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Abstract: Set within a discussion of NARA’s custodial program for electronic records and the reasons for the development of the Access to Archival Databases (AAD) tool, this case study explores the impact of AAD on NARA’s reference services for electronic records. Has the availability of AAD changed its nature or the nature of reference services in the traditional still picture or textual records units? Has there been a change in the research community served by NARA’s electronic records program or in the types of services expected by the public? In the course of this scenario explication, the case study implicitly considers the evolution in the skills archivists have needed to offer reference services for electronic records. We include a discussion of some “generic” lessons learned from NARA’s reference experiences related to digital records generally, and through AAD in particular. In conclusion, skills are discussed briefly in the context of the digital environment.
Annotation: Until the release of the Access to Archival Databases Tool (AAD) in February 2003, NARA’s basic reference services for ER involved offering information about the records, limited service providing information from the records, and some copies of digital data files. Over the 30+ years of NARA’s custodial program for ER, NARA have been able to generalize that the universe of potential uses of digital records (ER) fall into 1-2 groups: (1) persons involved in research intending to create new knowledge or understanding from the data and (2) persons seeking archival materials as a source of specific factual or personal documentation (“seeking record-level access rather than copies of files or other aggregates of digital data”). Development of AAD provides series and file-level descriptions for the records it contains and retrieval capabilities for online access to NARA’s “most in demand” digital records. AAD provides access to over 85 million historic ER created by more than 30 agencies of the US federal government. As a result of AAD, there has been an enhanced awareness of NARA’s ER custodial program.
The author suggests that the archival skills required for responding to user expectations for ER are the same as analog. “Knowledge of the subject matter of the records, understanding of the modes of access offered for the records, and the technical specifics related to these modes.” Learning to use the appropriate technologies for the archival functions to be performed is an essential skill for archivists in the digital era. To process, preserve, and provide access to digital archival materials requires using the tools of digital technologies. Unlike the analog world where the authenticity of recorded information and the medium on which it is recorded are one and the same in perpetuity, maintaining the authenticity of a digital record is not bound to specific media over time.
Abstract: The effect of digital technology on special collections has been profound and ongoing. The purpose of this article is to explore the effect born digital materials, digitization, and intellectual property have had on special collections in the 21st century. In particular this study will focus on how archival materials have been significantly transformed by interacting with digital technology—providing both challenges in management and opportunities for new online environments to expose this content worldwide. Finally, a research experiment underway at the University of Virginia Library offers a framework that may help highlight some strategies for exploiting new opportunities going forward.
Annotation: Digital transformation of special collections is as a result of three elements: born-digital materials, digitization, and intellectual property. The author outlines software developments and technologies which continue to reshape approaches to archives: Encoded Archival Description (EAD), archival management tools (e.g. Archon, Archivists’ Toolkit); discussion of born digital materials and the archival workflow; developments in digital forensics tools to assist archivists’ ability to process thousands of files. In his discussion of intellectual property and copyright, the author states that these issues “pose some of the most significant challenges to the digital transformation of special collections materials...the shifting terrain of IP has a broad and far-reaching impact on special collections.” A nuanced rights management system is a major component of special collections infrastructure. The author provides a brief discussion of rights scenarios to consider when planning the digitization of special collections materials. The article concludes with a discussion of the University of Virginia’s attempts to integrate its data management strategies based on “granular data management.”
Abstract: Cultural heritage professionals use descriptive metadata as a tool to manage and mediate access to the memory texts in their custody. With digital and networking technologies exploding the possibilities for capturing recorded memories and memorializing lives, loves and losses, they can, and should, revolutionize our recordkeeping metadata management frameworks. Embracing the ‘archival turn’ requires relinquishing our role as the dominant descriptive storyteller, but are our current descriptive models and systems a barrier rather than a facilitator of such a transformation? In this paper the author adopts an autoethnographical approach to explore her experience of developing archival systems since the advent of the Web in the mid-1990s. The story involves a range of metadata schemas and models, questioning their ability to enable the design of interfaces to recorded knowledge and memories that tap into and unleash the dynamic capabilities of the new technologies and their potential to reflect a multiplicity of voices. The paper will contribute to the growing body of literature about the role of archival professionals in shaping recorded memory through their standards and practices, challenging our image as merely silent partners and neutral players.
Annotation: Evans addresses a need to describe digital records differently than traditional paper records. She argues that digital records require archivists to develop frameworks and standards for metadata rather than allowing passivity. Digital records also require a redesign of traditional hierarchical descriptive models. She lays out her experience working in various repositories, working with databases of descriptive metadata. In order for digital records to be accessed, appropriate metadata must be applied, and the metadata applied determines whether that exists or not.
