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Archives Teaching Today's Thought

I’m Feeling Ethically Challenged

I think it is important to say when you aren’t feeling ready to teach a topic. I’m feeling that way about ethics tonight. I can saunter into the copyright class and do laps, but ethics has got me nervous. Engagement with the topic has been great. I just have that weird educator feeling that I’m […]

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Teaching

1’s & 0’S: Today in teaching

Today, I’ve been debating how deep into encoded digital records that I need to take first semester students. I typically have them work on more management-focused activities such as creating a virtual machine or managing a free/low-cost server/website. I decided to change courses this year and have them create a small development environment based on […]

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Archives Research

A fervor, not a fever

I was working on a revision of an article this a.m and reread Verne Harris’s “POSTMODERNISM AND ARCHIVAL APPRAISAL: SEVEN THESES.” I regularly teach this piece in an appraisal class, but I was struck by a line this morning. Harris remarked, “Who would want to be an appraiser? Only the feverish”. This line directly references […]

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What I'm Reading

Digital Diplomatics

A recent Ars Technica article demonstrated that there’s a great need for diplomatic training in the record keeping profession. This case from Canada revolved around using fonts for forging records, but the would-be forger used a series fonts that would not have existed at the time the documents were created.

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Law and Archives Workshop – July 8, 2016

Here’s my materials for the Society of Georgia Archivist workshop I led on the topic of law and archives. Slides  Handouts handout 6 handout5 handout4 handout3 handout2 Handout1 handout 7 Case Studies Take the Records and Run (A Law Case Study) More Stuff, More Problems (An Appraisal and Acquisition Case Study) Grey Haired Area (A […]

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What really is a record and What are we preserving: Viewing Nitrate Films

What really is a record? I don’t plan on answering that, but it’s a good thought for Monday especially after watching this Vice Daily on the Nitrate Picture Show at the George Eastman Museum. The museum is one of the places that has a theater capable of still showing original nitrate prints. Some of the interviewees […]

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Archives and Current Events: Social Movements, Archival Access and Collecting

Recently in a class I provided my students with a rough case study involving a higher educational institution that asked the students to from an ethical stand point what to do with unsolicited materials that had records related to an alumni group that were both embarrassing to the institution and racially charged. I asked several follow […]

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So video poker in museums? If this is the current state of affairs, I propose that archive install craps tables. Now I just need to pull together an archival dealer professional development workshop.

Jackpot

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Laws of Data Protection

I’m an avid fan of anything in the cloud, especially if its cross platform. Evernote was one of my first loves of cloud computing. Even though I’ve been carrying on a torrid love affair with dropbox for the last several weeks, I still use evernote as my “archive”. Today’s post from the evernote blog only […]