ERIC ED399968: Archivists in Cyberspace.

16 Pages·1996·0.26 MB·English

by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
IR 056 111
ED 399 968
Fagan, Michele
AUTHOR
Archivists in Cyberspace.
TITLE
PUB DATE
96
16p.; Paper presented at the Nebraska Library
NOTE
Association (NLA) College and University Section
Meeting (Seward, NE, May 17, 1996).
Descriptive (141)
PUB TYPE
Reports
EDRS PRICE MFO1 /PCO1 Plus Postage.
*Academic Libraries; Access to Information;
DESCRIPTORS
*Archives; Computer Networks; Higher Education;
*Library Collections; Library Role; *Library
Services; Media Specialists; Online Searching;
Universities; *World Wide Web
Digital Data; *Home Pages; *Special Collections
IDENTIFIERS
(Library)
ABSTRACT
The emerging technology of the World Wide Web is a
natural source of acquisitions for archivists. This paper discusses
two areas of digital communications: a university archivist's role in
the support and management of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
(UNL) home page, and the uses other archives and special collection
departments at selected universities have made of home pages. Being a
university archivist often entails acting as a central contact for
university-related groups wanting to link a web page to the UNL home
page. One of the main problems in working with providers who maintain
their own home pages is occasional lack of continuity. The UNL
University Archives/Special Collections Department began the project
with just the informational site on the UNL Libraries home page,
although they hope to begin providing more in-depth coverage about
holdings. Other universities have made use of home pages for:
information about the institution; public relations; displaying
library holdings; and for research of collections. In 1993, the
University of California-Berkeley Library received a grant to encode
archival finding aids in SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language).
Carried out to its fullest extent, this or a similar project could
eventually give a researcher online access to the finding aids of
every manuscript depository in the country. University archivists
everywhere are making use of the Web to make the holdings of their
departments more accessible. (AEF)
AAAA:c**A*****A**A****.AAAA**---A*************************************
*
*
Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made
*
*
from the original document.
***********************************************************************
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Office of Educational Research and Improvement
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION
CENTER (ERIC)
This document has been reproduced as
received from the person or organization
originating it.
Minor changes have been made to
improve reproduction quality.
o Points of view or opinions stated in this
document do not necessarily represent
official OERI position or policy.
"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS
ARCHIVISTS IN CYBERSPACE
MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
Michele L. Fagan
Presented by Michele Fagan, May 17, 1996
NLA College and University Section Meeting
TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)."
Concordia College, Seward, NE
of the
rest
and all
librarians
the
like
Just
World
investigating the
archivists have
been
world,
impact on
potential usefulness, and its
Wide Web, its
their own profession.
basically
another
form
Web
the of
Since
is
purpose of an archives,
communication, and the primary
or a
religious order,
a college, a
is in
whether it
important
preserve
is to
corporation,
multinational
on the evolving
communications and other documentation
emerging
parent
the
institution,
history
the
of
acquisitions for
natural source
technology
of
is
a
received
archivists
the
past
archivists.
the
In
after the
events
long
traditionally paper,
records,
the Web and
With the
advent of
covered in them.
e-
more aggressive
to be much
archivists now need
mail,
soon as
almost as
catching electronic 'records
about
Otherwise the archivist will not get
they are created.
BEST COPY AVAILABLE
118
2
anything.1
Stated
bluntly
but
accurately,
if
archivists
do not keep
ahead they will
simply become
roadkill on the information highway.2
Just as digital communications is changing the way
archivist perceive their acquisition
duties, these new
formats
also
are
altering
the
nature
how
of
organizations
or
individuals
conduct
their
lives.
Recording change has always been part of an archivist's
duties.
When hand-written
or typed
papers were
the
basic
components
preserved
of
information,
the
documents
may have contained
the final decisions, not
discussions
the
and
compromises
took
that
place
beforehand.
Often
those matters were
verbally worked
and not
out
written down.
E-mail
and the
Web have
captured more of the immediacy and dynamism involved in
decision making because people will now e-mail where in
past they would
the
have telephoned. There
should be
nothing ephemeral
about digital communications
as far
as the archivist is concerned.3
will
discuss
two
areas
digital
of
I
communications; first, my
own role in the
support and
1. Laurie B. Crum.
"Digital Evolution:
Changing roles and
Challenges
Archivists
for
in the
Age
Global Networking."
of
Archival Issues 20 (no.
1 1995):51.
Anne
Gilliland-Swetland.
"Digital.
2.
Communications:
Documentary Opportunities Not To Be
Missed."
Archival Issues 20
(no. 1 1995):
39.
Anne Gilliland-Swetland.
"Digital Communications," 40.
3.
3
119
3
Nebraska-Lincoln
University
management
the
of
of
other
archives
and
the uses
second,
and
homepage,
of homepages
departments have made
special collection
as they attempt to contact their audience.
university archivist entail
my duties as
Part of
campus academic
contact for
and
a central
acting as
other
organizations,
student
administrative
units,
Credit Union or the
university-related groups like the
Alumni Association, and individual faculty members, all
I get
a web page to the UNL homepage.
wanting to link
decide
or servers registered,
these various providers
and answer any basic
what the optimum links should be,
others
them
direct
on
to
Then
in
questions.
I
on this same project.
