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The purpose of this study is to identify shared themes and concerns of two local and critical archives by comparing their design and day-to-day practice.

The action research has drawn on the experience of collaboration between a Sydney-based community space (Frontyard) and the Surabaya-based co-working community (C2O) over one year. Each space houses a small physical library of books, which is the focus of this analysis.

Hacking has emerged as a key value of both archives. A hacking approach has shaped the design of each space and the organisation each archive. Hacking frames the analysis of each collection in this study.

Pragmatic and political understanding of such archives have implications for better quality and more authentic exchange between the communities that make use of these libraries in Indonesia and Australia.

While some work on local critical archives has been done in Indonesia and Australia, no research to date has made specific comparisons with the aim of sharing knowledge. Because these archives are often temporary and ephemeral, documenting the work that goes into them, and their practitioners’ perspectives, is urgent, making possible shared knowledge that can inform the ways communities make decisions about their own heritage.

This paper aims to use the experience of an in-person event that was forced to go virtual in the wake of COVID-19 as an entryway into a discussion on the broader implications around transitioning events online. It gives both practical recommendation to event organizers as well as broader reflections on the role of digital libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

The authors draw on their personal experiences with the datathon, as well as a comprehensive review of literature. The authors provide a candid assessment of what approaches worked and which ones did not.

A series of best practices are provided, including factors for assessing whether an event can be run online; the mixture of synchronous versus asynchronous content; and important technical questions around delivery. Focusing on a detailed case study of the shift of the physical team-building exercise, the authors note how cloud-based platforms were able to successfully assemble teams and jumpstart online collaboration. The existing decision to use cloud-based infrastructure facilitated the event’s transition as well. The authors use these examples to provide some broader insights on meaningful content delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moving an event online during a novel pandemic is part of a broader shift within the digital libraries’ community. This paper thus provides a useful professional resource for others exploring this shift, as well as those exploring new program delivery in the post-pandemic period (both due to an emphasis on climate reduction as well as reduced travel budgets in a potential period of financial austerity).

The purpose of this study is to determine which metadata schemas are used in the museums and university collections of the main universities in Spain and other European countries. Although libraries and archives are also university memory institutions (according to a Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums perspective), their collections are not included in this study because their metadata systems are highly standardized and their inclusion would, therefore, skew our understanding of the diverse realities that the study aims to capture.

The analysis has three components. The first is a bibliographic review based on Web of Science. The second is a direct survey of the individuals responsible for university collections to understand their internal work and documentation systems. Finally, the results obtained are complemented by an analysis of collective university heritage portals in Europe.

The results of this study confirmed the hypothesis that isolation and a lack of resources are still major issues in many cases. Increasing digitalization and the desire to participate in content aggregation systems are forcing change, although the responsibility for that change at universities is still vague.

Universities, particularly those with a long history, have an important heritage whose parts are often scattered or hidden. Although many contemporary academic publications have focused on the dissemination of university collections, this study focuses on the representation of information based on the conviction that good metadata are essential for dissemination.

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.

In the wake of the fourth industrial revolution, where most information is accessible online, archives should be visible online for them to fulfil their legislated mandate and facilitate access to information resources. The Covid-19 pandemic has further underscored the importance of online platforms in making archives accessible without the public having to visit archival institutions physically. The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which public archival institutions of South Africa are visible online with the view to deepen their understanding of how archives promote themselves online.

The study employed content analysis to establish the online content of public archival institutions in South Africa. A google search was conducted using the names of the archival institutions as search terms. The top results obtained after the search were recorded for further analysis.

The findings suggest that public archival institutions in South Africa have limited online presence. Only the National Archives of South Africa had an active website with collections that are accessible online. Some provincial archives had websites hosted by their parent bodies while others had no websites at all. Only the Limpopo and Eastern Cape provincial archives had their Facebook pages in the top results. There were no signs of other social media sites in the top results.

