Horrors! The archives have been hacked! Wait–that’s a good thing.

This post is written in response to the call for submissions to a new kind of publication, Hacking the Academy, “a book crowdsourced in one week, May 21-28, 2010.”

Yes, the old-fashioned, traditional academic archives/special collections is fading into obsolescence. Any one who works with archives knows they’ve fundamentally changed in the last decade or so but how do these changes affect the relationship of the archives with “the academy”? In the spirit of the publication, here are some quickly-written footnote-free thoughts, presented for your consideration and discussion.

Getting access

In the “old days,” how did access work in academic archives/special collections? Scholarly researchers worked hand-in-hand with experienced archivists to locate materials of interest and spent time sitting in our reading rooms, reviewing page after page of materials. Of course, this wasn’t the way it worked at every archives all the time for every user, but really, how much thought was given to expanding usage beyond the community of historians and scholars? Were genealogists, family historians, and casual researchers encouraged? I don’t think so.

Now? As much as possible, archives and special collections are digitizing materials and putting them online, via their own websites and commercial sites. Which means anyone and everyone has access to those materials. No mediation or guidance by the archivist, no travel expenses. Access has been democratized. Which is great, right? More access is better, isn’t it?

Yes. Of course. But what comes along with that? Some collections are being digitized in their entirety, which means no selection, editing, or footnotes–good for scholars perhaps, but not for all kinds of users. Do we still need edited collections of documents anymore? Other collections are being digitized selectively, and selection is not always good for scholars. And what about the hordes of collections and materials that aren’t being digitized? Good for scholars because these “hidden collections” provide potential new material for publication, but is it bad for scholarship because many students (and perhaps some scholars) will tend to reference only the materials they find online?

And this democratization is connected with a shift in how most archives and special collections are measured and assessed by their institutions. Greater importance is being placed on measuring results and outcomes, rather than solely on the amount of material collected and processed, or the number of publications that reference the collection. This is good for most users, but it surely displaces providing a high level of service to scholars as the primary focus of the academic archives/special collections.

In short, archivists and special collections librarians are no longer the “handmaidens of historians.” We serve more users, of different kinds, and our success is measured by how broadly our materials are used.

Sharing findings

Just as access has been democratized, so has publication. A research discovery doesn’t have to wait to be announced in a peer-reviewed publication. If policies permit, users of archives can create their own digital copies of materials and post them on their own sites. Clever researchers can re-use and re-purpose digital images they find on the web. More and more archives are creating their own forums for sharing information about their collections.

Anyone with an interest can publish their thoughts about what they find in the archives. Good for the archives, good for most users . . . good for “the academy”? I’ll leave the question about whether expanded publication options are good for the academy to the experts. My interest is archives, and the relevance of this shift for our discussion is that the archives doesn’t need scholarly publications any more. Well, that’s a bit extreme. Let’s say we used to have an almost exclusive relationship, and now the archives is free to date around and see other people. The academic archives and special collections are not reliant on traditional academic publishing to get word out about our collections or raise our profile. We can do that ourselves. We love it when your publications use our materials (and we love it even more when you send us a copy), but they’re not the only, or even the primary, means of gaining recognition for our collections.

So, yes, the relationship between archives and scholarship has changed, and I think that’s a good thing for the archives. What do scholars think of this change? In a way, it doesn’t matter because the clock isn’t going to turn back. But still, I’d be interested in hearing your responses to this argument. I’ve never worked in a special collections or college/university archives, and so I’m open to being corrected about my assumptions. What about the implications for scholarship? And remember, just as this post is a candidate for publication, so are your comments and tweets in response to it, so be smart and share your opinions.

New Approaches to Archival Publishing

This substantial guest post was contributed by Peter Hirtle, one of the archival and library community’s leading experts on copyright and an all-around smart guy. Once I found out about how he and his co-authors had approached the publication of their new book on copyright, I knew it was something that more people should know about. So, take it away, Peter!

Kate was kind enough to ask how best to purchase a print copy of my new book, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums. She also suggested that a description of the options and decisions we faced would make for a good guest blog entry. I am happy to oblige.

When it came time to think about how to publish the American edition of a manual first published in Australia by my co-authors, Emily Hudson and Andrew T. Kenyon, we knew we had some fundamental principles. Most important of all was that we wanted it to be available as a free PDF download as well as being available in print format. The Australian original was distributed this way, and it was because it was freely available that I could get my hands on a copy and realize how useful an American version would be. We thought the book would be useful to anyone in a cultural institution, and our primary goal was to make sure that they had ready access to the title. In furtherance of this goal, we licensed the text under a fairly generous Creative Commons license. We also wanted there to be a printed version, however, because we recognized that a print version might actually be easier to use. Read more »

Incredible presentation about the Amsterdam City Archives’ “scan on demand” program

Last Friday Ellen Fleurbaay and Marc Holtman of the Amsterdam City Archives gave an incredible presentation about their new approach to scanning. With their permission, I’ve posted their slides here and you can see more information on the “DVD extras” presentation here. You may remember that the web site associated with this project, Archiefbank, was one of our Best Archives on the Web award winners earlier this year. It was a pleasure to be able to meet Ellen and Marc in person, and almost everyone I know who saw this presentation in Jersey City was blown away by it and by what they’ve accomplished.

