Meteorites, libraries, archives, and the continuing COVID-19 crisis
This week's newsletter will again be mostly focused on COVID-19, mainly highlighting articles relating to the library and archives fields.
Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great week. Again, this week most of my articles will focus on COVID-19. The above photo refers to the fact that archivists looking through the Turkish state archives revealed evidence of the first person hit by a meteorite. Go archivists! Without further adieu, let me begin this newsletter.
I’d like to start with a number of articles relating to the library field. There has been a lot of chatter about how libraries will adapt to this existing crisis. Some of those focus on how librarians are under stress, while others focused on why there should be an end to curbside pickup/delivery (at least during the crisis), the benefits of eliminating library fines, and “hacking” your course schedule.
There were many more stories when it came to the archives field, with some even mapping projects of archiving COVID-19 content, documentation and procedures for gathering such content, and transcribing archival documents at home. I also enjoyed reading about ways to disrupt toxicity in a workplace, green tips for closed museums (can also apply to archives), the digitization of a mass quantity of WWI documents, and an interview with Andretta Schellinger, Historian and Author, who noted that archives has helped her broaden the subject matter she was studying. Additionally, of note is the letter by the SAA, and affiliated organizations, urging the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to take urgent action to help save our cultural heritage, processing of digital records, people on the internet unearthing lost episodes from animated children’s programs. Furthermore, in the recent edition of The American Archivist, which is completely open access due to the fact that editions of the magazine can’t be sent in person through the mail there were two interesting articles I’d like to highlight for you all. The first was titled “Are We Coming Together? The Archival Descriptive Landscape and the Roles of Archivist and Cataloger” and the second was titled “The Historical Hazards of Finding Aids.” They are in pdf form but are both worth a read without a doubt, especially the second one.
In the final part of this newsletter, let me give an honorable mention to a post by freelance writer Hope Mullinax which reviews the animated series She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. I am pointing this out because she linked to my analysis of Entrapta which I wrote back in November 2019, focused on how she is a positive form of representation for autistic people. I look forward to seeing the development of her character in the show’s upcoming season which premieres on May 15!
That’s all for this week. I hope you all have a great week to come.
- Burkely