The study concludes that public archival institutions are not visible online. All provincial archives need to have websites where they can be accessed. The use of social media platforms needs to be prioritised. In this fourth industrial revolution age, people communicate and interact online. Public archival institutions should therefore make it their primary mandate to take the archives to where the people are currently meeting.

An overview of the current use of handwritten text recognition (HTR) on archival manuscript material, as provided by the EU H2020 funded Transkribus platform. It explains HTR, demonstrates Transkribus, gives examples of use cases, highlights the affect HTR may have on scholarship, and evidences this turning point of the advanced use of digitised heritage content. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper adopts a case study approach, using the development and delivery of the one openly available HTR platform for manuscript material.

Transkribus has demonstrated that HTR is now a useable technology that can be employed in conjunction with mass digitisation to generate accurate transcripts of archival material. Use cases are demonstrated, and a cooperative model is suggested as a way to ensure sustainability and scaling of the platform. However, funding and resourcing issues are identified.

The paper presents results from projects: further user studies could be undertaken involving interviews, surveys, etc.

Only HTR provided via Transkribus is covered: however, this is the only publicly available platform for HTR on individual collections of historical documents at time of writing and it represents the current state-of-the-art in this field.

The increased access to information contained within historical texts has the potential to be transformational for both institutions and individuals.

This is the first published overview of how HTR is used by a wide archival studies community, reporting and showcasing current application of handwriting technology in the cultural heritage sector.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Libraries (GLs) initiative approach to advocacy and how it informs, guides, and integrates impact data to support sustainability of GL program results.

The paper defines advocacy in the context of GL, and explores the GL grant planning process, tools, and collaboration between advocacy and impact specialists. Results are demonstrated through grantee examples that illustrate a variety of approaches to library advocacy using impact data at local, country, and regional levels.

The paper demonstrates the importance of identifying community needs, designing impact measures to demonstrate how libraries help to address those needs, and the variety of ways impact evidence can be used to effectively advocacy for public libraries. This basic formula can be applied to advocacy efforts ranging from a broad national policy to a small incremental change in perceptions of libraries by local decision makers.

This paper reinforces the essential link between library impact measurement data and successful advocacy.

The purpose of this paper is to present conceptual definitions for digital object use and reuse. Typically, assessment of digital repository content struggles to go beyond traditional usage metrics such as clicks, views or downloads. This is problematic for galleries, libraries, archives, museums and repositories (GLAMR) practitioners because use assessment does not tell a nuanced story of how users engage with digital content and objects.

This paper reviews prior research and literature aimed at defining use and reuse of digital content in GLAMR contexts and builds off of this group’s previous research to devise a new model for defining use and reuse called the use-reuse matrix.

This paper presents the use-reuse matrix, which visually represents eight categories and numerous examples of use and reuse. Additionally, the paper explores the concept of “permeability” and its bearing on the matrix. It concludes with the next steps for future research and application in the development of the Digital Content Reuse Assessment Framework Toolkit (D-CRAFT).

The authors developed this model and definitions to inform D-CRAFT, an Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant project. This toolkit is being developed to help practitioners assess reuse at their own institutions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first to propose distinct definitions that describe and differentiate between digital object use and reuse in the context of assessing digital collections and data.

Social media sites contribute significantly to nature conservation in, that they enlighten and educate those members of the public who would ordinarily not be in a position, or would not be fortunate enough to visit the park and experience the various aspects first-hand. The purpose of this paper is to showcase social media pages related to a national game reserve in South Africa. This game reserve is the largest in the country and has a wide variety of conserved fauna and flora.

The theoretical framework used is the SCOPE framework that streamlines strategy development, content choice, refinement of online engagement, choice of social media platform and evaluations of social media campaigns.

The findings relate to the content found on these social media pages, as well as how members of the public interact with each other and officials from the game reserve in sharing experiences related to this wilderness area.

The research is related to the Kruger National Park in South Africa and is limited to three social media sites.

Through its social media presence, this South African game reserve is able to share experiences from what is effectively a living museum, as well as from its library and archives, with members of the public and allowing individual members to share their encounters with wildlife and their historical memories of this wilderness area.