Thinking inside and outside the boxes: Archival reference services at the turn of the century

Archivaria

Volumn 49, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 140-160

  Yakel, Elizabeth ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 18844420418     PISSN: 03186954     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (85)

1. Geoffrey Nunberg, "Farewell to the Information Age, " in Geoffrey Nunberg, ed., The Future of the Book (Berkeley, 1996), p. 103.
2. Hugh Taylor, "Transformation in the Archives, " Archivaria 25 (Winter 1987-88), pp. 12-28.
3. Lewis Bellardo and Lynn Lady Bellardo, A Glossary for Archivists, Manuscript Curators, and Records Managers (Chicago, 1992).
4. For a discussion of post-custodialism see Terry Cook, "Electronic Records, Paper Minds: The Revolution in Information Management and Archives in the Post-custodial and Post-modernist Era, " Archives and Manuscripts 22, no. 2 (1994), pp. 300-328 or Terry Cook, "The Concept of the Archival Fonds: Theory, Description, and Provenance in the Post-Custodial Era, " in Terry Eastwood, ed., The Archival Fonds: From Theory to Practice (Ottawa, 1992), pp. 31-85.
5. For a listing of archival home pages see the list of "Repositories of Primary Sources" compiled by Terry Abraham at the University of Idaho.
6. Thomas J. Ruller, "Open All Night: Using the Internet to Improve Access to Archives: A Case Study of the New York State Archives and Records Administration, " in Laura B. Cohen, ed., Reference Services for Archives and Manuscripts (New York, 1997), p. 162.
7. For analyses of archives' Web pages see Jenni Davidson and Donna McRostie, "Webbed Feet: Navigating the Net, " Archives and Manuscripts 24 (November 1996), pp. 330-351 and David A. Wallace, "Archives and the Superhighway: Current Status and Future Challenges, " International Information & Library Review 28, no. 1 (March 1996), pp. 79-91.
8. Lisa Guernsey, "News Watch: The Line Is Out the Door At a Genealogy Library, " New York Times (Thursday, 27 May 1999).
9. Gabrielle Blais and David Enns, "From Paper Archives to People Archives: Public Programming in the Management of Archives, " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990-91), p. 108.
10. This vision is admittedly very different from and in opposition to that proposed by Luciana Duranti. See Luciana Duranti, "The Archival Bond, " Archives and Museum Informatics 11, nos. 3-4 (1997), pp. 213-18.
11. Recently, the literature concerning reference and access to electronic records has grown. In addition to Ruller, "Open All Night, " see for example two articles by Margaret Hedstrom, "How Do Archivists Make Electronic Archives Usable and Accessible?" Archives and Manuscripts 26, no. 1 (May 1998), pp. 6-22 and "Electronic Archives: Integrity in the Network Environment, " in Networking in the Humanities: Proceedings of the Second Conference on Scholarship and Technology in the Humanities held at Elvetham Hall, Hampshire, UK, 13-16 April, 1994: Papers in Honour of Michael Smethurst for his 60th Birthday (London, 1995), pp. 77-95. Also see Theodore J. Hull, "Reference Services for Electronic Records in Archives, " Reference Librarian 56 (1997), pp. 147-60 and Theodore J. Hull and Margaret O. Adams, "Electronic Communications for Reference Services: A Case Study, " Government Information Quarterly 12, no. 3 (1995), pp. 297-308.
12. This is a restatement and unravelling of the relationship as noted by Mary Jo Pugh, "The Illusion of Omniscience: Subject Access and the Reference Archivist, " American Archivist 45, no. 1 (Winter 1982), p. 36. For a current update on the decline of intermediacy see Edwidge Munn and Denise Rioux, "La référence: une fonction archivistique à part entière, " Archivaria 45 (Spring 1998), p. 109.
13. The reference process and some of the theories behind it are discussed in depth by Louise Gagnon-Arguin, "Les questions de recherche comme matériaux d'études des usagers en vue du traitement des archives, " Archivaria 46 (Fall 1998), pp. 86-102.
14. Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (New York, 1979), p. 242.
15. Elsie Freeman, "In the Eye of the Beholder: Archives Administration from the User's Point of View, " American Archivist 47, no. 2 (Spring 1994), pp. 111-123. Freeman asked this question fifteen years ago.
16. See, for example, Fredric Miller, "Use, Appraisal, and Research: A Case Study of Social History, " American Archivist 49, no. 4 (Fall 1986), pp. 371-92 and Jacqueline Goggin, "The Indirect Approach: A Study of Scholarly Users of Black and Women's Organizational Records in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, " Midwestern Archivist 11 (1986), pp. 57-67.
17. William E. Brown Jr. and Elizabeth Yakel, "Redefining the Role of College and University Archives in the Information Age, " American Archivist 59, no. 3 (Summer 1996), pp. 72-87.
18. Paul Conway, "Research in Presidential Libraries: A User Study, " Midwestern Archivist 11 (1986), pp. 35-56.
19. Paul Conway, "Partners in Research: Improving Access to the Nation's Archive, " Archives and Museum Informatics (1994) and Ann Gordon, Using the Nation's Documentary Heritage (National Documents Study Report) (Washington, 1992).
20. Wendy Duff and Penka Stoyanova, "Transforming the Crazy Quilt: Archival Displays from a User's Point of View, " Archivaria 45 (Spring 1998), pp. 44-79.
21. Taylor, "Transformation in the Archives, " p. 15.
22. Barbara L. Craig, "Old Myths in New Clothes: Expectations of Archives Users, " Archivaria 45 (Spring 1998), p. 125.
23. For a much more in-depth treatment of virtual reference see Helen Tibbo, "Interviewing Techniques for Remote Reference: Electronic versus Traditional Environments, " American Archivist 58, no. 2 (Summer 1995), pp. 294-310.
24. Gagnon-Arguin, "Les questions de recherche comme matériaux d'études des usagers en vue du traitement des archives, " passim.
25. Herbert A. Simon, Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-making Processes in Administrative Organizations, third edition (New York, 1976), pp. 166-67.
26. The literature examining how organizational memory is encoded and transferred includes: Michael D. Cohen and Paul Bacdayan, "Organizational Routines are Stored as Procedural Memory: Evidence from a Laboratory Study, " Organization Science 5, no. 4 (November 1994), pp. 554-68.
27. Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak, Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What they Know (Cambridge, MA, 1998), p. 12.
28. Richard L. Daft and Richard H. Lengel, "Information Richness: A New Approach to Managerial Behavior and Organizational Design, " Research in Organizational Behavior 6 (1984), pp. 191-233.
29. Henry Mintzberg, The Nature of Managerial Work (New York, 1973).
30. Davenport and Prusak, Working Knowledge, p. 28.
31. Taylor, "Transformation in the Archives, " p. 23.
32. Miller, "Use, Appraisal, and Research, " p. 377.
33. Robert S. Taylor, "Information Use Environments, " in Brenda Dervin and M.J. Voigt, eds., Progress in Communication Science (Norwood, NJ, 1991), pp. 217-54.
34. Martha Feldman and James G. March, "Information in Organizations as Symbol and Signal, " Administrative Science Quarterly 26 (1981), p. 174.
35. Carol S. Saunders and Jack W. Jones, "Temporal Sequences in Information Acquisition and Decision Making: A Focus on Source and Medium, " Academy of Management Review 15, no. 1 (1990), pp. 29-46.
36. Elsie T. Freeman, "In the Eye of the Beholder, " p. 117.
37. Davenport and Prusak, Working Knowledge, p. 3.
38. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
39. Joanne G. Marshall, The Impact of the Special Library on Corporate Decision-Making (Washington, D.C., 1993).
40. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
41. Charles A. O'Reilly III, "Variations in Decision Makers' Use of Information Sources: The Impact of Quality and Accessibility of Information, " Academy of Management Journal 25, no. 4 (1982), pp. 756-71.
