I've compiled some of my best post posts on archival management. I love being a consultant who can help organizations fund, set up, or expand their archives programs.
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Mastering Archival Projects
The Professionalization of Archivists: An Overview
The role of archivists has always been in flux, responding to the needs of the information world and providing the unique skill sets that librarians, historians, and records managers may understand but do not hold. Archivists are colleagues to librarians, historians, and records managers, but are a distinct class unto themselves.
Revising a Paper’s Organization
Autocategorization in Records Management
The ability to automatically categorize records is very powerful, but autocategorization is not well understood and needs to be executed properly if it is to succeed. Autocategorization “attempts to assign electronic records to either predefined file structures or to self-defined categories through computer-based processes” (Lubbes 2003, 60).
Deaccessioning in the Archives
Deaccessioning of archival holdings, the process in which an archives removes accessioned materials from its holdings, is one potential result of reappraisal. Ideally, deaccessioning would occur regularly in the course of archival collections management practices. As a routine procedure, it would allow archival institutions to remove materials determined to be unworthy of retention.
Painting an Information Map
I recently watched R.I.P.: Rest in Pieces: A Portrait of Joe Coleman, a 1997 documentary about the painter and performance artist. Coleman paints detailed, overwhelming, and chaotic scenes in a similar style to Hieronymus Bosch. Coleman's work is categorized as "outsider art," a condescending way of saying an artist is talented, but without the usual pretension of being an artiste.
Archival Program Management
The management of the archival program connects to the hosting institution’s mission; it cannot be an afterthought. Unfortunately, management is an area where archivists traditionally lack experience, but, recently, most LIS programs require students to take at least one management course.
Archivists usually reside in organizations whose primary mission is something else, which can isolate them. Archivists often lack control over matters related to budgets or facilities; they need to be able to find and explain costs so resource allocators can understand them.
The Social Implications of Data Mining
This post explores how data mining, a rapidly changing discipline of new technologies and concepts, affects the individual right to privacy. As technology becomes more enmeshed in the daily lives of individuals, information on their activities is being stored, accessed, and used. Society is developing a new definition of privacy in this information environment, with few laws specifying privacy protection with electronic transmission and storage. Collecting and using data without limitations is unacceptable, but norms have changed enough that data collection has been accepted without much opposition.
The Problem with Digital Image Banks
Historical photographic collections in archives, libraries, and museums have been influenced by the two billion dollar a year global stock photography industry. The images, used in marketing, advertising, editorials, multimedia products, and websites, are filed at an agency that negotiates licensing fees on the photographer’s behalf in exchange for a percentage, or in some cases, owns the images outright.
There are numerous articles, case studies, policies, and conference sessions on reappraisal and deaccessioning, yet despite the increasing amount of information, these practices remain controversial.
Investing in Institutional Archives
When we think of archival repositories, we frequently think of academic archives or large historical societies. We often forget about business or institutional archives, because they are usually closed to the public.
Institutional archives fall into many categories: government at all levels, corporations, not-for-profit organizations, colleges and universities, and religious institutions. These organizations establish archives for several reasons and develop archival collection policies.