Search results

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a research project that analyzed records management (RM) and electronic records management (ERM) course syllabi from North American archival studies’ programs. By identifying the convergences and divergences of the topics and literature found within the syllabi, the authors sought to understand the relationship between the two courses and gain insight about how these courses continue to serve as an integral component of archival studies education.

The paper is based on a qualitative analysis of 23 RM and 12 ERM course syllabi from 26 academic institutions from North America. The research examined three different aspects of the syllabi: textbooks, required articles and weekly topics. The syllabi were analyzed as separate data sets (RM syllabi and ERM syllabi), which was followed by a comparative analysis of the two types of syllabi.

The findings of this study reveal that RM, ERM and (to a lesser extent) DA (digital archives) knowledge as represented in archival education converges in some course contents but diverges in others. Archival educators should pay close attention to overlapping areas so that the courses can better complement each other and advance knowledge representation within archival studies.

This study only considered graduate-level programs in the USA and Canada. The study did not include syllabi or instructional guides from associate-level programs or professional organizations such as the International Certification of Records Managers or Association of Records Managers and Administrators (ARMA) International.

The results of this study lead the authors to present two different approaches for how RM and ERM knowledge may be incorporated into archival curriculum.

This is the first research project to analyze RM and ERM syllabi with regards to the enhancement of records and information management education and archival curriculum development.

As the archival profession seeks a wider role in the field of information science, the need to prepare students for careers in a rapidly changing world requires multidisciplinary education, greater emphasis on core archival knowledge, and fully articulated graduate programs combining structured course sequences with practical experience and sophisticated research projects. The Society of American Archivists is currently considering new “Guidelines for a graduate program in archival studies”. This case study of the graduate program in archives and records management at Western Washington University provides one example of the diverse offerings available for archival students. The six key aspects of the Western Washington University curriculum include: linking history and archives, integrating archives and records management, emphasizing information technology, incorporating management principles, including practical experience, and requiring research for a master’s thesis.

Archival studies have long been a critical part of information education around the world. This paper attempts to provide a worldwide overview of archival education among main information schools worldwide and find out their similarity and differences to suggest measures for the development of archival education.

Quantitative research is conducted including ten elements of the iSchools' archival education which are (1) geographical distribution, (2) names of degrees, (3) names of concentration/specialization, (4) names of academic units offering the programs, (5) levels of academic units offering the programs, (6) study mode, (7) credit requirement for program completion, (8) percentage of required credits, (9) capstone requirements and (10) other accreditations. Programs among different regions are compared.

The study found that 43 out of 96 iSchool members from 13 countries/regions offer a total of 45 master's level archival education, and most of them are from North America. Both similarities and differences among the schools are identified and discussed.

This study’s findings suggest that iSchools may explore the possibility of organizing more conferences and forums to exchange ideas on archival studies and education issues. The iSchool community could contribute to this traditional field by attracting more members worldwide and cooperating with other accreditation organizations of archival education.

Most research on archival education focuses on just regional or country-based issues, and scant research explores a global view.

Archival education has progressed tremendously in the past 30 years. The numbers of archival programs, full‐time tenure track faculty and courses offered have all increased exponentially. Archival science is no longer seen as a sub‐specialization of library science or history and the efforts to legitimize archives as a separate field worthy of in‐depth inquiry at both the Master's and doctoral levels have succeeded. Most recently, however, the convergence of the information disciplines has called the distinctions between related disciplines into question. This poses both challenges and opportunities for archival education. This article places archival education in its historical and professional context, and will then discuss some of the issues relating to convergence and integration in the information professions.

This paper aims to identify through a systematic review the roles that archivists adopt in a changing archival landscape and to illustrate any similarities between the roles of archivist and librarians.

The systematic literature review approach was adopted for the purposes of this research. Specifically, peer-reviewed literature published in English between 2000 and 2015 was considered. The relevant papers were retrieved based on specific search terms run on related databases.

The analysis showed that the traditional roles of record-keeper and collection manager were still relevant, whereas new ones, namely, digital archivist, archivist as educator and dual archivist/librarian, started to prevail. The technological developments as well as the social and educational changes seemed to have affected the emergence of these new roles, whereas the need for collaboration and communication among archivists, librarians and researchers was evident in many roles, namely, archivist as educator, dual archivist/librarian and archivist as researcher.

This literature review explored the different roles that archivists adopt within their work context and not the archivists’ skills, duties and responsibilities.

