Archival Science

https://link.springer.com/journal/10502

List of Papers (Total 84)

Results of archival appraisal: a study of a Finnish City

The study investigates which information is chosen for long-term retention in a municipality in Finland. The municipal Records Management Plan of the City of Helsinki was analyzed quantitatively to provide the research data. The results show that information pertaining to permanent or long-standing objects and phenomena, as well as those with long-lasting consequences (such as...

Working with care leavers and young people still in care: ethical issues in the co-development of a participatory recordkeeping app

An important element of social research is the ethical treatment of research participants. This paper outlines the ethical issues pertaining to a study (MIRRA: Memory-Identity-Rights in Records-Access) that developed a ‘participatory recordkeeping system specification’ for young people in care. The research team worked with members of the cohort themselves (aged 13–17 years) and...

The lost historical archives of the City of Szczecin

The article is devoted to the historical archives of the city of Szczecin (Stettin), lost at the end of World War II. The authors try to recreate the circumstances of the disappearance of the Szczecin records, their internal structure, as well as indicate the limitations that the loss of these materials poses for contemporary historians. The paper also shows the process of...

Keeping the archives above water: preserving regional heritage in times of accelerated climate change

The critical question of how sustainability and resilience can inform archival practice in regional communities is motivated by the experience of flooding in Lismore, Australia, which exposed the vulnerability of local archives to the effects of climate change and the limitations of local infrastructure. Regional historical societies and community organisations serve as a...

A metadata model for authenticity in digital archival descriptions

The advent of the information paradigm has shaken many of the principles of archival theory and practice. One key issue is knowing to which extent can digital information be trusted. Digital resources are represented by metadata, and trust consists in demonstrating their authenticity. Since the traditional elements used to verify the authenticity of analog records are not...

Records of neglect: the significance of archives in redress processes

In 2005, a Swedish television documentary that revealed gross misconduct and abuse in Swedish children’s homes led to a number of inquiries that culminated with the passing of the Redress Act. This act entitled everyone that had suffered from abuse in out-of-home care to 250,000 Swedish crowns (close to 25,000 Euros). However, only 42 percent of the Swedish claimants were granted...

Emotional responses in archival work

Building on previous work investigating the impact of exposure to (a) records with traumatic potentialities and (b) interactions with donors and community researchers whose suffering is documented in the archives, this study sought to better understand emotional aspects of archival work. Using a diary research methodology, 15 archivists engaged in diary keeping for approximately...

Narrating the preservation of a film school archive – Re-configuring the hero’s journey across the nexus of conservation and film production

Narrating the preservation of a film school archive–Re-configuring the hero’s journey across the nexus of conservation and film production. In 2013, a program to secure the future of the more than 1800 films produced by students in the Victorian College of Arts’ Department of Film and Television commenced at the University of Melbourne. This is a highly significant collection...

Documenting resistance, conflict and violence: a scoping review of the role of participatory digital platforms in the mobilisation of resistance

In recent years, grassroots movements have gained traction and significant numbers globally. Against longer histories of resistance and protest movements’ mobilisation of documentation, mechanisation and digital technologies, this scoping literature review seeks to understand how resistance and social movements have drawn upon the participatory and easily accessible nature of...

Defying description: searching for queer history in institutional archives

There are numerous obstacles to overcome when conducting queer historical research. While has been a steady increase in work to address the (in)visibility of queer histories and perspectives in institutional heritage collections, this work is often skewed towards outputs such as exhibitions or social media posts. As a result, very little work has been done to interrogate and...

Record DNA: reconceptualising digital records as the future evidence base

A major issue facing society is the extent to which the usability of the digital evidence base is at risk because, in the digital era, the concept of the record has been eroded. The nature and reality of a record are no longer agreed. Addressing the challenges that the digital presents for managing records and assuring their future usability is not one that records and archives...

Attitudes and uses of archival materials among science-based anthropologists

While archival user studies have largely focused on humanities (and adjacent) scholars, this paper focuses on anthropologists engaged in scientific research. Based on qualitative results from an open-ended survey, we investigate how science-based anthropologists perceive and use archives in their work. We ask: How are science-based anthropologists and archaeologists reusing...

Recordkeeping, logistics, and translation: a study of homeless services systems as infrastructure

Homeless services systems provide unhoused individuals access to emergency shelter, subsidized housing, and other life-sustaining resources. In this paper, we present a qualitative study that draws on the experiences of fifteen social service workers to examine how recordkeeping practices sustain homeless services systems and unite a tangled web of institutions and actors...

National archives, national memory? How national archives describe themselves and their mission

There is a widespread notion that archives, especially national archival institutions, represent the nation’s memory. Historically, archives have played an important role for history writing, thereby contributing to the construction of national master narratives and the strengthening of national identities. What the association between archives and memory actually means is...

“Maybe in a few years I

Following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia, millions of refugees have fled Ukraine for safety in neighbouring countries, including Poland. This movement of people has been facilitated by, and has produced, documentation that will have significant afterlives as evidence and memory. The records refugees have carried with them, the records they have made during flight...

Search, save and share: family historians’ engagement practices with digital platforms

Alongside established heritage institutions, family historians are central figures in the ecosystem of digital heritage, both as contributors to and users of digitized historical sources. With that in mind, this research aims for a wide examination of family historians

Keeping it under lock and keywords: exploring new ways to open up the web archives with notebooks

The UK Government Web Archive (UKGWA) has been archiving government websites since 1996 and now holds regular snapshots of over 5000 sites. Currently, this material can be accessed through browsing or a simple keyword search interface on their website and has also been catalogued in The National Archives’ online catalogue, Discovery. However, the scale of the UKGWA exposes the...

Understanding the application of handwritten text recognition technology in heritage contexts: a systematic review of Transkribus in published research

Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) technology is now a mature machine learning tool, becoming integrated in the digitisation processes of libraries and archives, speeding up the transcription of primary sources and facilitating full text searching and analysis of historic texts at scale. However, research into how HTR is changing our information environment is scant. This paper...

The impact of the shift to cloud computing on digital recordkeeping practices at the University of Michigan Bentley historical library

Cloud-based productivity, collaboration, and storage tools offer increased opportunities for collaboration and potential cost-savings over locally hosted solutions and have seen widespread adoption throughout industry, government, and academia over the last decade. While these tools benefit organizations, IT departments, and day-to-day-users, they present unique challenges for...

Archival traditions in Latin America

This paper surveys archival traditions coexisting in Latin America and identifies key moments in the region's development of archives and archival practices. First, different record-keeping practices in pre-Hispanic communities are identified. Second, an Iberian conception of the archive is described in the case of colonial archival practices between the sixteenth and nineteenth...