42. Taylor, "Transformation in the Archives, " p. 12.
43. Canadian North West Archival Network.
44. "Repositories of Primary Sources. "
45. California Digital Library, Online Archive of California.
46. Research Libraries Group, Expanding Access to Archival Resources.
47. Taylor, "Transformation in the Archives, " p. 20.
48. Bonnie Nardi and Vicki O'Day, Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart (Cambridge, MA, 1999), p. 182.
49. Yale University, Manuscripts and Archives, Manuscripts & Archives Tutorial.
50. University of California-Berkeley, Library Research Using Primary Sources.
51. Barbara L. Craig, "What Are the Clients? Who Are the Products? The Future of Archival Public Services in Perspective, " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990-91), p. 138.
52. Davenport and Prusak, Working Knowledge, p. 18.
53. Nunberg, "Farewell to the Information Age, " p. 107.
54. John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, "Organizing Knowledge, " California Management Review 40, no. 33 (Spring 1998), pp. 90-111.
55. Hugh Taylor, "My Very Act and Deed: Some Reflections on the Role of Textual Records in the Conduct of Affairs, " American Archivist 51 (Fall 1988), p. 468.
56. Terry Cook, "From Information to Knowledge: An Intellectual Paradigm for Archives, " Archivaria 19 (Winter 1984-85), p. 49.
57. Davenport and Prusak, Working Knowledge, p. 2.
58. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
59. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
60. Nunberg, "Farewell to the Information Age, " p. 110.
61. Davenport and Prusak, Working Knowledge, pp. 2-3.
62. Arthur L. Stinchcombe, Information and Organizations (Berkeley, 1990), p. 342.
63. Davenport and Prusak, Working Knowledge, p. 5.
64. Taylor, "Transformation in the Archives, " p. 14.
65. Davenport and Prusak, Working Knowledge, p. xii.
66. Bonnie A. Nardi, Information Ecologies, Keynote Address at Reference Services in the Digital Age (Washington, D.C., 28-30 June 1998), p. 1.
67. Nardi and O'Day, p. 182.
68. Hugh Taylor, "Information Ecologies and the Archives of the 1980s, " Archivaria 18 (Summer 1984), p. 25.
69. Nardi, Information Ecologies, p. 7.
70. Eric Ketelaar, The Archival Image: Collected Essays (Hilversum, 1997), pp. 117-18.
71. Philip Brooks, Research in Archives: The Use of Unpublished Primary Sources (Chicago, 1969), p. 36.
72. Ian Day, "The Role of Records Management in 'Business Information Services', " Records Management Journal 7, no. 2 (August 1997), pp. 91-99.
73. Thomas H. Davenport, "Saving IT's Soul: Human-Centered Information Management, " Harvard Business Review (March-April 1994), p. 121.
74. Susan Leigh Star and James R. Griesemer, "Institutional Ecology, 'Translations' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39, " Social Studies of Science 19 (1989), pp. 387-420.
75. Nardi and O'Day, Information Ecologies, p. 54.
76. Davenport and Prusak, Working Knowledge, p. 29.
77. See studies by Julian Orr, "Sharing Knowledge, Celebrating Identity: Community Memory in a Service Culture, " in David Middleton and Derek Edwards, eds., Collective Remembering (Newbury Park, 1990), pp. 169-89
78. Thomas A. Finholt, "The Erosion of Time, Geography, and Hierarchy: Sharing Information through an Electronic Archive, " in Angelika Menne-Haritz, ed., Information Handling in Offices and Archives (Munich, 1993), pp. 67-90.
79. Star and Griesemer's study, "Institutional Ecology, 'Translations' and Boundary Objects, " on the role of documentation in a zoology museum, is excellent in making this point.
80. Brown and Duguid, "Organizing Knowledge, " p. 104.
81. Nardi and O'Day, Information Ecologies, p. 141.
82. A whole chapter is devoted to gardeners in Nardi and O'Day, Information Ecologies, pp. 139-51.
83. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
84. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
85. Rudy Ruggles, "The State of the Notion: Knowledge Management in Practice, " California Management Review 40, no. 3 (Spring 1998) p. 89.