Links to Helpful Archives and Cultural Heritage Web Sites

I've been collecting my Links to Helpful Archives and Cultural Heritage Web Sites for about 15 years now. They started as bookmarks for myself as I did research for library patrons, wrote client reports, and published articles. I then decided to put the links online to help others interested in good resources for archival work. The list grows as my interests do and as ideas in the field of archives management change and develop. Digital Collaboration is now the fastest growing topic on my page. Recently I have been collecting links on community studies for my own research and I think that may be my next new subject heading on the Links web page.

One day as I was updating the site, I decided to tweet about it. I think that may have been about a year ago.  I have received much positive feedback and numerous retweets. So, every time I now update the page I put out a tweet (or two or three) to say that I have done so. I'm glad that people seem to find this useful.

I thought I'd write this post to ask you about your own favorite archives related web sites. As the list stands now, it is very much a personal site. Everything included there I have admired and I have used the information to develop my own ideas about my work and its place in my field. When I started collecting links, there were few archives related web sites. Now there are too many for me to examine them all on my own. So, with that in mind, I hope that others will feel free to recommend sites that they find particularly useful for the promotion and care of archives and cultural heritage resources. If you think something is list worthy -- a site that you have created or one to which you frequently refer -- please comment here, shoot me an email or send a Twitter shout out. I can't wait to discover some new things! Thanks! - MM

Participatory Archives and Face-to Face Communication

Andrew Flinn's 'An attack on professionalism and scholarship'?: Democratizing Archives and the Production of Knowledge discusses the value of community archives and the desirability of encouraging a participatory archives model. Flinn passionately argues for the need to shift the professional archivist's thinking to include the role of the non-professional, interested citizen, to advance the work that archivists do. Embracing democratization (or democratisation with respect to my English colleague) in the archives means giving users and potential collaborators a sense of ownership in the work that we do. Flinn notes that "...archives held in the community could be as important as those held in public archives." He advocates for persuading communities to share their knowledge and that specialists in diverse fields often have a better understanding of the materials held in cultural repositories than those who are charged with caring for those materials.

Flinn seems to present a challenge in the second half of his article, if you subscribe to the idea that the next step for archives is to be more inclusive and participatory, the next step to consider is how to encourage those outside of the archives to buy-in. In my opinion we must convince potential collaborators that: 1. We value what they say. 2. We are actively listening to their input 3. Their input is being put to good use.

Flinn discusses some of evidence of success in online collaborative initiatives such as The National Archives' (UK) "Your Archives" project, while earlier in the article he notes that "...in themselves, new technologies do not guarantee such a transformation [to democratic impulses]."
Once again, I find myself struggling with ideas of old and new. Technology is not the only input into the community we need to consider. While it has great benefits for archives in terms of access and reaching users we may not otherwise have reached, we cannot abandon successful methods that do not relate to computers and digitization.

In tandem with Flinn's article, I am reading Nina Simon's "The Participatory Museum." Her book emphasizes how different users may need different entry points into a museum. While one may feel comfortable walking through an exhibit with a brochure in hand, another may want an audio guide. Another person may want an activity that invites them to interactive with the exhibit to keep them engaged. With this in mind, we need to consider alternative means to invite individuals to participate.

Many of the people with whom I work are not Internet savvy. In fact, many need to be cajoled into going near a computer and just trying it. It is not effective to try to convince them of the value of using a computer while at the same time convincing them of the value of archives. Perhaps in a generation or two this will change and everyone will be comfortable with a computer. When that happens, and as technology advances and the becomes more personalized, the multiple access points we use for participatory archives will need to be revisited. For now, as my blog title today suggests, we must not abandon face-to-face communication. And for those of us who have never tried getting out of the archives and into the community, now would be a good time to do it as we explore the ideas of "participatory" and "crowdsourcing."

Encouraging users to bring their archives and their ideas to professionals through thoughtful programs is one way to make outsiders feel welcome. Public speaking, networking, attending community events and just making ourselves visible is still the best way to increase trust and participation. Telling individuals face-to-face that they are important, that the histories of their families are important, and that the records they hold in their possession are important, is vital to successful collaboration and democratization of our work. If we can reach out in-person, we can show that we are listening and valuing the individuals in our community, and we will receive the support and collaboration we seek.

Our challenge then becomes putting the buy-in to good use. What kinds of collections, programs, additional access points, exhibits, etc. can we create with our new non-professional partners to show them what they say matters? Rather than creating the programs FOR an audience first and hoping they will come, this shift in thinking will allow us to create programs WITH our audience, truly democratizing what we do, while highlighting our community and civic roles, and ultimately strengthening us and our purpose.

