's impact on its community or stakeholders beyond traditional evaluative measures. This article is based on a two-year partnership study with the Ontario Jewish Archives, Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre (OJA) in Toronto, Ontario. In conjunction with OJA staff, the researchers sought to identify effective methodologies that shed light on OJA's impact. Informed by recent archival theories on impact and a critical understanding of OJA's organizational culture as well as the Ontario Jewish community's history, the authors argue that OJA's impact and value as articulated by members of the community must be contextualized within what Amir Lavie calls an “archival mentality”—in this case, one grounded in Canada's history of multiculturalism as a policy and as a national identity.ABSTRACT
This study used the theoretical framework of stakeholder theory to explore users’ perceptions of archives and how this perception impacts their use of the archives. Using an intercept survey of archives’ users actively conducting research in the reading rooms of five institutions, this study gathered data relating to how users perceive archives and libraries, their thoughts on the positioning of archives, and what they believe successful archival research looks like. Findings indicate that users value the archives and the materials they hold; however, only some users identify as archives users, and many do not acknowledge the archives beyond being a network of collections. These findings suggest users’ perceptions may be limiting their use of the resource and their potential for information-seeking success, indicating that archives have a lot of opportunity to enhance their presence and impact with users.ABSTRACT
Building upon decades of scholarship in critical archive studies, particularly work informed by critical race theory, this article closely examines the racialized power of one specific archival initiative, the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA). Presented as an extended case study of the DTA, this article reveals the white supremacist logics that can operate even within projects devoted to seeking archival justice for oppressed communities. Beginning at the broadest level, the article opens with a discussion of archival appraisal and collecting as racial power. Next, the project's commitment to open access is challenged by evaluating the harm to BIPOC communities that may result from unfettered and undifferentiated access. The subsequent two sections take a practical turn as the author discusses the DTA's approach to handling racist content and the projectwide steps that are being taken to address the white supremacist logics that undermine the mission of the project.ABSTRACT
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While decolonizing accessibility and access to research materials in archives is emerging as an emphasis of scholarship, it is unclear to what extent existing decolonial frameworks operationalize Indigenous sovereignty. The primary goals of tribes and Indigenous communities revolve around sovereignty and self-determination. In the United States, decolonial approaches to archives often prioritize accessibility of collections, rather than contemplating if the accessible changes have tangible positive impacts on Indigenous user needs. In this research, the authors examine whether the intentions underlying decolonial archival work articulated in the literature contribute to a nexus of inaccessibility for Indigenous researchers seeking to assert sovereignty and/or federal acknowledgement. Federal acknowledgment is a socio-anthropological political procedure for recognition as a sovereign nation and a method for tribes to gain access to federal services. This process entangles archives in ongoing settler colonial practices antithetical to professional decolonial ethos. Through an overview of the recognition process, this research centers the politics of sovereignty as a framework to uncover the confluence of colonial logics within accessibility and archival research services. Recognition research elucidates areas of decolonial thinking that continue to remake settler colonial structures rather than enhancing accessibility for Indigenous communities of all statuses.ABSTRACT
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Many libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions provide online exhibits to serve as surrogates for or to supplement in-person/physical exhibits. Online exhibits may provide more detailed information about a physical exhibit or may stand alone. While online exhibits can have more permanence than physical exhibits, they can be difficult to support in the long term, requiring regular updates and maintenance. Online exhibits may lose context when creators and supporting staff with institutional memory leave the host institution. Migrating a legacy exhibit to a current version, a different platform, and/or a new server can also prove challenging. To continue serving patrons optimally, online exhibits must remain fully accessible and be regularly reviewed for accuracy and utility. As rapidly developing technology presents new opportunities to connect virtually with researchers and the public, online exhibits should be reviewed and supported to supplement institutional and programmatic goals, especially if they are still pertinent to the mission of the institution. This article investigates current policies and practices for evaluating, managing, and sustaining online exhibits for archives, museums, and libraries in the United States and Canada. It includes emerging best practices based on survey findings.ABSTRACT
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Challenges abound to establish platforms to curate, store, and provide public access to digitized historical archives. Even more challenging is leveraging a twentieth century platform to achieve these goals in the twenty-first century. Combining best practices and expertise in archival science, librarianship, and information technology, staff faced such a challenge at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to leverage a digital library system and delivery website, Profiles in Science, created in the early 1990s to serve researchers, educators, and students more meaningfully and impactfully as they continue to use this resource to learn about the modern history of science, medicine, and public health in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This case study describes a data migration project that began as an organic, internally developed process with a fundamental goal to migrate legacy content into NLM's digital repository infrastructure for management and presentation of content. This project grew to encompass the constellation of software platforms needed to support an integrated digital library offering. Experience in this project testifies to the value of teamwork dedicated to public service and offers inspiration to colleagues who are facing similar challenges with leveraging long-established platforms to become more dynamic, responsive, and impactful resources.ABSTRACT
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In spring 2019, university archivist April Anderson-Zorn and special formats cataloger Eric Willey, both at Illinois State University (ISU), submitted a grant request to the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Foundation. The team requested funds to hire an ISU graduate student to create content for Wikipedia pages for underrepresented archivists. The grant aimed to fill a content gap on the site by including the biographies of female, Black, LGBTQ+, and other underrepresented archivists to highlight their accomplishments in the profession. With the help of graduate student Stephanie Collier, the project surpassed its original goal of fifteen pages, with over forty pages now on Wikipedia. Though Collier was successful in her efforts, she experienced setbacks throughout the process, including biases and harassment from some Wikipedia editors. This article reviews the literature on the history of Wikipedia and bias found within the Wikipedia community, provides an overview of the project, discusses privacy concerns in creating Wikipedia pages, and suggests the next steps for continuing the work to bring representation for underrepresented archivists to the Wikipedia platform. The article also examines Collier's experience working to bring representation to archivists while completing a graduate degree in history in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.ABSTRACT
REVIEWS
This past year has highlighted how rapidly the archives profession is changing and evolving. Everything from discussions about the importance of community archives to the ever-increasing volume of born-digital records to the place of AI in scholarship and resource description contribute to what we mean when we say “archives.” The reviews in this issue and on the American Archivist Reviews Portal emphasize that dialogue in the field is richer and more expansive than ever before. We begin with Becky White's review of Minds Alive: Libraries and Archives Now, edited by Patricia A. Demers and Toni Samek.
