Public History & Philly

  In the article What’s Wrong with Digital Stewardship: Evaluating the Organization of Digital Preservation Programs from Practitioners’ Perspectives (2020), a study conducted in 2018 unveiled certain issues that archival practitioners found to be hindering the staffing and efficiency of their program’s digital preservation methods. Amongst the thoughts expressed by the participants via interview were concerns about microaggressions, prejudice, and misogyny within their work environments. [1] Though incidents of misogynistic and prejudice behavior are found in a multitude of career pathways, many archives and special collection practitioners today push for diversity of staff within their work and research spaces. In one of these interviews, an anonymous participant pointed out a negative factor of the nature of tenure. The participant stated that due to the tenured status of the practitioner they work with, when they hear said staff member making misogynistic comments towards othe...

  This week, my classmates and I discussed the myriad of ways that archival and special collections staff can advocate for the vitalness of their work as well as the ways that they may take action to connect with the public through outreach activities. This conversation reminded me of the appraisal activity that I completed while at Temple’s SCRC this past October. During this activity, I looked through the “Arthur Hall Papers”: a collection that contained papers and documents about the renowned choreographer of African dance, Arthur Hall, who traveled around Philadelphia to teach young children African dance within schools and other spaces of youth learning. With the size of Philadelphia and the variety of programs that take place today centered on youth learning and community activities, could collections like the Arthur Hall Papers be utilized to show Temple’s surrounding communities how the SCRC’s retainment of papers like these are integral to the success and fruitfulness of f...

  This week’s discussion in Temple’s Archives and Manuscripts course concerning the protocols of copyright in the archival realm is one that many a researcher might find vital. As a traditional historian, I tend to utilize physical books and monographs. However, I often utilize more contemporary research materials for my papers such as online articles, audio, and countless of other digital sources to input into my papers and assignments. I, like many other researchers, would like to avoid being guilty of copyrighting another’s work and or utilizing a work when it should be restricted or was wrongfully, whether intentionally or unintentionally, made to be used publicly. In Dharma Akmon’s Only With Your Permission: How Rights Respond (Or Don’t Respond) to Requests to Display Archival Materials Online , it is disclosed that many archives try to take multiple measures to ensure that works with complicated rights issues are not digitized to mitigate potential cases of copyright. [1] Th...