Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Cataloguing of archival material'

The dissertation offers a historical inquiry about how television's material traces entered archival spaces. Material traces refer to both the moving image products and the assortment of documentation about the processes of television as industrial and creative endeavors. By identifying the development of television-specific archives and collecting areas in the 1950s to the 1970s, the dissertation contributes to television studies, specifically pointing out how television materials were conceived as cultural and historical materials "worthy" of preservation and academic study. Institutions, particularly academic and cultural institutions with archival spaces, conferred television with a status of legitimacy alongside the ascent of television studies in the 1960s and 1970s. Institutions were sites of legitimation, however, television's entrance into these archival spaces depended on the work of various individuals within academic, archival, and industrial structures who grappled with defining television's intangible archival values and dealt with material obstacles. In examining several major institutions and the factors at play in archiving television, we can trace how television was valued as worthy of academic study and conceptualized as historical evidence. The following research questions structured this historical inquiry: How did different institutions approach television as archivable in the 1950s to the 1970s? Who were the determinators within these institutions, who could conceptualize television as archivable? What were the factors that enabled television's material traces to enter archival spaces? How did television directly or indirectly enter these archival spaces? Drawing on historical methods, the research primarily examined the archives of the archives, meaning institutional documents that illuminated the archival process and perceptions about television and media. The dissertation focused on five case studies: the Museum of Modern Art, the Mass Communications History Center at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, the UCLA Film and Television Archives, and the Museum of Broadcasting. These case studies represent the various institutional contexts that applied an archival logic to television. Cultural institutions, academic archives, and industry-initiated archives worked as sites to legitimate television, transforming ephemeral broadcast moments into lasting historical and cultural material.

History
M.A.
Absent provenance or any background information, and with both implicit and explicit barriers to access within the archival space, how can we hypothesize—or critically fabulate—queer material legacies? The first—or earliest extant—American film to explicitly depict “queer” sex is The Surprise of a Knight (1929). By synthesizing perspectives on archives, material culture, queer identity, film, the Internet and pornography, this paper treats Surprise as an entry point into a discussion of public history and sexuality—revealing current issues with processing erotic materials and their impact on queer historiographies. This study outlines the problems presented by Surprise and explores contingencies for historical contextualization—methods public historians (archivists and interpreters alike) may adapt to fit similar materials within a broader history of film and queer identity. It explores current methods and future conundrums for best practices in the preservation of (born-digital) pornography, and concludes with impressions from potential audiences and present-day content producers as a means of envisioning new avenues of queer grassroots history-making.
Temple University--Theses

History
M.A.
This project draws upon material culture, digital humanities, and archival theory and method in the service of public history investigations. After selecting an artifact and performing object analysis, I will digitize the artifact and materialize a new object. I will then perform another object analysis on the 3D printed object. This exercise will provide the familiar benefits of object analysis, but the decisions and interactions necessary to digitize and materialize the object provide a fresh perspective. I will propose approaches for performing similar investigations in repositories, along with a pedagogical argument for doing so. By emphasizing modularity, flexibility, and minimal capital requirements, I hope these approaches can be adapted to a variety of institutions and audiences. Researchers will reap the benefits of intellectual and emotional engagement, hands-on learning, and technological experimentation. Public historians will have the opportunity to engage in outreach and innovative education and exploration of their collections.
Temple University--Theses

This paper examines the results of a usability study for finding aids from the Special Collections Research Center at North Carolina State University. In 2005, the Special Collections Research Center reformatted its finding aids so that the container information, typically located on the left-hand side of the document, moved to the right-hand side of the document. The study tested the effectiveness of this change, and determined that traditional finding aids performed better. The analysis of the study’s results is followed by a discussion about Web usability guidelines for online finding aids.

This volume is a guide to archival material, almost exclusively on East Africa, held in Neuendettelsau (Bavaria). In addition to documents relating to the Hersbruck Mission's work among the Kamba in the 1880s it lists diaries, correspondence, reports, photographs etc., mainly from the first half of the twentieth century, and the personnel files for missionaries sent to Tanganyika / Tanzania after the mid-1950s, when Neuendettelsau took over this task on behalf of the Leipzig Mission.