This paper begins to construct a theoretical foundation for using a diplomatic-informed pedagogy that specifically addresses common concerns in archival instruction in a higher education environment. The authors utilize self-determination theory (SDT) to define student-centeredness and provide empirical guidance for creating a learning environment supporting student motivation, persistence and academic achievement. The proposed framework provides both structure and theoretical grounding for the archivist while also cultivating a learning environment which effectively motivates novice researchers.

The authors draw on diplomatics and archival instructional literature to propose an instructional framework utilizing SDT.

A diplomatic-informed pedagogy is a new, theoretically viable approach to archival instruction for novice researchers intending to replace common archival orientation and competency-based instruction. This pedagogical approach also provides a reproducible structure to the instructional archivist, helping to organize classroom learning outcomes, assessments and activities in alignment with evidence-based research and well-established archival theory.

This is a conceptual paper and based on subjective analysis of existing literature and theory. The proposed framework has not been tested in a practical application, but it is based in the pedagogical foundations of diplomatics and SDT's focus on student perceptions and motivations.

Diplomatics, the foundation of archival science and legal theory, can be applied pedagogically to provide concrete guidance to teach students to use archives in more intentional, creative and disciplinary authentic ways. Diplomatics gives the instructional archivist a pedagogical foundation, structure and guiding methodology to approaching novice researchers in the archives, while SDT presents how to implement such an approach.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how archivists, records managers and scholarly literature in the field(s) analyse how “participation” is discussed in the context of archives and records management, and to explore practical and theoretical implications of the disclosed discursive practices.

The analysis is based on a discourse analysis of a body of archival literature and a sample of posts collected from the archival and records management blogosphere.

The analysis shows that instead of discussing one notion of participation, the archival science literature is referring to nine different and partly conflicting types of participation from three broad perspectives: management, empowerment and technology. The discourses have also conflicting ideas of the role of engagement and enthusiasm, and of that what do the different stakeholder communities see as real options.

The analysed material consists of a limited sample of mainly English language texts that may not capture all the nuances of how participation is discussed in the archival literature.

A better understanding of how different claims of the benefits and threats endorsing “participation” in archives helps to develop effective and less contradictory forms of collaboration between different stakeholders.

In spite of the popularity of the notion of “participation”, there little, especially critical, research on how participation is conceptualised by archives professionals and researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

The paper introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.

The paper provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a framework that creates a common language to enhance the connection between the domains of cultural heritage (CH) artifacts and instruction.

The CH and instruction domains are logically deconstructed into dimensions of functions, semiotics, CH, teaching/instructional materials, agents and outcomes. The elements within those dimensions can be concatenated to create natural-English sentences that describe aspects of the problem domain.

The framework is valid using traditional social sciences content, semantic, practical and systemic validity constructs.

The framework can be used to map current research literature to discover areas of heavy, light and no research.

The framework provides a new way for CH and education stakeholders to describe and visualize the problem domain, which could allow for significant enhancements of each. Better understanding the problem domain would serve to enhance instruction informed from collections and vice versa. The educational process would have more depth due to better access to primary sources. Increased use of collections would reveal more ways through which they could be used in instruction. The framework can help visualize the past and present of the domain, and envisage its future.

In the early 1840s Edward Gibbon Wakefield's New Zealand Company recruited “emigrants of the labouring classes” promising: “every one of them who is industrious and thrifty, may be sure to become not merely an owner of land, but also in his turn an employer of hired labourers, a master of servants.” Letters sent “Home” to Ham (a village in Surrey, UK) from Wellington between 1841‐1844, by a group of labouring families, project textual personae consistent with this liberal image. The purpose of this paper is to explore educational processes involved in the production of these colonial identities.

The letters are read in relation to archival resources: the curriculum of the National School and alternative educational models in Ham, records of schools provided in Wellington, and pedagogical intentions signalled in the records of the New Zealand Company.

Arguing that migration resulted in a radical change in the subjectivity of these labouring class families, this paper contrasts the curricula of the “National School” attended by these children in Ham with the more secular offerings in Wellington. Their “National School” taught Ham's lower orders to accept their God‐given “stations” in life. Radical critique was suppressed. In Wellington the first schools, such as the Mechanics’ Institute, were non‐denominational, prioritising practical knowledge. Foundations for a secular society based on liberal values were laid.

There is little educational research on how participation in the Wakefield scheme transformed those who, in rural England, were required to remain subservient members of the power orders, into the enterprising independent subjects required in the new colony.