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This study aims to explore the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in archival practice by presenting the thoughts and opinions of working archival practitioners. It contributes to the extant literature with a fresh perspective, expanding the discussion on AI adoption by investigating how it influences the perceptions of digital archival expertise.

In this study a two-phase data collection consisting of four online focus groups was held to gather the opinions of international archives and digital preservation professionals (n = 16), that participated on a volunteer basis. The qualitative analysis of the transcripts was performed using template analysis, a style of thematic analysis.

Four main themes were identified: fitting AI into day to day practice; the responsible use of (AI) technology; managing expectations (about AI adoption) and bias associated with the use of AI. The analysis suggests that AI adoption combined with hindsight about digitisation as a disruptive technology might provide archival practitioners with a framework for re-defining, advocating and outlining digital archival expertise.

The volunteer basis of this study meant that the sample was not representative or generalisable.

Although the results of this research are not generalisable, they shed light on the challenges prospected by the implementation of AI in the archives and for the digital curation professionals dealing with this change. The evolution of the characterisation of digital archival expertise is a topic reserved for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how non-research users access and use digital surrogates from archival collections via mobile walking tour app. Much of the existing literature that discusses outreach for digitised archival collections in libraries, archives and museums (LAMs) reports examples of single outreach events or discusses outreach broadly, without critically exploring the purpose and context of outreach as an activity. Further, these reports generally aim to introduce collections to potential researchers, amateur or professional, without consideration of how the collections could be used for purposes other than research, by non-researchers. The study aims to expand understanding of non-research use of digital surrogates contextualised by mobile technology.

Utilising an exploratory approach, Walk1916, a mobile walking tour app of Easter Rising sites in Dublin was first developed. It contextualised digital surrogates from archival collections, along with an audio and a textual description of the image, with augmented reality (AR) and geolocation technology. In all, 15 semi-structured interviews were then conducted to understand how contextualising digital surrogates with these mobile technology features influenced participants’ perceptions of the digital surrogate. Interview transcripts were transcribed and analysed via memoing and coding, using nVivo for Mac 10.2.2.

Findings from interview data suggest that contextualising the digital surrogate with AR and geolocation features allowed participants to perceive of the digital surrogate as enhancing their understanding of the Easter Rising, enhancing life and allowing for increased control of their experience.

This furthers work in the area of how individuals value digital surrogates, in different (non-research) contexts. These findings provide groundwork for the future study of non-research access to and use of digital surrogates held in institutional collections so that LAMs can utilise collections efficiently for a wider user base.

The topic of personal archives has mainly been discussed by two research traditions in information science: archives and records management, and personal information management. The purpose of this paper is to compare a corpus of the archival literature written by the archival community with the concepts and challenges posed by Catherine Marshall, who exemplifies the personal information management approach. Many of the personal digital archiving challenges that Marshall identifies are related to discussions within the archival community.

In order to demonstrate the similarities between Marshall's work with the archival discussion about personal archiving, Marshall's challenges, tasks and attributes of personal digital archiving were compared with a total of 33 articles from two library and information science databases.

Many of the personal digital archiving challenges that Marshall identifies are related to discussions in the archival community. The author suggests that certain aspects of the archival literature may be utilized to address Marshall's identified challenges. Lastly, future collaborations between members of the archival community and members of the personal information management community may prove useful in addressing the challenges of personal digital archiving

The paper demonstrates that two areas of information science share ideas about how to address the issues related to personal archives, but rarely consult one another when writing about personal digital archiving. The author highlights the archives and records management tradition in an attempt to introduce the literature to the broader discussion on personal digital archives being had by the personal information management tradition.

The purpose of this paper is to consider personal digital archiving (PDA) from an academic perspective. Although elements of research data management and personal information management are relevant, it is unclear what is available on university websites supporting PDA. The following question guided the research: where is “PDA” content housed in the top-level .edu domain and what is the format and nature of the content made available?

This descriptive study analyzed Google hits yielded by searching “PDA” within the .edu domain. Results were analyzed to determine where content was housed and its format and nature. Placement in the domain, delivery methods, topics, and the nature of the most highly ranking Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) were analyzed.

In the academy, PDA is not exclusively of interest in libraries; not quite half of the .edu URLs (45 percent) pointed to a library site. Scholarly papers were the most returned content, followed by blogs and conferences information. Closer analysis of the top 20 URLs showed that libraries are popular and papers, and blogs continue to be dominant.

The results suggest good PDA practices and recommendations are evolving. Academic librarians should examine these practices, refine them, and make them available and discoverable on the web.

This is the first paper, to the knowledge, to consider PDA content from the perspective of universities and university libraries.