This thesis analyses the nature and common law history of copyright, highlights the problematic aspects of the current Canadian legislation with respect to archival material, proposes revisions to the law which would take into account the special nature of this material, and provides some suggestions to archivists who have to deal with the copyright dilemmas encountered in the daily, routine administration of an archival institution. Copyright legislation has traditionally grouped archival and library material under one section on special exemptions, notwithstanding the fact that archival material has characteristics which dictate a treatment fundamentally different from that of library material. Therefore, this thesis focuses on copyright as it relates specifically to archival material in order to present recommendations for its adequate treatment under the copyright law. This is not a legal paper, and does not presume to give an exhaustive legal study of all of the ramifications of copyright legislation. It is intended as a review of those copyright issues which are of special interest to archivists. Because Canada derives its common law tradition from Great Britain and is often influenced by American legislation, the earlier British legislation and more recent copyright legislation in the United States and Great Britain are studied and compared to the present Canadian legislation. Because legal trends generally first appear in court decisions before they become codified in statute, decisions found in recent case law, as well as their discussion in current legal literature are examined. The official recommendations which have been made to the Canadian government for the revision of copyright law are also analyzed. It is concluded that the Canadian statute must be revised to reflect the unique nature of archival material. Archival documents are not created for sale, distribution, display, or publication. They are the instruments of transactions, natural by-products of practical activities, means to purposes; they lack the autonomy of final products, and are non-commercial by nature. This thesis recommends that a separate piece of copyright legislation for archival material be introduced to deal effectively with these unique characteristics.

A survey conducted by the National Archives of Canada in 1987 reported that out of 100 archival institutions surveyed, 65% of the respondents said that they regularly reappraise and deaccession collections. However, reappraisal constitutes a formal requirement for only 15% of those who do it. This thesis examines the theory, method and practice of reappraisal and deaccessioning. Prior to the publication of Leonard Rapport's article "No Grandfather Clause: Reappraising Accessioned Records" in 1981, mention of reappraisal appeared infrequently in archival literature. Rapport's article presented attractive arguments for the reappraisal and deaccessioning of material in archival custody, and, since its appearance, the idea of appraisal as a one time activity to select documents for permanent preservation in an archival repository is seriously being questioned. A growing number of archivists are advocating reappraisal and deaccessioning as legitimate and necessary functions of archival work. This thesis reviews the current literature regarding reappraisal and deaccessioning. It identifies and discusses the various arguments put forth for reappraisal and deaccessioning, and assesses whether they are valid in terms of archival theory, methods and practice. Finally, it outlines a procedure for reappraisal and deaccessioning with consideration given to the legal, financial and adrninistrative implications or reappraisal and deaccessioning. This thesis concludes that systematic reappraisal is not a valid and justifiable archival activity, however, reappraisal and deaccessioning is sometimes warranted and necessary on a case by case basis.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the practices of Canadian repositories in making their archival holdings available on the Internet to see whether they are more or less restrictive than copyright law requires. The Internet provides an opportunity to make archival material more widely accessible; however, repositories’ copyright practices in making their holdings available online may affect the extent to which wider access to archival material is actually achieved. The study employed four different sources of evidence, i.e., the website content of 154 Canadian repositories whose websites feature archival material from the repository’s holdings; copyright policy and procedure documents of those repositories; 106 responses to a questionnaire sent to the staff of those repositories; and 22 interviews with repository staff members. In terms of selection for online access, the study found that the repositories studied prefer to select items that are perceived to incur little risk of copyright infringement (because the copyright has expired or because the repository owns the copyright), or items that require few or no resources to investigate copyright status or obtain copyright authorizations. Thus, with regard to selection, repositories were more restrictive than the law required, largely due to lack of resources. Although repositories have no legal or professional obligation to enforce others’ copyright interests, they nonetheless attempt to control further uses of their online holdings through the use of technical measures (e.g., low resolution images, watermarks, etc.) or non-technical measures (e.g., conditions placed on further uses), for reasons not necessarily related to copyright. Overall, the study found that repositories’ practices in making their holding available online were more restrictive than copyright law envisages. While this may be due to factors other than copyright, access to online documentary heritage may be limited as a result.

