The way in which we view the nature of archives and the role of the archivist has changed significantly in the last few decades. With increasing interest from outside of the profession, the idea of archives as the static, impartial carriers of truth and the archivist as a guardian of records has been questioned: how can society take greater control over its own written memory? There have been a number of other changes which have impacted upon the way archivists conceive of themselves and the way in which they work. Chief among these are the rapid rise of technology and the challenges this poses, and the changing place of archives within related fields, such as records and information management. It is imperative that archivists engage with these challenges if archives are to emerge as a renewed force in the 21st century. This much-needed book is designed not as a practical guide to professional practice, but rather as a reader addressing these challenges. The chapters are contributed by leaders in the field, and are grouped around the following four core themes: defining archives shaping a discipline Archives 2.0: archives in society archives in the information age: is there still a role for the archivist? Each chapter represents a defined argument in its own right to enable readers to dip in and out of the collection as they wish, and the book is structured to highlight chapters that share a common theme. Readership: Archivists and students of archive administration.
This unique book is based on the results of a workshop for an international group of administrators of research-based archives held near New Delhi in December 1999, the aim of which was to bring together archivists from audio and visual archives in industrializing countries, principally from the Southern Hemisphere, which have a relatively recent history of audiovisual archives; to take concerns of audiovisual archives outside the national and regional boundaries that so often define these archives; and to focus on audiovisual archives that document musical and folklore traditions and thus those which are involved with ethnomusicology. Pooling the experience of participants from Austria, Australia, China, Cuba, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Peru, The Philippines, South Africa, Sudan and the United States, the volume will be of interest to cultural workers both as an introductory textbook in ethnomusicology courses and as a book for specialists. The book begins with a theoretical introduction including general observations on archives, a discussion of the principal points in the participant papers, a description of the workshop itself and how the process of the workshop has been transformed into this volume. Section One deals with archive structure and operations, including a chapter on recording technology for audio archives which begins with a paper by the world-renowned expert in technology for audiovisual archives, Dr Dietrich Schüller, Director of the Vienna Phonogramm-Archiv, Austria, the oldest such archive in the world and one on issues of copyright and ethics. Section Two consists of the participants papers. The volume also includes useful material such as a bibliography of major resources on audiovisual archives and a website list of the most important professional organizations and archive sites. Anthony Seeger is Professor of Ethnomusicology at University of California at Los Angeles. He has been Director of the Archives of Traditional Music, University of Indiana and Director of Smithsonian Folkways recordings and the Curator of the archives. He has consulted internationally and published widely on issues of archiving in ethnomusicology and on intellectual property rights. He has been the President of the Society of Ethnomusicology and is currently Secretary General of the International Council of Traditional Music. Shubha Chaudhuri is Director of the Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology of the American Institute of Indian Studies. She has a background in Linguistics and has been with the ARCE for the last twenty years. She has been very actively involved in issues of archiving as well as training workshops and consulting in this field. She is Vice President, International Association of Sound and Audio Visual Archives. Contributors include: Dr Dietrich Schüller (Vienna, Austria), Don Niles (Papua New Guinea), Alex Huerta (Peru), Ali Al-Daw (Sudan), Maxwell Addo (Ghana), Marialita Tamanio-Yraola (Philippines), To Ngoc Thanh (Vietnam), Valmont Layne (South Africa), Endo Suanda (Indonesia) Gert-Matthias Wegner (Nepal), J. Lawrence Witzleben and Tsui Ying-Fai (China), Olavo Alen (Cuba), Grace Koch (Australia).
Archives bring to mind rooms filled with old papers and dusty artifacts. But for scientists, the detritus of the past can be a treasure trove of material vital to present and future research: fossils collected by geologists; data banks assembled by geneticists; weather diaries trawled by climate scientists; libraries visited by historians. These are the vital collections, assembled and maintained over decades, centuries, and even millennia, which define the sciences of the archives. With Science in the Archives, Lorraine Daston and her co-authors offer the first study of the important role that these archives play in the natural and human sciences. Reaching across disciplines and centuries, contributors cover episodes in the history of astronomy, geology, genetics, philology, climatology, medicine, and more—as well as fundamental practices such as collecting, retrieval, and data mining. Chapters cover topics ranging from doxology in Greco-Roman Antiquity to NSA surveillance techniques of the twenty-first century. Thoroughly exploring the practices, politics, economics, and potential of the sciences of the archives, this volume reveals the essential historical dimension of the sciences, while also adding a much-needed long-term perspective to contemporary debates over the uses of Big Data in science.
Providing examples of successful approaches to unsettling Western archival paradigms from Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia, this book showcases vital community archival work that will illuminate decolonial archival practices for archivists, curators, heritage practitioners, and others responsible for the stewardship of materials by and about Indigenous communities.
"Not just a gift. It's history in the making. Family history is important. Photos, videos, aged documents, and cherished papers--these are the memories that you want to save. And they need a better home than a cardboard box. Creating Family Archives is a book written by an archivist for you, your family, and friends, taking you step-by-step through the process of arranging and preserving your own family archives. It's the first book of its kind offered to the public by the Society of American Archivists. Gathering up the boxes of photos and years of video is a big job. But this fascinating and instructional book will make it easier and, in the end, much better"--
Urgent Archives argues that archivists can and should do more to disrupt white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy beyond the standard liberal archival solutions of more diverse collecting and more inclusive description. Grounded in the emerging field of critical archival studies, this book uncovers how dominant western archival theories and practices are oppressive by design, while looking toward the the radical politics of community archives to envision new liberatory theories and practices. Based on more than a decade of ethnography at community archives sites including the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), the book explores how members of minoritized communities activate records to build solidarities across and within communities, trouble linear progress narratives, and disrupt cycles of oppression. Caswell explores the temporal, representational, and material aspects of liberatory memory work, arguing that archival disruptions in time and space should be neither about the past nor the future, but about the liberatory affects and effects of memory work in the present. Urgent Archives extends the theoretical range of critical archival studies and provides a new framework for archivists looking to transform their practices. The book should also be of interest to scholars of archival studies, museum studies, public history, memory studies, gender and ethnic studies and digital humanities.
How digital networks and services bring the issues of archives out of the realm of institutions and into the lives of everyday users Archives have become a nexus in the wake of the digital turn. Electronic files, search engines, video sites, and media player libraries make the concepts of “archival” and “retrieval” practically synonymous with the experience of interconnected computing. Archives today are the center of much attention but few agendas. Can archives inform the redistribution of power and resources when the concept of the public library as an institution makes knowledge and culture accessible to all members of society regardless of social or economic status? This book sets out to show that archives need our active support and continuing engagement. This volume offers three distinct perspectives on the present status of archives that are at once in disagreement and solidarity with each other, from contributors whose backgrounds cut across the theory–practice divide. Is the increasing digital storage of knowledge pushing us toward a turning point in its democratization? Can archives fulfill their paradoxical potential as utopian sites in which the analog and the digital, the past and future, and remembrance and forgetting commingle? Is there a downside to the present-day impulse toward total preservation?
Literary archives differ from most other types of archival papers in that their locations are more diverse and difficult to predict. The essays collected in this book derive from the recent work of the Diasporic Literary Archives Network, whose focus on diaspora provides a philosophical framework which gives a highly original set of points of reference for the study of literary archives, including concepts such as the natural home, the appropriate location, exile, dissidence, fugitive existence, cultural hegemony, patrimony, heritage, and economic migration.
"Archivists have a language all of their own, and this book explains the terminology and presents plain English principles to establish and manage archives"--Book cover.