Abstract: Since the 1990s, the availability of online finding aids and digitized surrogates of original records has changed the landscape of archival research. Progress towards the virtual reading room has been uneven and sometimes contentious. Digitization is portrayed either as the answer for the future of access to archives or, conversely, as a threat to traditions of rigorous research using primary sources. The roles of the reference function in archives and the reference archivist have changed with the advent of digitization and Web 2.0 technologies, but how are institutions and archivists responding to these challenges? And how can reference archivists serve the new and old research paradigms simultaneously? This paper discusses the impact of online access to finding aids and archival records on users, archivists and institutions through a review of the literature.
Annotation: The author has reviewed a fairly broad range of archival and library literature, primarily from the first decade of the 21st century. In her discussion, she explores the relationship between online access to archival materials and archival finding aids, archivists, and the practice of archival research. She defines the latter as accessing and using original records within archival control for intellectual inquiry. Her goal was to determine whether or how the availability of online archival resources impacts archival reference mediation or intermediary activity, whether archival reference practices need to change, and whether archival institutions are adapting to provide services that fit potentially changing patterns of research use. She concludes that archival reference mediation is still needed, albeit with adaptations, and that archival reference service practices will change, especially to meet the needs of different user groups.
There is less discussion about whether archival institutions are adapting their services, aside from some examples from Australia and the UK. The article’s bibliography is itself a useful source for literature on reference services and the impact of online technologies. In particular, the link to the Council of Australasian Archives and Records Authority’s Statement of Principle: Online Access to Public Records is highly relevant in the context of the overall discussion. In addition, one of the topics usefully brought to the fore is the challenge of protecting privacy while providing online archival access.
Abstract: None
Annotation: In June 2006 the National Archives and Records Administration, the Society of American Archivists, and the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records sponsored a colloquium, New Skills for a Digital Era. The colloquium was held in Washington, DC and brought together information professionals, educators, archival managers, and technologists, all of whom had practical experience working with digital records and publications. The colloquium was convened to address the question: “What are the skills that information professionals must have to work with e-books, electronic records, and other digital materials?” Discussion sessions formed the heart of the colloquium; each session began with a presentation of one or two case studies related to specific archival functions, including Reference and Access. The presenters were asked to use their case studies to illustrate the practical skills that professionals working with digital materials need to do their jobs.
The Pearce-Moses and Davis essay is based on notes recorders took during all of the discussion sessions. Commentary is organized into generally conceived functional areas. The first part of the essay, Knowledge, is subdivided into wide-ranging topical areas that provide a framework for discussing new or expanded knowledge necessary to thrive in the digital era. The Skills section addresses three broad categories: management skills, technical (hard) skills, and soft (facilitative) skills. The subsection on Technical Skills provides further exploration of all archival functions and is the most expansive segment of the essay.
Given the variety archival environments represented at the colloquium, the essay does not provide an exhaustive inventory of the skills needed by archivists in the digital era. Rather it is a seriously considered and valuable analysis of the range of skills required by varying types of archives in a changing environment. It recognizes that, generally speaking, a repository of digital materials requires staff familiar with all of the discussed technical skills, but that few if any individual staff will need or possess education or experience in all of them. Furthermore, despite the prominence of technical skills in the colloquium discussions, a consensus also formed around the necessity for soft skills: communication and collaboration, plus creativity and a willingness to take risks.
Abstract: The relationship between archival description and descriptive metadata of digital objects has not been explicitly discussed in the literature. The discussion will enhance our understanding of the relationship between archival context and digital content, a significant topic in a networked digital environment. The data collected in this study show that archivists have made conscious efforts to build connections between archival description (context) and digital items (content), and, as a result, distinct representation models have emerged from digital archival practice. However, at the level of integration of archival context and digital content in digital archival representation, archivists are challenged to achieve an ultimate goal of making digital archives more accessible and better contextualized in the digital world.
Annotation: Zhang and Mauney examine the current practice that archives take to describe digital records. They argue that while archival records are understood based on their broader context within a collection, digitized records pose a challenge because they are often taken from that context. Zhang and Mauney look at various institutions to see how archivists are overcoming the challenge of providing context and access to digital collections. They observed three separate models of access: embedded, segregated, and parallel and provide arguments for and against each system. They ultimately argue that while the parallel model is sufficient for current practice, archivists must continue to develop strategies for more improved access.