Information Services working
also encourage departments, colleges and other units to
In order to present a good image
on
put up homepages.
much
University needs
have as
Internet, the
to
the
out there as
information about itself
it can.
useful
superior
students
and
The potential attracting
for
faculty is growing all the time.
the framework
Services provides
and
Information
University's providers,
of the
some support
but 'each
Administration
of Business
College
from
an
the
to
maintain
their
individual faculty
own
member,
4
120
4
homepages.4
of the major
problems we have
discovered in
One
working with providers who maintain their own homepages
is occasional In the early stages
lack of continuity.
of developing the University's homepage, people working
on the project realized that student groups might cause
problem continuously maintaining
by not
their
a
organization's homepage as the composition of the group
When
This has proved
changed.
true.
to
the
be
original builder
and maintainer of
the organization's
page graduated or left the group, knowledge
about the
password
procedures for updating
material
and
have
On occasion
so has knowledge
disappeared.
about the
page's
very
existence. We
encouraged
have
organizations to make
the upkeep of the
homepage part
of one of the officer's duties, but this can only be
a
suggestion, not
a qualification.
As it turns out, we
did not realize that academic and
administrative units
be as subject to the
would
same changes in personnel.
A
staff member, student union
for example,
the
at
offered
build
one
department.
her
Her
to
for
supervisor had no
idea how to do this
himself, but it
great idea, and
sounded like a
he gave his
approval.
Illustration
1, "The Federal Model,"
was borrowed from
4.
DeeAnn Allison, ASO, UNL Libraries.
This model has been shown by
several Information Service staff members.
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122
5
Unfortunately the staff member took all her experience
with her when she took
another position and now no one
to maintain
else in area knows unit's
how
the
the
homepage.
Despite the problems inherent in keeping track
of
I have discovered that working with
the providers,
all
homepage benefits
other
duties
my
UNL
an
the
as
I now contact many more people across campus
archivist.
vise-versa than would if
I normally
and I was
just
The UNL homepage
after their inactive files. gives me
opportunity to
make people
an excellent aware of
my
department's existence.
After discussing the homepage,
words about the other work in
I can easily say a few
Archives and our interest in saving a department's
the
paper files of potential historic value.
older
Since
part of my responsibility is checking the links to all
homepages, and obviously
seeing that
one is
no
the
violating US
copyright
university policy,
laws or
I
also have the
chance to download any
information that
might be changed but does have historical significance.
Presently
people
and
who
college
maintain
university
websites
involved
over
debate
are
in a
whether
homepages
should
strictly
informational
be
or public
opinion is
My own
sites
relations sites.
8
123
6
that
each homepage has elements of
both and should be
used for both purposes.
A
number
university
of
archives
and
special
collections departments
have developed
homepages that
link to the
parent library.
At this point,
however,
many
of these sites
provide
little
more information
than can be
found in the traditional
paper brochures.
these
For
places
the
site
primarily
public
is
a
relations
A
tool.
few departments have
turned their
pages into truly informational sites, allowing
keyword
searching and putting the researcher one step
away from
the actual documents.
A selection of visual aids
can take us on a short
tour
of some of these special collections sites within
university
homepages.
We can
creatively
see
used
public
relations sites that give some degree of
access
the manuscript
to
holdings, and
pages
that put
the
researcher in touch with the inventories
of manuscript
collections.
At this time
the UNL University
Archives/Special
Collections Department just
has the informational site
on the UNL Libraries homepage.
We hope to provide more
in-depth coverage about our holdings as soon
as we can.
Already the UNL
original catalogers
have placed
some
record
level
descriptions
several
of
significant
collections like the Mari Sandoz Papers, or the Bernice
9
124
7
Willa Cather into
Research Collection
on
the
Slote
A number of other
libraries' online catalog
and OCLC.
departments
have similar
collections
done
special
helps
This
things
last few years.
over
to
the
manuscripts but
new
publicize the existence
the
of
technology gives us the chance to move a step closer to
putting researcher-and document in touch.
reproduced
parts
University
Brown
has
its
if
Manuscripts on its homepage.
Useful
printed Guide to
admission
phone
numbers,
information
about
hours,
collections are addressed,
requirements and major
but
variety of material
the site only hints about the rich
available there.5
charming homepage for
Yale University
has a
the
whole University, at least in my estimation, because it
the rare
books
designers visited
that the
suggests
strong statement about
also seems to make a
area.
It
Working through
importance of scholarship
there.
the
Library and
Beinecke
Yale's website
to the
its
the
collection, we discover that the Beinecke has
archival
printed guide.
online version of its
also produced an
helpful but it is not searchable by keyword,
Access is
Brown University
hppt://www.brown.edu.
The
site
is
5.
Transparencies of portions of the Brown University site and other
these
were shown
homepages
All of
during the presentation.
Records Administration
sites, except
Archives and
the National
for
reproduced
copyright
under
cannot
are
one,
and
be
publication.
125:
8
course, its immediacy is lost
and
almost as soon
of
,
as it was published in 1994.6
University
California
Southern
The
Special
of
Collections Department
imaginative
has an
very
and
public-relations oriented website,
although it is
not
useful
researchers
searching
for
material
on
for
With
specific topic.
digital imaging the
Department
display its beautiful reading room, but the viewer
can
is informed that the library's online system lists only
the manuscripts
collections available.
some
The
of
has to depend on
user
in-house finding aids and staff
members
for access
to its
Library
holdings.
USC's
Showcase, part of the USC Libraries homepage, does give
Special
Collections Department
with other
the
along
areas further
opportunities to
show off
some of
its
materials.
Past and current exhibits in the Department
of Special Collections can be
viewed with considerable
completeness over the Web.
Focusing in on the current
exhibit, Goddesses
and Patriarchs, we
can learn
more
about the pieces
on display, see pictures of them, and
find out about the artists
who created these works.
A
complete _inventory of each exhibit is available online.
Exhibits
produced
over
the past
several
years
are
http://www.yale.edu is the
UR1 for the Yale
University
6.
The Beinecke Library is
homepage.
http://www.yale.edu/beinecke/brblhome.
11