We are archivists, but are we OK?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that the digital environment of the early twenty-first century is forcing the information sciences to revisit practices and precepts built around paper and physical objects over centuries. The training of archivists, records managers, librarians and museum curators has had to accommodate this new reality. Often the response has been to superimpose a digital overlay on existing curricula. A few have taken a radical approach by scrutinising the fundamentals of the professions and the ontologies of the materials they handle. Design/methodology/approach – The article explores a wide range of the issues exposed by this critique through critical analysis of ideas and published literature. Findings – The authors challenge archive and records management educators to align their curricula with contemporary need and to recognise that partnership with other professionals, particularly in the area of technology, is essential. Practical implications – The present generation owe it to future generations of archivists and records managers to ensure that the education that they get to prepare them for professional life is forward-looking in the same way. Originality/value – This paper aims to raise awareness of the educational needs of twenty-first century archives and records professionals

Privileging information is inevitable

Libraries, archives and museums have long collected physical materials and other artefacts. In so doing they have established formal or informal policies defining what they will (and will not) collect. We argue that these activities by their very nature privilege some information over others and that the appraisal that underlies this privileging is itself socially constructed. We do not cast this in a post-modernist or negative light, but regard a clear understanding of it as fact and its consequences as crucial to understanding what collections are and what the implications are for the digital world. We will argue that in the digital world it is much easier for users to construct their own collections from a combination of resources, some privileged and curated by information professionals and some privileged by criteria that include the frequency with which other people link to and access them. We conclude that developing these ideas is an important part of placing the concept of a digital or hybrid paper/digital library on a firm foundation and that information professionals need to learn from each other, adopting elements of a variety of different approaches to describing and exposing information. A failure to do this will serve to push information professional towards the margins of the information seekers perspective

Some effects of management by fire on wet heath vegetation in Western Scotland

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DX84142 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Digitisation: taking stock

The technicalities of digitisation are now fairly well understood, but what is less well understood is the range of issues that need to be considered before committing to a digitisation programme, if it is not to meet the fate of the BBC Doomsday Project. This article discusses a range of these issues in order to place digitisation firmly in a business and political context, including: why digitise, what to digitise, the audience for and packaging and discovery of digitised material, and finally the sustainability of the whole enterprise

Digital asset management

Managing digital assets in any context is neither simple nor straightforward and demands a level of investment unfamiliar to archivists and librarians in an analogue environment. This entry explains that in meeting this challenge information professionals should build on their previous experience in managing collections in the analogue and not be swayed into believing that the digital represents a paradigm shift in curatorial practice. The authors emphasize the importance of persistence of curatorial practices of appraisal and selection in the digital and warn against the supposed attraction of what appear to be all embracing solutions in capturing and preserving content. They argue that the approach will depend, just as in the analogue, on the organization's goals, responsibilities, and size. A library in a well-endowed research-led university will have very different needs, objectives, and resources than a liberal arts college or a municipal public library. The distinction between “born digital” and digitized objects is explored. The authors insist that, although all digital objects can be reduced to a bit pattern, every genre has very different ontological characteristics that, as in the analogue, demand different approaches in their management and curation. They conclude by emphasizing that the management of digital assets, like every other asset, must be integral to an institution's strategic goals with appropriate allocation of resource supported by a well-articulated business case. For ease of reference the entry is divided into three sections, managing assets, challenges, and management with useful references

What is a collection?

The word 'collection' has been common currency in what we accept as the real world of objects and events, and has been imported with seemingly little effort into our discourse about the digital world, yet there is no clear definition in either domain of what is meant by the term. We clarify this issue by first examining how the term is used in the contemporary information science literature and then by going on to establish the criteria which are employed in bringing a collection about. We will argue that the assumption that there is a realist permanence or fixity in the world that determines taxonomies is false, and that the only feasible approach to the construction of categories to which objects, whether digital or physical, are allocated is an anti-realist one where attention is paid to the intentions and subsequent decisions of the collector