Reflections on Archival User Studies

Rhee, Hea Lim

doi:10.5860/rusq.54n4.29

Cited by 14 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 10 publications

(11 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…There are potentially many mutual benefits to scientific anthropologists and archaeologists working more closely together to address needs and knowledge gaps in both fields. Over the past ten years, archival user studies has come into its own as a genre (Rhee 2015 ). In a perfect world flush with resources and staff, archives would be able to collaborate closely with their main communities to shape how the repository can best support the researcher and vice versa.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes and uses of archival materials among science-based anthropologists

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While archival user studies have largely focused on humanities (and adjacent) scholars, this paper focuses on anthropologists engaged in scientific research. Based on qualitative results from an open-ended survey, we investigate how science-based anthropologists perceive and use archives in their work. We ask: How are science-based anthropologists and archaeologists reusing archival data in their research? What difficulties or barriers do they encounter in reusing archival data in scientific contexts? What attitudes or understandings about archival research are held by science-based anthropologists and archaeologists? Our findings primarily add to the body of literature about user experience in archives and more broadly to the emerging literature on archival data reuse. Major findings include (1) barriers and gatekeeping legacies that impact archival research and the ability of researchers to reuse data and (2) mixed perceptions about archives among researchers. We also discuss suggestions made by these communities of practice, and the ways that barriers to archival data reuse may stem from a lack of knowledge about core archival and information infrastructures among researcher communities. Together, this research showcases possible (re)uses of important primary source data in archives among scientific communities but highlights that barriers to access and misperceptions create a gap in exploiting that potential. We argue for a “re-imagining” of anthropological archives as relevant to contemporary communities and scientific pursuits toward a richer scientific research environment.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes and uses of archival materials among science-based anthropologists

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Ideally, "business value" should be a negotiated concept, one that yields a common understanding among all the stakeholders in an organization and for which triage rules are well-defined. In the literature, several authors stress the importance of consulting staff while developing the appraisal requirements (Shepherd and Yeo, 2003;Craig, 2008;McKemmish and Gilliland, 2013; RMJ 26,3 Rhee, 2014Rhee, , 2015; yet, cognitive methodologies are still lacking to assess how employees determine the institutional value of their records. McKemmish and Piggott (2013) acknowledge the diversity in personal and corporate recordkeeping behaviours and cultures highlighting the importance of creating "new ways in which to better address a more extensive set of personal rights in records" (p. 131).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assisting the appraisal of e-mail records with automatic classification

Vellino

Alberts

2016

RMJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how automatic classification can assist employees and records managers with the appraisal of e-mails as records of value for the organization. Design/methodology/approach The study performed a qualitative analysis of the appraisal behaviours of eight records management experts to train a series of support vector machine classifiers to replicate the decision process for identifying e-mails of business value. Automatic classification experiments were performed on a corpus of 846 e-mails from two of these experts’ mailboxes. Findings Despite the highly contextual nature of record value, these experiments show that classifiers have a high degree of accuracy. Unlike existing manual practices in corporate e-mail archiving, machine classification models are not highly dependent on features such as the identity of the sender and receiver or on threading, forwarding or importance flags. Rather, the dominant discriminating features are textual features from the e-mail body and subject field. Research limitations/implications The need to automatically classify corporate e-mails is growing in importance, as e-mail remains one of the prevalent recordkeeping challenges. Practical implications Automated methods for identifying e-mail records promise to be of significant benefit to organizations that need to appraise e-mail for long-term preservation and access on demand. Social implications The research adopts an innovative approach to assist employees and records managers with the appraisal of digital records. By doing so, the research fosters new insights on the adoption of technological strategies to automate recordkeeping tasks, an important research gap. Originality/value Our experiment show that a SVM classifier can be trained to replicate an expert's decision process for identifying e-mails of business value with a reasonably high degree of accuracy. In principle, such a classifier could be integrated into a corporate Electronic Document and Records Management System (EDRMS) to improve the quality of e-mail records appraisal.

show abstract

“…The nature and type of archival users have been changing over the years. The traditional archival repository’s priority was more on preservation and mainly limited to institutional resources (Rhee, 2015). Furthermore, reference archivists have traditionally played a critical role in mediating between users and the materials they wish to use (McCausland, 2011).…”

Section: Brief Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online presence of public archival institutions of South Africa

Maluleka

Nkwe

Ngulube

2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose 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. Design/methodology/approach 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. Findings 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. Originality/value 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.

show abstract

Reflections on Archival User Studies

Abstract: This study is the first to focus on how developments

Cited by 14 publications

References 10 publications

Attitudes and uses of archival materials among science-based anthropologists

Attitudes and uses of archival materials among science-based anthropologists

Assisting the appraisal of e-mail records with automatic classification

Online presence of public archival institutions of South Africa

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About