Professor Hoeflich explores the notion of serendipity and its components as they relate to historians, particularly legal historians, and to those institutions - libraries and archives - that present the opportunities for serendipity to work its magic. He also discusses the ways in which libraries and archives can help to encourage serendipitous discoveries, and the dangers he sees in over-efficient and economically rational disposal policies, including reproduction instead of preservation of originals.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1338978_code83550.pdf?abstractid=1338978&mirid=5

Serendipity in the Stacks, Fortuity in the Archives

Children’s literature collections are inextricably caught up in discourses of canonicity and history. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the limited research that analyses such collections often engages with these discourses, as is evident in the works of numerous critics such as Anne Lundin, Kenneth Kidd and Timothy Young. Many of these scholars have focused on the roles collectors and collections play in the process of canon formation, as detailed in Lundin’s Constructing the Canon of Children’s Literature: Beyond Library Walls and Ivory Towers (2004): what a collector deems collectable often confers value on a text and creates a status for a text within the history of children’s literature. However, in her writing on the subject, Lundin also addresses the collaborative processes involved in building and researching collections and argues that collections »are poised to respond to a growing attention to the history of print culture, a new respect for popular culture, and a developing interest in the social history of how culture is produced and received« (1998, p. 309). What is interesting here is Lundin’s repeated use of the word ›history‹ and the implication that children’s literature collections are inherently bound up in various types of histories: histories of print culture, social histories and histories of children’s literature itself. Indeed, much of the scholarship on children’s literature collections is underpinned by concepts of history and, by extension, linear time. As noted by many critics, including Mathew Grenby in his essay »The Origins of Children’s Literature« (2009), children’s literature history and criticism is obsessed with a search for beginnings or origins. This preoccupation with origins is also found in theoretical discourses of archives, evident in the work of Jacques Derrida, who describes »a compulsive repetitive and nostalgic desire for the archive, an irrepressible desire to Children’s literature collections and their associations with canons and histories pose challenges for contemporary children’s literature research, where an emphasis is increasingly placed on diversity and inclusion, as well as on questioning so-called established histories of children’s literature. Problems arise when using collections to deconstruct canons or to destabilise established histories: by, for example, shifting the focus to gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, nationality, we may end up tracing alternative histories and in so doing, potentially – even unintentionally – creating new canons. In this paper, we propose that, in directing the focus away from concepts of linear time, an alternative ›spatial‹ approach to children’s literature collections can be facilitated, one that might at once acknowledge and disrupt canons and histories, while also promoting an understanding of the complexities and contradictory natures of collections. Taking a synchronic rather than a diachronic approach, drawing upon theories of space and considering collections in terms of both the physical and the online spaces they occupy, encourages conceptualisations that move beyond traditional histories and hierarchies as well as attempts to delineate, exalt and cohere, and creates opportunities for serendipitous research discoveries.

Beyond Traditional Hierarchies Creating Space for Children’s Literature Collections

In this article, we propose a methodological reflection based on the work with photographs of youth published in print media in Chile during the 20th century. We use our proposal for qualitative analysis, which includes intentional work with visual culture, the creation of our own archives, and the development of tools for individual and group analysis of photographs. We propose two specific strategies for the analysis of photographs: the first is “layered analysis”, and the second is “group or panel analysis”, which allows for linking images, culture, and youth. We trust that this methodological reflection will contribute to the study of youth and stimulate debate in the field of study itself. 

Youth Photographed: Methodologies for Visual Analysis

El presente artículo busca ofrecer una panorámica de limitaciones y alcances de las estrategias utilizadas para elaborar un catastro de literatura infantil y juvenil (LIJ) publicada en Chile durante la dictadura de Augusto Pinochet (1973-1989). Ante los silencios en los catálogos de obras de la época, proponemos una aproximación metodológica que tiene como piedras angulares la lectura distante, la serendipia y las disposiciones colaborativas a la investigación sobre libros y lectura. Las principales dificultades identificadas guardan relación con la porosidad de las categorías de lo infantil y lo juvenil, la presencia de vacíos e inconsistencias en la descripción bibliotecológica de catálogos bibliográficos oficiales, como el de la Biblioteca Nacional (BN) y el Sistema Nacional de Bibliotecas Públicas (SNBP), y por último, las condiciones de caducidad de los hallazgos en los motores de búsquedas web de las instituciones antes mencionadas. A la luz de estas dificultades, nuestras estrategias de catastro se enfocaron en la preservación digital de entradas bibliográficas y una aproximación colaborativa hacia distintos agentes del ecosistema editorial y lector –librerxs, coleccionistxs, autorxs, ilustradorxs, editorxs, diseñadorxs, anticuarixs, archiverxs y bibliotecólogxs– con el objetivo de mapear publicaciones infantiles y juveniles que hubiesen eludido el radar de los catálogos institucionales. A través de nuestra investigación buscamos aportar a la creación de catálogos en contextos en los cuales la información oficial es inexistente o no cumple con las expectativas de la investigación. Al mismo tiempo, esperamos que los avances aquí presentados animen futuras exploraciones sobre LIJ en el periodo dictatorial y su impacto en el escenario contemporáneo, apuntando, aunque sea parcialmente, a la fertilidad de este campo.

Hacer hablar archivos silenciosos: Aproximaciones al registro de libros infantiles y juveniles publicados en época de dictadura en Chile

Serendipity has become a ‘sine qua non of archival research’ (Tamboukou 151), but it is less clear how it might be cultivated – or even whether such a pursuit is worthwhile. Newcastle University's 2015 masterclass on the place of the archive within children's literature research offered the opportunity to explore the role of serendipity from several perspectives, exposing both the possibilities and the limitations of serendipity in the archive. Paradoxically, serendipity is best fostered by sustained scholarly enquiry, but it also depends on a willingness to move beyond a focus on specific outcomes. This raises questions about the future of serendipitous research in an academic world which allows increasingly little time for exploratory research and about the impact of new technologies.

https://eprints.ncl.ac.uk/file_store/production/228636/D89AEA09-E007-4716-BF01-469F3C3024E2.pdf

Serendipity and Children’s Literature Research in the Library

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Serendipity and Children’s Literature Research in the Library