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The aim of this chapter is to emphasize the importance of archival material and how, despite its secondary nature, it is capable of providing first-hand information for researchers. By providing a variety of examples from tourism, hospitality and leisure, this chapter demonstrates how this underused data can be a valuable resource for these areas of study. In order to illustrate how to use archival material as data, a step-by-step process to analyzing archival photographs is provided. The chapter discusses the challenges and ethical considerations associated with using archival material while also providing suggestions for the use of this data source in future studies.

Archival research is a much under-rated and under-utilized method of research in management studies. Yet multi-disciplinary undertakings being observed in recent times, such as in knowledge management (KM) systems, business history and social network studies, among others, indicate that there is a lot of potential to be explored. The purpose of this paper is to highlight this point and make a case for its inclusion in the researcher’s toolkit in the future.

The authors follow a two-stage method here: the first stage being an improvised process to benchmark articles for this review; while the second stage involves content analysis and synthesis of the same.

The authors have dealt with the intricacies of the archival research methodology by minutely examining the fieldwork steps, proxies generation, other related processes of triangulation, etc. With the discussion on “multi-disciplinary undertakings,” the authors offer not only a selective bibliography of works that have effectively harvested this family of methods, but also critique the nuances involved. Finally, coming into more contemporary concerns and developments, the authors undertake an in-depth look at technological applications in the domain of KM, in case study mode. Methodological richness leads to substantive granularity. As such, the authors argue that archival methods contribute to the robustness, contextuality and holism of any research endeavor, more so in the study of business and organizations.

This paper is based on the literature review.

This paper makes a case for archival method’s contribution toward the robustness, contextuality and holism of any research endeavor, more so in the study of business and organizations.

This paper re-positions the method of archival research as a viable and sophisticated tool for researchers to employ effectively in singular or mixed method studies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the Records in Contexts proposal of a conceptual model (RiC-CM) from the International Council on Archives’ (ICA) archival description and to propose an OWL ontology for its implementation in the semantic web.

The various elements of the model are studied and are related to earlier norms in order to understand their structure and the modeling of the ontology.

The analysis reveals the integrating nature of RiC-CM and the possibilities it offers for greater interoperability of data from archival descriptions. Two versions of an OWL ontology were developed to represent the conceptual model. The first makes a direct transposition of the conceptual model; the second optimizes the properties and relations in order to simplify the use and maintenance of the ontology.

The proposed ontology will follow the considerations of the final version of the ICA’s RiC-CM.

The analysis affords an understanding of the role of RiC-CM in publishing online archival data sets, while the ontology is an initial approach to the semantic web technologies involved.

This paper offers an overview of Records in Contexts with respect to the advantages in the field of semantic interoperability, and supposes the first proposal of an ontology based on the conceptual model.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the current state of Linked Data (LD) in archival moving image description, and propose ways in which current metadata records can be enriched and enhanced by interlinking such metadata with relevant information found in other data sets.

Several possible metadata models for moving image production and archiving are considered, including models from records management, digital curation, and the recent BIBFRAME AV Modeling Study. This research also explores how mappings between archival moving image records and relevant external data sources might be drawn, and what gaps exist between current vocabularies and what is needed to record and make accessible the full lifecycle of archiving through production, use, and reuse.

The author notes several major impediments to implementation of LD for archival moving images. The various pieces of information about creators, places, and events found in moving image records are not easily connected to relevant information in other sources because they are often not semantically defined within the record and can be hidden in unstructured fields. Libraries, archives, and museums must work on aligning the various vocabularies and schemas of potential value for archival moving image description to enable interlinking between vocabularies currently in use and those which are used by external data sets. Alignment of vocabularies is often complicated by mismatches in granularity between vocabularies.

The focus is on how these models inform functional requirements for access and other archival activities, and how the field might benefit from having a common metadata model for critical archival descriptive activities.

By having a shared model, archivists may more easily align current vocabularies and develop new vocabularies and schemas to address the needs of moving image data creators and scholars.

Moving image archives, like other cultural institutions with significant heritage holdings, can benefit tremendously from investing in the semantic definition of information found in their information databases. While commercial entities such as search engines and data providers have already embraced the opportunities that semantic search provides for resource discovery, most non-commercial entities are just beginning to do so. Thus, this research addresses the benefits and challenges of enriching and enhancing archival moving image records with semantically defined information via LD.

Purpose – For decades, archivists have been appraising, preserving, and providing access to digital records by using archival theories and methods developed for paper records. However, production and consumption of digital records are informed by social and industrial trends and by computer and data methods that show little or no connection to archival methods. The purpose of this chapter is to reexamine the theories and methods that dominate records practices. The authors believe that this situation calls for a formal articulation of a new transdiscipline, which they call computational archival science (CAS).

Design/Methodology/Approach – After making a case for CAS, the authors present motivating case studies: (1) evolutionary prototyping and computational linguistics; (2) graph analytics, digital humanities, and archival representation; (3) computational finding aids; (4) digital curation; (5) public engagement with (archival) content; (6) authenticity; (7) confluences between archival theory and computational methods: cyberinfrastructure and the records continuum; and (8) spatial and temporal analytics.

Findings – Each case study includes suggestions for incorporating CAS into Master of Library Science (MLS) education in order to better address the needs of today’s MLS graduates looking to employ “traditional” archival principles in conjunction with computational methods. A CAS agenda will require transdisciplinary iSchools and extensive hands-on experience working with cyberinfrastructure to implement archival functions.