Minds Alive, edited by Patricia Demers and Toni Samek, is a collection of essays about the role and value of libraries and archives during a growing digital age. As the world's dependency on all things digital evolves, Demers and Samek view this book as an opportunity to show how libraries and archives can stay relevant and meet users’ ever-growing needs. Demers is a distinguished professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta; the first woman president of the Royal Society of Canada, for which she coauthored The Future Now: Canada's Libraries, Archives,
Abderrazak Mkadmi, research professor at the Higher Institute of Documentation at Manouba University in Tunisia, explores issues of privacy and access in the context of digital archives and preservation in the eighth volume of the Digital Tools and Uses set of the Computer Engineering Series published by Wiley and ISTE. Mkadmi's stated purpose in Archives in the Digital Age: Preservation and the Right to Be Forgotten is to focus on the conflict between the drive to preserve digital data and make it accessible as widely as possible, which Mkadmi calls the “right to remember,” and the privacy of
In Born-Digital Design Records, edited by Samantha Winn, archival practitioners from across the design records landscape come together to provide a new, much-needed resource: an in-depth overview of the management of born-digital design records presented in three modules. Winn knows from experience the singular difficulties posed by these records, having served from 2014 to 2020 as the collections archivist for Virginia Tech's International Archives of Women in Architecture. The collections that document the work of the design disciplines, including architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, and construction, have always proved challenging for archivists to manage due to their specificity and
Archives 101 by Lois Hamill is part of the American Association for State and Local History Book Series co-published with Rowman & Littlefield, which currently includes 84 titles. This relatively slim book is written for busy professionals and volunteers who manage historical collections at small cultural organizations, such as historical societies and local history museums. It covers basic definitions, concepts, and workflows that are relevant to small organizations, from acquiring and processing new materials to exhibiting and making them available to researchers. Lois Hamill is the head of Special Collections and University Archives at Northern Kentucky University. Archives
Almost twenty years into my career as an archivist, and five years after attaining tenure, I've found myself grappling with questions about what I want for myself and how to make changes in my life and my work. When I feel stuck, I look for resources that offer a solution and reassure me that I'm not alone. When I came across Thriving as a Mid-Career Librarian: Identity, Advocacy, and Pathways, edited by Brandon K. West and Elizabeth Galoozis, I felt that the subtitle could easily be “I Know What You're Going Through.” As I scanned Thriving’s
In the 1960s, when the “wind of change” swept through the African continent and many colonial states gained independence, the British Empire left with almost all Colonial Office records, resulting in what is now termed “disputed archives.” This was also the case with other former colonies. There were, of course, those who advocated for the return of displaced archives to their rightful owners; Nathan Mnjama, for example, was throughout his forty-year career a lone voice from the African region who championed this cause. And there were some successes, such as that of late Director of the National Archives of Zimbabwe
Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin
You probably do not need my help in deciding whether to read Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin. The book's charmingly gothic cover, with the title nestled among attractively arranged bones and plant life, sets elegantly macabre expectations. It is either your thing or not. As a librarian, journalist, and leader in the death positive movement, the study of anthropodermic bibliopegy—or the practice of binding books with human skin—is undeniably author Megan Rosenbloom's thing. But even if the topic does not immediately appeal to you, archivists and special
Editor Amy Cooper Cary (2020–2026), Marquette University Reviews Editors Rose Buchanan (2021–2024), National Archives and Records Administration Stephanie Luke (2021–2024), University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign Editorial Board Natalia Fernandez (2023–2027), Oregon State University Shirley Franco (2022–2026), University of Brasília Amanda Greenwood (2023–2024), Archival Consultant Rebecca Hankins (2022–2027), Texas A&M University Libraries Eric Hung (2020–2024), Music of Asian America Research Center Jessica Lacher-Feldman (2020–2024), University of Rochester María Matienzo (2021–2025), Magical Tome, Inc. Marlee Newman (2021–2025), Archival Consultant Jordon Steele (2023–2027), Johns Hopkins UniversityTHE AMERICAN ARCHIVIST EDITORIAL BOARD
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