Archives and Special Collections as Sites of Contestation

by Mary Kandiuk (Editor), Lara K. Aase (Contributor), Kimberley Bell (Contributor)

Archives and special collections play a critical role in promoting social justice. This collection of essays interrogates library practices relating to archives and special collections. Funding and political choices often underpin acquisition, access and promotion of these collections, resulting in unequal representation, biased interpretations, and suppressed narratives. Archives and Special Collections as Sites of Contestation explores the reinterpretation and resituating of archives and special collections held by libraries, examines the development and stewardship of archives and special collections within a social justice framework, and describes the use of critical practice by libraries and librarians to shape and negotiate the acquisition, cataloguing, promotion, and use of archives and special collections. Chapters in this volume discuss the development of new collections through community outreach to marginalized and underrepresented groups, efforts to amend the historical documentary record through digitization projects, cataloguing, authority and description of archives and special collections, using a critical practice framework, ethical and political issues relating to donors, appraisal and access, curation, stewardship and promotion of controversial or sensitive collections, and the decolonization of space and collections.

Genres: Nonfiction, Social Justice

520 pages, Paperback

First published May 4, 2020

Reviews

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book focuses on the need to disrupt some archival and library practices, for example the need to have items catalogued in the language they are written in (for example Spanish or Japanese) and not only in English. It also has helpful examples of how to describe and provide access to archives with racist content in a way which provides a better understanding of their creator/s. This is not to change the past, but to improve the understanding of it.

This book shows the importance of building new collections which address the importance of social justice, to include those who have historically been excluded from collections, while being visible in the communities. Building new audiences for archives (both old and new) is shown as crucial, for sustainability and for understanding the historical context (recent or further in the past). Elizabeth Hobart reminds us that
Cataloguing is an ethical act, ensuring the discoverability of library resources regardless of content...Without a detailed, accurate record, items literally remain hidden . This applies to many collections in libraries.

There are many ideas of relevance to local studies collections in the different chapters in this book.

This is yet another excellent publication from Library Juice Press. My copy has lots of annotated post it notes sticking out, with notes on them for follow up.