Originality/Value – We expect that archival practice will benefit from the development of new tools and techniques that support records and archives professionals in managing and preserving records at scale and that, conversely, computational science will benefit from the consideration and application of archival principles.

This paper aims to present the authors’ attempts to evaluate the access to archival maps available in digital libraries. Its aim was to pinpoint the factors determining the effectiveness of access to old maps and to evaluate which Polish libraries provide resources in such a way as to give the users the best chance of finding the materials necessary for their research.

The presented research focussed on archival documents from academic libraries accessible from the Polish Digital Libraries Federation and available from Europeana Collections. The evaluation criteria were established along with features that determine the level of difficulty of access to data describing archival documents. The research took into account the way of recording the data about archival documents in metadata. The authors have also analysed the quantity of available resources and the consistency of metadata record.

The results of the research have demonstrated that one-third of the analysed libraries deserve a positive evaluation. The digital library of the Warsaw University and the Jagiellonian Digital Library received the best scores in terms of the description of archival documents. Considering the number of resources, the Jagiellonian Digital Library and the Digital Library of the University of Wrocław are positively distinguished.

The method of evaluating the access to archival maps has been developed. The criteria and features necessary for this evaluation and the way of their interpretation have also been defined. The future goals leading to the improvement of the access to the archival maps have been also presented.

The aim of the article is to investigate what characterizes the information constructs that the archival discourse and the open data discourse communicate in text, and what their similarities and differences are. This article proposes that it is possible to see the open data initiative and modern archival practice as two discourses that have used different terminology to express and communicate their messages in the literature. In this article, we have applied a hypothesis-like assumption that the information constructs used in open data are actually nothing other than records, as they are in the archival discourse.

This article is based on a mixed method approach. A quantitative text analysis (word count) was carried out in a large set of documents representing the open data discourse and in the archival discourse. This was followed by a qualitative text analysis.

It was found that both discourses did focus on records. However, the opendata discourse very seldom used the term record, but used information and data much more frequently. The archival discourse used the term information almost as often as record. A possible adaption of communication strategies can be identified, targeting a much wider audience through a user-centered approach. This could be an indication of a change in the archival discourse, which seems to be moving from a discourse that is very much regulated by law toward a discourse that is more focused on benefit and usability.

This research indicates that it is possible to interpret both the open data and the archival discourse as one united discourse, an effect derived from working with e-government. There is an ongoing harmonization of the words used, and in the studied archival discourse, a more user- and business-oriented focus can be seen.

This chapter discusses the benefits, limitations, and challenges in developing research projects that integrate a combination of archival, behavioral, and qualitative research methods. By demonstrating the inherent strengths and weaknesses of using a single method in isolation, this chapter aims to broaden our understanding of why and how research that examines various issues from the different perspectives is richer than employing any single method and enhances our understanding of a given accounting phenomenon. This chapter also discusses how investigating an issue through multiple research methods can help researchers improve the generalizability of findings and present a panoramic view of a particular phenomenon.

While social media data are used increasingly in studies of social movements, social media evolves far more rapidly than academic research and publication. This chapter argues that researchers should adopt historical and archival approaches to social media data. Treating social media data as an “instant archive” – one that is self-curated, is co-constituted, and changes rapidly – we caution researchers to pay attention to the features of this archive and their implications for working with the data therein. Applying insights from recent discussions of archival methods for social science research to the specific features of social media data, we explore how platform features, repressive effects, and user innovations affect the content of the instant archive. We then offer strategies for researchers' methodological approaches, including how best to select units of analysis and platforms, how to collect and interpret archival materials, and how to identify silences in the data.

This paper theorizes ubiquitous computing as a novel configuration of the archive. Such a configuration is characterized by shifts in agency underlying archival mechanics and a pronounced rhythmic diminution of such mechanics in which the user's experiential present tense is rendered fundamentally historical. In doing so, this paper troubles the relationship between: archival mechanics such as appraisal, accession and access; the archive as a site of historical knowledge production and the pervasiveness of data-driven daily life.

By employing conceptual analysis, I analyze a classic vision of ubiquitous computing to describe the historicization of the present tense in an increasingly computerized world. The conceptual analysis employed here draws on an interdisciplinary set of literature from library and information science, philosophy and computing fields such as human-computer interaction (HCI) and ubiquitous computing.

I present the concept of the data perfect tense, which is derived from the future perfect tense: the “will have had” construction. It refers to a historicized, data-driven and fundamentally archival present tense characterizing the user's lived world in which the goal of action is to have had created data for future unspecified use. The data perfect reifies ubiquitous computing as an archive, or a site of historical knowledge production predicated on sets of potential statements derived from data generated, appraised, acquisitioned and made accessible through and by means of pervasive “smart” objects.

This paper provides foundational consideration of ubiquitous computing as a configuration of the archive through the analysis of its temporalities: a rhythmic diminution that renders users' experiential present tenses as fundamentally historical, constructed through the agency of smart devices. In doing so, it: contributes to ongoing work within HCI seeking to understand the relationship between HCI and history; introduces concepts relevant to the analysis of novel technological ecologies in terms of archival theory; and constitutes preliminary interdisciplinary steps towards highlighting the relevance of theories of the archive and archival mechanics for critiquing sociotechnical concerns such as surveillance capitalism.