Read the Fall/Winter 2025 Issue of American Archivist

In issue 88.2 of American Archivist, Alex H. Poole and Ashley Todd-Diaz evaluate the efficacy of North American graduate archival education curriculum; Elizabeth Joffrion considers the history and current situation of state archives; and Sonia Yaco, Bala Desinghu, Claire Warwick, and Richard Anderson share their research findings after testing thirty-three software tools to explore how AI can be used in special collections to improve accessibility and discoverability.

This issue also includes seven reviews of recent publications in archival literature that explore historical collecting around the Panama Canal, the development of archives on the internet, disability and archives, and much more!

On the Cover: A collage of materials from the William Elliot Griffis Collection (East Asia) in Rutgers Special Collections and University Archives. The collage contains a photo of a boy and man in Japan, date unknown. The folder is marked “Views, Small - Cartes de Visite,” in the Japan Photographs Series. The cover also features a page from Margaret Clark Griffis’s diary from March 1, 1871–May 8, 1874 and part of a “Typescript Biography of Margaret Clark Griffis by William Elliot Griffis. Typescript by Katharine G. M. Johnson.” Read more about how authors applied specific AI tools to untranscribed documents (handwritten and typewritten) and photographs in the William Elliot Griffis Collection on page 441 of the new issue. Photo courtesy of the William Elliot Griffis Collection. 

American Archivist 88.2 (Fall/Winter 2025)
Table of Contents

(Review access here)

From the Editor

• No Time (Not) to Read
  Amy Cooper Cary

Articles

• "Putting It into Practice Is the Best Way to Really Learn Something": Evaluating the North American Graduate Archival Education Curriculum
  Alex H. Poole and Ashley Todd-Diaz
• Charting a Profession: A Comparative Analysis of Seven Regional Archival Journals and American Archivist, 2013–2023
  J. Gordon Daines III, Coulter Gill, Ryan K. Lee, and Cory L. Nimer
• The State of American State Archives (Revisited)
  Elizabeth Joffrion
• Instilling Primary-Source Research Confidence in Undergraduate History Majors: Insight into Instructional Impact and Student Preferences
  Matthew Gorzalski
• The Mumia Rules for Carceral Collecting
  Mary O. Murphy and Amanda M. Knox
• "I Despise It, But It Works": Social Media Outreach in Special Collections
  Nikki Lynn Thomas, Colleen Theisen, Juli McLoone, and Sean Heyliger
• What Can AI Do for Special Collections?
  Sonia Yaco, Bala Desinghu, Claire Warwick, and Richard Anderson

Reviews

• From Local to Global: Variety in the Archival Literature
  Rose Buchanan and Stephanie Luke
• Box 25: Archival Secrets, Caribbean Workers, and the Panama Canal
  Julie Greene
  Reviewed by Katie Sutrina-Haney
• Scattered and Fugitive Things: How Black Collectors Created Archives and Remade History
  Laura E. Helton
  Reviewed by Gabrielle Dean
• Averting the Digital Dark Age: How Archivists, Librarians, and Technologists Built the Web a Memory
  Ian Milligan
  Reviewed by Kailyn Slater
• Beyond Evidence: The Use of Archives in Transitional Justice
  Edited by Julie Viebach, Dagmar Hovestädt, and Ulrike Lühe
  Reviewed by Sarah R. Demb
• Preserving Disability: Disability and the Archival Profession
  Edited by Gracen Brilmyer and Lydia Tang
  Reviewed by Moira Armstrong
• Records and Information Management
  Patricia C. Franks
  Reviewed by Brady Kal Cox
• The Handbook of Archival Practice
  Edited by Patricia C. Franks
  Reviewed by Audie Robinson

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