Assessing Finding Aid Discoverability After Description Improvements Using Web Analytics

Archivists use best practices, like More Product Less Process, and professional standards, like Describing Archives: A Content Standard, to create descriptions of archival collections that promote collection use and discoverability. However, most existing usability literature assessing online finding aids looks at navigability and ease of use, but does not examine increase in traffic and discoverability of those finding aids. University of Colorado Boulder Archives improved online finding aid descriptions on ArchivesSpace during 2020. Google Analytics data from 2020 and 2021 show an increase in users and sessions on ArchivesSpace. It also indicates that most users arrive to the site from Google searches. Based on this data, this case study demonstrates that improving online descriptions is connected to increased online finding aid use

Activist Social Media Archiving: Practices, Challenges, and Opportunities

Social media has played a significant role in recent activist movements. It empowers activists to organize and communicate their experiences. Archival efforts to document narratives that are historically silenced makes activist material an attractive collecting area. However, archives trying to preserve digital ephemera like social media from activist movements face digital preservation challenges as well as ethical considerations. By conducting online surveys and semi-structured interviews with archivists working on projects collecting activist social media this study found that activist social collecting projects: 1) face ethical and collection development challenges, 2) usually follow traditional models for acquisition, description, and access, and 3) increase donor and user engagement with collections. This suggests that in the future the profession would benefit from the development of best practices surrounding ethical collection development and use of activist social media.Master of Science in Library Scienc

Preservation and the Future in the Northwest: A Conversation with Archivists and Librarians

The theme for this current issue of PNLA Quarterly is Preservation and the Future. This article ad-dresses that topic in the form of a conversation with professionals in archives and libraries in Idaho and Washington that have a stake in the preservation, access, and future of library collections and historical materials in the Northwest. These perspectives offer points-of-view from an academic library, county historical society, and university special collections

History in the Making: Outreach and Collaboration between Special Collections and Makerspaces

Makerspaces present unique possibilities for creative partnerships within libraries, including the opportunity for interdisciplinary use of emerging technologies with archival objects and primary sources. One example of this type of interdisciplinary collaboration is the fabrication of cultural heritage replicas via 3D scanning and printing of historical university objects in academic libraries. Two departments in the University of Idaho Library, Special Collections and Archives (SPEC) and the Making, Innovating, and Learning Laboratory (MILL), partnered on such a project as a way to broaden maker competencies across library departments, leverage interdisciplinary connections between emerging technologies and historic archives, and create innovative outreach opportunities. Since many academic libraries house both special collections and makerspaces, this article outlines a path towards creative collaboration while creating an in-library maker community of practice and suggests opportunities for outreach and engagement that are widely applicable to library professionals