UPDATE: Dan Santamaria has posted audio, powerpoint, and supplementary files from the presentation by Ellen Fleurbaay and Marc Holtman at Princeton University on November 2, 2009 here. This is essentially the same presentation they gave at MARAC. Thanks, Dan!

Four “places” for archives to interact with users

So, building on the post from a few days ago with Clay Shirky’s observations about how to create a situation that will lead to fruitful collaboration with online users, I’m going to talk about four different “places” where archives invite user participation, and the kinds of implicit and explicit social contracts created by them. This is the first time I’m presenting these ideas, which need a lot more work and thinking through, but in the spirit of collaboration, I’m sharing them here in their raw form. Read more »

Vancouver Archives hosts “hackathon”

I saw something about this on Twitter and thought it was a great idea, for all the reasons you’ll see discussed below. Sue Bigelow, the Digital Conservator at the City of Vancouver Archives was good enough to write this guest post about the event:

The City of Vancouver Archives recently hosted a hackathon for open public data. A hackathon is an event in which hackers (open source programming enthusiasts) gather to work on projects collaboratively. About 20 people attended to discuss their open data application coding projects and ideas and do some work. Although our event was relatively short at five hours (more hackfest than –athon), Vantrash.ca, an open-source app that reminds residents when to put out their garbage and compost for pickup, had City of Vancouver data applied to it, was debugged, and is now live. The hackers seem pleased: they would like another hackathon before the end of the year. For the Archives, it was a successful outreach event.

Here’s some background. Read more »

Micro-volunteering, anyone?

If I could tag my own posts as favorites, I’d do that for this one. Today is a busy day so I’ll just share it without analysis, but I think you will all see the potential for archives to benefit from this kind of micro-volunteering, and the opportunity for a lot of you to contribute your own knowledge and skills for organizations who need help.

The company is The Extraordinaries, and I strongly encourage you to go and learn more on their site.

Good stuff

So much to share, so little time …

Some of these deserve their own posts, but since I’m not sure when that might happen, here are some things you might want to know about:

I know I’ve got more to post about, but that should keep you busy for a little while, right?

A must see: Social Media Strategy Framework

I found this via Twitter this morning (thanks to @rossdawson): a graphic representation of a Social Media Strategy Framework from Advanced Human Technologies. As you will see when you click on the link, it divides your strategy into phases, represented in a circular pattern:

I’m relieved that these are basically the same steps I outlined in my book–but of course this is much more elegantly presented!

This is what I’m talking about: MPLP = Archives 2.0

I have the advantage over you because I’ve already read the post that will follow this one–Dan Santamaria guest blogging about MPLP. I wish I had had this post to read even earlier, back before I prepared my brief “Archives 2.0: An Introduction” presentation for my session at SAA. I don’t know if I would have changed the slides to reference what Dan is talking about, but I certainly would have used MPLP to support the concept that Archives 2.0 is not “Archives + Web 2.0.” If you look at the list of qualities that characterize Archives 2.0 on my third slide–things like “user-centered,” “open to iterating products,” and “innovation and flexibility”–I think you can see that they are very much in line with what Dan is talking about. I think in an earlier version of my presentation, I had characterized “Archives 1.0″ as risk averse, and Archives 2.0 as more willing to take risks, and this is something that I will definitely put back in as I revise these slides. When Dan cites examples of archives “using resources creatively in order to increase access to collections,” I would argue what he’s really talking about is something broader than processing, and it is this kind of evolution and approach that I am calling Archives 2.0. Concepts like considering resource allocation in relation to processing, developing a policy for what constitutes acceptable baseline access for all collections, and incorporating the means to collect metrics on the use of collections to guide further processing are all signs of increased professionalization and sophistication of the archival world that I think translate into a new “version” of our profession.

In my presentation I said that Archives 2.0 isn’t something that’s “in the future”–it’s here now. Our profession has changed. For me and many others, we recognize what’s happened and think it’s a good thing. I suspect for some of our colleagues, this may be a very confusing time. The profession they started their careers in and became expert at has changed underneath their feet. Things are different or changing and they’re not sure why or whether or not they like it. Some people may think their expertise is no longer valued, and that the stable future they had envisioned for the end of their careers has changed into a shifting, murky landscape. I don’t know if any of these factors account for the negative reactions to MPLP, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were a subconscious factor for some people.

I hadn’t intended this post to turn into one about change management, but that’s how it is ending up. If you’re reading this, you’re probably one of the people who is excited by change, but you may also know some colleagues who are not. As we think about things like MPLP and other examples of how the profession is changing the way it does business, it might be useful to remember some basic change management principles as well. Perhaps I’ll be able to find a guest blogger for that sometime soon too. And now, here’s Dan . . . .