By cultivating archives through successive activations, people and communities define their identities. In these activations, the meanings of archives are constructed and reconstructed. Archives are not a static artifact imbued with the record creator’s voice alone, but a dynamic process involving an infinite number of stakeholders over time and space. Thus, archives are never closed, but open into the future. Furthermore, digital archives are always in a state of becoming, being created and recreated by technologies of migration and reconstruction.

Cultivating archives: meanings and identities

This paper scrutinizes the scholarship on community archives' information work. Community archives and archiving projects represent unprecedentedly democratic venues for information work centering on essential documentary concepts such as custody, collection development and appraisal, processing, arrangement and description, organization, representation and naming, collaboration, resource generation and allocation, activism and social justice, preservation, reuse, and sustainability.,Unearthed through databases searches, citation chaining, and browsing, sources examined include peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and book chapters published in the English language between 1985 and 2018.,The literature on community archives’ information work shows considerable geographical (six continents), topical, and (inter)disciplinary variety. This paper first explores scholars' efforts to define both community and community archives. Second, it unpacks the ways in which community archives include new stakeholders and new record types and formats even as they leverage alternative archival principles and practices. Third, it discusses community archives as political venues for empowerment, activism, and social justice work. Fourth, this paper delves into the benefits and challenges of partnerships and collaborations with mainstream institutions. Fifth, it documents the obstacles community archives face: not only tensions within and among communities, but also sustainability concerns. Finally, it sets forth six directions for future research.,This paper is the first systematic review of the community archives literature.

The information work of community archives: a systematic literature review

Our research aims to explore the personal contexts of community-based participatory archive contributors by unveiling the stories behind the objects the contributors donate to the archives. These stories are historical and valuable in intent because they provide rich evidence about and insights into the past from the perspective of the community members. Using the Mass. Memories Road Show as a case study, we analyzed interviews with individuals who contributed photographs that provide a snapshot of their community to the community-based participatory archives. We employed a grounded theory approach to categorize the photographs contributed and identify themes from the memories and sentiments evoked from the stories behind the photographs. The results of this study demonstrate how people perceive and appraise their past life memories and how their surrounding community influences the formation of community-based participatory archives. This study sheds light on how individuals make connections to their communities through their personal objects and stories.

“Something that feels like a community”: the role of personal stories in building community-based participatory archives

Against the backdrop of a flurry of legacy projects linked into the 2012 Olympics this article takes the work being done by the archive participants of The Mandeville Legacy project in the South East Region as a way of appraising the recently developed Revisiting Archive Collections (RAC) cataloguing methodology. In order to look at the way that this participative approach to cataloguing has developed, the article first reflects on some of the core professional assumptions that archivists hold about the ‘cataloguing voice’—that it should be single, neutral, informed, anonymous—and considers the way that some recent archive theory and practice has begun to qualify these previous certainties. The development of the Revisiting Collections model, first for museums and then for archives, is then described. Finally, the article summarizes and evaluates the work of the five South East Region record offices which have used RAC over the past 18 months. Each office worked with groups of disabled people to look at s...

Revisiting Archive Collections: Developing Models for Participatory Cataloguing

Worldwide, a burgeoning number of volunteer-run do-it-yourself (DIY) archives, museums and halls of fame are preserving the vernacular, local and global experiences of popular music’s history. Little is known about the characteristics of these heritage sites in a collective sense. This article summarizes the findings of several research projects that examined the ways in which cultural memory is captured within community archives. Specifically, this article details the outcomes of a database that compiled information gathered on 41 community-based archives, museums and halls of fame. Data on key features of these DIY institutions was collected through a variety of methods, including on-site observation, interviews with volunteers and web searches. This article discusses such things as geographical location, funding, staffing, mission statements and the focus of collections. The analysis of this information reveals that many DIY institutions have similar characteristics, such as building types and ...

Do-it-yourself institutions of popular music heritage: the preservation of music's material past in community archives, museums and halls of fame

Introduction In 1993 the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) established the International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991 (ICTY) ‘for the sole purpose of prosecuting persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia’ (UNSC, 1993; Bassiouni and Manikas, 1996; Scharf, 1997; Bass, 2000). The central purpose of the ICTY, as of any criminal court, is the deterrence of, and retribution for, serious wrongdoing (Osiel, 1997). But from the start, expectations of what the Tribunal could achieve went beyond the primary judicial goal of establishing the truth about and giving an historical record of what happened, contributing to healing individuals’ and communities’ traumas, and to reconciliation (Power, 2002). Connected with the diverse expectations of the outcomes of the Tribunal's work are expectations of the role the Tribunal's archives can play. Expectations are mounting as the ICTY's work is near completion and decisions about the legacy of the Tribunal are imminent. In this essay, I explore the potential of the ICTY archives in establishing truth, engaging with history and practising memory – all of which may help communities in former Yugoslavia and elsewhere not only come to grips with their own past but also acknowledge a past shared with neighbouring ethnic and political communities. I will argue that these expectations can only be met by a living archive as a place of contestation, allowing for what Hayden White has called different kinds of discourse about ‘what happened and what is to be done’ – the archive not merely as a storage technique but primarily as a force for delegitimation of mythified and traditionalized memories (White, 2000, 55). ‘Sarajevo joins race for ICTY archive’ ( Dnevni avaz , 2007) ‘Discussion on the fate of ICTY archive’ ( Nezavisne novine , 2007) ‘Fighting for the Hague documents’ ( Nedeljni Telegraf , 2008) ‘BiH, Serbia, Croatia all lobby to take over ICTY archives’ ( Vecernji list , 2008) With headlines like these, the media in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska, Serbia and Croatia brought the archives of the ICTY into the limelight. The headlines also attest to contesting views on the fate of the archives, which vary by region in the former Yugoslavia. And even within one region there are competing views.

A living archive, shared by communities of records

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Eric Ketelaar

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

A living archive, shared by communities of records