Arrangement is an important archival activity that precedes other important archival activities including description and access. Its objective is to identify the external and internal structures of a fonds. However, despite its importance, archivists have had difficulty establishing a standard method of arrangement that fully achieves its objective. This study views arrangement as a form of methodology bridging archival theory and practice. Arrangement must therefore be in accordance with archival theory yet be applicable in practical terms. The study first establishes the terms of analysis in regards to archival theory, and, in particular, the concept of the fonds. Difficulties in the practice of arrangement are then examined. These difficulties include (1) identifying the levels of arrangement, (2) identifying when an entity has sufficient autonomy to create a fonds, (3) identifying the provenance of record series that have been in the custody of many agencies, and (4) dealing with the effects that changes to the external structure of a fonds have on record series. The main methods of arrangement, that have been utilized throughout the archival world in the last 50 years, including the record group, fonds method and series system, are then assessed to determine how closely each aligns with archival theory and how well they perform in practical terms. A method of arrangement is then devised using the basic attributes of both the fonds and series system methods. The Department of the Provincial Secretary, of British Columbia, is the subject of a case study to confirm the validity of the methodology. The study first examines the external structure of the Department through the concepts of function, competence and organizational structure. It then studies the external structure through the concepts of functional series and documentary series. The study concludes by examining some of the implications of the method for various aspects of archival practice.

Relatório de estágio de mestrado em História
Este relatório de estágio insere-se no âmbito do Mestrado em História e visa a obtenção do grau de Mestre em História Contemporânea pela Universidade do Minho. O estágio decorreu no Arquivo Histórico Municipal de Chaves, teve a duração de cinco meses, com o seu início no dia 8 de Setembro 2014 e o seu final, no dia 8 de Fevereiro de 2015. Foi realizado em tempo integral com o horário de trabalho previamente fixado: 9:00 - 12:30 e 14:00 - 17:30. De acordo com o plano de trabalhos de traçado, o primeiro objetivo centrou-se no estudo e caracterização de um acervo bibliográfico, depositado na instituição de acolhimento, sobre o qual não existia qualquer registo nem qualquer tratamento arquivístico. A proposta de trabalho resultou da sugestão da instituição de acolhimento que havia recebido o acordo prévio da direção do Mestrado de História. Visava-se assim a criação de um inventário provisório, mediante a construção de uma base de dados, em formato digital (Microsoft Excel), de acordo com os requisitos de classificação da instituição. Um segundo objetivo prendeu-se com a obtenção e o treino de competências relacionadas com técnicas arquivísticas, nomeadamente relacionadas com a criação de um catálogo documental e/ou bibliográfico, preservação e manutenção dos documentos. O terceiro objetivo deste estágio recaiu na redação do presente relatório final, constituído por quatro capítulos. O primeiro capítulo é dedicado ao Arquivo Histórico Municipal de Chaves, onde consta a apresentação da instituição. O segundo capítulo é destinado às etapas da criação do inventário e à apresentação dos resultados do tratamento. No terceiro capítulo são descritas as atividades realizadas durante o estágio, nomeadamente os processos de higienização e de catalogação. O quarto e último capítulo é dedicado às nossas reflexões pessoais. Em anexo dois exemplares de impressos para a requisição de documentação presente na instituição, a lista de classificação da documentação adotada pelo Arquivo, referente à organização dos documentos nas salas de depósitos da instituição, um álbum fotográfico e ainda as duas bases de dados.
This internship report is inserted in the context of the Master's degree in History and aims to achieve the degree in Contemporary History by the University of Minho. The internship took place in the Historical Archive of Chaves, and it lasted for five months: it began on the 8th of September 2014 and ended on the 8th of February of 2015. It was based on a full time schedule previously arranged: 9:00 - 12:30 and 14:00 - 17:30. According to the working plan, the first goal was centered on the study and characterization of a bibliographical collection, kept in the host institution, from which there were neither registries nor had it even been a target of any archival treatment. The working proposal resulted in the host institution’s suggestion that it had received the previous agreement from the office of Master’s degree in History. It also was pursued the creation of a provisional inventory through the construction of a database in digital support (Microsoft Excel), according with the institution’ s classification requirements. A second goal was connected in getting and training of skills related with archivial techniques, namely related with the creation of a documental and/or bibliographical catalogue, the preservation and maintenance of documents. The third goal of this internship was to write this final report, formed by four chapters. The first chapter is dedicated to the Historical Archive of Chaves, which includes the presentation of the institution. The second chapter is destined to the inventory´s creation stages and to the presentation of the treatment’s outcomes. On the third chapter there is the description of the activities carried out in the context of the internship, namely the cleaning and listing proceedings. On the fourth and last chapter there is some personal reflections. In the attached files there will be two printed copies for the institution’s requested documentation, a classification list of the documentation adopted by the Archive, referring to the organization of the documents in the institution’s storage rooms, a photographic álbum and even the two databasse.