Management: Innovative Practices For Archives And Special Collections

Innovative Practices for Archives and Special Collections

by Kate Theimer (Editor)

Innovative Practices for Archives and Special Collections explores the kinds of challenges that managers of archival programs face today and how those challenges can be met to achieve optimal results while working within existing resources. The book features thirteen case studies that demonstrate solutions to both traditional management concerns as well as new issues and opportunities presented by changes in technology and organizational environments.

The featured case studies
1) “We’ll Never Let You Retire!”: Creating a Culture of Knowledge Transfer
2) Raising Cash and Building Using Kickstarter to Fund and Promote a Cultural Heritage Project
3) A Winning Internships and High-Impact Learning in Archives
4) A Thief in Our Special Collections, Archives and Insider Theft
5) Tackling the Conducting a Collections Assessment on a Shoestring
6) A Platform for Creating the Labs Environment at the National Archives of Australia
7) Setting Our Own Managing the Merger of Archives and Special Collections
8) Taking Managing Organizational Change in Archives
9) Implementing Pre-Custodial Engaging Organizations to Invest Resources in their Records
10) Building Effective Redesigning the Archives Leadership Institute
11) From Evaluation to Selecting Archival Management Software
12) More Bang for the Sharing Personnel and Resources Across Institutions
13) “Make a New Plan, Stan”: Useful and Painless Strategic Planning

The collected case studies present pragmatic approaches to challenges and opportunities that are common to organizations of all sizes and types. Their common focus is on building stronger archival programs by making effective use of people, technology, and resources while working within organizational requirements and constraints.

The volume will be useful to those working in archives and special collections as well as other cultural heritage organizations, and provides ideas ranging from the aspirational to the immediately implementable. It also provides students and educators in archives, library, and public history graduate programs a resource for understanding the issues facing managers in the field today and the kinds of strategies archivists are using to meet these new challenges.

Genres: Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published May 16, 2014

Reviews

[Krystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had initially requested this through ILL for one particular chapter and ended up bouncing through parts of the rest. I've always felt like management was the weak link in my archival education (i.e. I've figured out that part of the job on the fly since I left graduate school) so I found lots of this book interesting just to see and hear how others have figured out management in the archival context.

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly solid, pragmatic collection of essays on all aspects of management of Archives and Special Collections. Varied collection types, sizes, and philosophies. Lots of good tactics for "managing up" in addition to being at the top of a hierarchy.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

The chapters on change management, selecting archival software, and strategic planning are particularly helpful for a wide range of archival institutions.