Not joking about it: archives, libraries, the cultural stacks, and fan works
This week I'll focus on a number of topics, ranging from archives to libraries, and even genealogy, along with an excerpt from my friend's new fictional work, and much more
Hello everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful week even with everything that is going on right now. I have several topics I’d like to talk about in this newsletter, as I had a lot of self-published pieces published in the last week. As always, I hope to hear from all of those who read this newsletter.
I found out, a few days ago, that my post about the closure of NARA’s Seattle facility was published, even though it actually came out on November 18. Anyway, it summarizes what is happening and the sad planned closure of the facility. I hope that the incoming Biden Administration will change their mind and decide to keep the facility, but I’m not holding my breath about that. Of course, as the National Security Archive has rightly called for, through a lawsuit, presidential records should be preserved during the transition period. In terms of posts that I published myself, I wrote up a post about the scene in The Joker where Arthur Fleck visits a records clerk to learn more about his mother. The clerk is portrayed well, which is unique for how archivy situations/archives are portrayed in popular culture. However, Fleck steals the files and runs off with them. While he examines them carefully, the files are never seen again in the film, so who knows where they went, unfortunate for those who want those files to be preserved. Then, I also wrote up a post reviewing libraries in one of my favorite YA animated series, RWBY, now in its eighth season (Volume 8), and how they are a place of refuge and calmness, amidst the chaos. Finally, I’d like to point to a fictional work that my friend published a couple of days ago. This work, titled “Miko, High Five, and the Etherian “Glitch””. Apart from featuring archives, there is a library too, as a character runs away thereafter her aunt embarrasses her, a description which doesn’t give away any hints. I know my friend says they are relatively new to the field, but I believe they got all of this right, from what I can tell. Anyway, here’s an excerpt:
…Some people who had formerly been Horde soldiers were part of the construction [of an air hub], while a truth and reconciliation commission, for all the crimes committed by the Horde, continued. The records of each proceeding were recorded by hand by a robotic scribe, along with video and audio files through various devices put in place by Bow. Each of these records would be deposited in an archives under construction…While the specifics of who would work in the archives had not been fully determined…[and] the records from the family library curated by George and Lance would likely form part of the collection…the records would not be organized by subject matter or by topic. Rather, they would be kept in the original order set by the person or organization who had created the record in the first place, with these records assembled in a hierarchical fashion. Each collection of records became a record group, then subdivided into series and files, with the records arranged so they could be useful and accessible, with original order occasionally disregarded if the archivists deemed it necessary. This all happened after archival appraisal of the records themselves had occurred. The records could be of any form, whether paper, digital or moving pictures. Most were paper because Etheria did not have an internet…As the archives was only in its first stages, no records schedules had been established. Perhaps, in the future that would be added as a way to ensure that records were processed efficiently and effectively, allowing for access to all the records by Etherian citizens, no matter the kingdom they resided, accompanied by the appropriate description and necessary other archival tasks.
With that, let me move onto some stories for this week.
In the land of archives, David Ferriero wrote about NARA’s role in a presidential transition, while the SAA’s Electronic Records section talked about archival workflows, the newest member of the Issues & Advocacy section’s Steering Committee (Holly Croft) introduced herself, the wonderful Samantha Cross of POP Archives reviewed the podcast titled The Magnus Archives, and Archives AWARE! focused on archival innovators. When it came to libraries, American Libraries had an article asking if a patron who gets sick (from COVID presumably) can sue the library, while the Library of Congress had posts about a virtual school tour, a COVID-19 panel, and an interview with a foreign law intern, Viktoria Simone-Fritz, who is working at LOC. Additionally, Hack Library School had posts about patron data and getting an MLIS. Finally, Jeannette Holland Austin had a newsletter about how to discover when ancestors first came to America.
There are some articles I’d like to point to for honorable mentions. ZDNET had an article asking who is watching the algorithms, Smithsonian Magazine noted that microbes and fungi were discovered on Da Vinci drawings, The New Republic warned about the corporate consolidation of the book publishers, and Forbes noted how some journals remain elite, exclusive, and exclusionary. Apart from all that, there were posts about legal disabilities of early women lawyers, which is like something I studied in college in a “women in the law” course, and Preservation Maryland had posts about public archaeology day, battlefield preservation, and finding a historic fort.
That’s all for this week. With that, I hope you all have a productive week to come.
- Burkely