Blog versus Diary: Just New Technology or a Whole New Way of Thinking?

Since college in the late eighties, I have been torn between two worlds. I have been "old fashioned" since I was a little girl. I love old books, old buildings, old documents, and old ways. I was the girl who wanted to be an archaeologist in six grade so I could learn more about King Tut and see what it was "really like" to walk like an Egyptian. I was the high school student who volunteered to organize old scrapbooks at the local Vanderbilt mansion so I could learn what it was like to live in a different time, under different circumstances, in big poofy dresses with early plumbing and electrical systems. Then I met my husband, who had been taking apart computers since the age of 11. He dragged me kicking and screaming from a typewriter to a computer so I could write my college papers in the newfangled way and move from the "dark ages." Next up, there came graduate school where I was thrust into technology and absorbed as much as I could. Finally, in my first job, I was hired as an archivist / reference librarian in a public library where my position quickly expanded to include "Internet Coordinator" and my transformation was complete...

"You are the youngest and fresh out of grad school so you know more about computers than the rest of us and we need a library web page." Marvelous!

I love computers. I love them because they help me make the connections between old and new that I so love to evaluate. I love using my computer for organizing, researching, photo editing, etc. I love to write things on my computer that I plan to share with others. BUT that's exactly what my computer is to me -- a tool for sharing. It is not for the things I plan to keep all to myself or for my family legacy.

For the private, I use my diary. It is a small book that I keep by my bedside and I write in it with a pen -- and I'm not ashamed to admit that I prefer the fancy old-fashioned kind of pen too. The kind that you may get once in a lifetime. I love the tactile feel of it all and of the cozying up under the covers, while reaching into my brain to figure out what is going on in there. A cup of tea beside me or a glass of wine helps too. The artifacts and environment are certainly part of the experience, but as usual I digress and will save that observation for a later day.

In some ways, this is a game of semantics as the words I use in my profession and to identify myself are slowly hijacked by those more ensconced in computer than I (I guess). My Twitter friend Dennis Moser said it well in his blog "Non-Flat Culture" in an article titled "Curate" Archives"...What's Next" http://nonflat.ning.com/forum/topics/curate-archive-whats-next?xg_source=shorten_twitter . (Go take a look at his rant so that I don't have to repeat it.) I just wonder, should we use new words for new online things? Why do we have to forget about things like the value of being with ourselves to just hand over the words to new technology?

Now, let's take the word "blog." According to Wikipedia "A blog (a contraction of the term "web log")is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video." And there are many different types of blogs. The one that most interests me for this posting is the "personal blog" which crashes into my little world of off-line diary writing. According to Wikipedia, "The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common blog. Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read. Blogs often become more than a way to just communicate; they become a way to reflect on life, or works of art. Blogging can have a sentimental quality. Few personal blogs rise to fame and the mainstream, but some personal blogs quickly garner an extensive following."

Obviously, I blog so I can appreciate this. I write this ArchivesInfo blog. I also maintain a Garden blog. I love using this media to communicate with the world. And that's the crux of it all. A blog is a tool of communication. I am not sitting down to work out my most private thoughts with myself. I am very much aware that you are reading what I am saying. So, is this just a new way to write my personal thoughts or is it a whole new way of thinking about personal thoughts? Should I be sharing my diary with you online as well? Is the private become less private and is that okay for us as a human race?

I once mentioned to my college advisor, who is also an enthusiastic diary keeper, that sometimes when I write in my diary I think about people who might one day read the diary. She was horrified and quickly said, "I NEVER think about that." To her, a woman about twenty years my senior, the diary is very personal. To me, a practical archivist living on the cusp of a huge change in society, I tentatively let go of some privacy, but yearn to keep some of it at the same time.

I am heartened by those who take on blogging as a means of expression, while at the same time I am disheartened that these people may totally give up the idea of diary writing. I am glad that computers (when people can get access to them) help level the playing field a bit, giving everyone a voice. But I don't want the old to be totally lost among the new. When we turn totally towards computing, we lose a bit of something special. Somehow, handing down my ThinkPad to my daughter is not the same as giving her a box of my diaries. This generation needs to think about whether blogging and other computer tools are just a new technology to make the old better or if we are beginning to think about culture in a whole new way. I believe that it is quite possible to we are losing a valuable piece of culture and self-expression by plunging ahead without appreciating what is behind.