Spring/Summer Issue of American Archivist Online

Issue 83.1 features Emily Larson’s 2019 Theodore Calvin Pease Award-winning article “Big Questions: Digital Preservation of Big Data in Government,” articles on privacy and access by Jessica Holden and Ana Roeschley, digital curation in museum archives by Peter Botticelli, renaming geographical sites by Veronica Ehrenreich-Risner, and nine book reviews—including Bartosz Nowożycki’s Polish-language monograph, Archival Theory and Practice in the USA—along with a review essay by Ed Summers on archiving the web.

On the issue’s cover are students at San José State College’s Survival Faire in 1970, an event that predated Earth Day and called for creating a more sustainable lifestyle. Although the masks worn by these students improbably echo the masked times of the COVID-19 pandemic, these students were calling attention to the negative health effects of smog. The impetus for the Survival Faire was the beginning of an ecology movement that continues to the present day. Carli Lowe discusses the evolution of and opportunities for more ecologically sound archival practice in “Partnering Preservation with Sustainability.” Browse the table of contents for more great reads!

Note: This issue of American Archivist will have a limited print run. SAA, like many other organizations, is experiencing budgetary and logistical challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. To best navigate this time, print copies of this issue will be distributed only to sustaining members and subscribers who have opted for print only. This is not a permanent change. However, if you prefer to help us reduce our carbon footprint by receiving only digital versions in the future, you can easily do so within your SAA profile. Simply log in, click “Edit My Profile” in the left column, scroll down to “Communications and Mailing Preference,” and click “opt out” of the journal and/or magazine.

All issues of American Archivist are open access through August 15. In addition, a new journal website that will improve your digital experience will launch in July. Among its enhancements are a Mobile-responsive web design, optional split-screen reading experience, suggested articles based on browser history and saved searches, and alerts and notifications. Stay tuned for details!

American Archivist 83.1 (Spring/Summer 2020)

From the Editor

• Archival Evolution
  Christopher A. Lee

Articles

• Big Questions: Digital Preservation of Big Data in Government
  Emily Larson
• Reading Geographical Names as Text: Refiguring the “Living Archive” in Postcolonial South Africa
  Veronica Ehrenreich-Risner
• What Do You Mean It’s Not There? Doing Null History
  Edward Janak
• Privacy and Access in the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Records
  Jessica Holden and Ana Roeschley
• Maintaining Records in Context: A Historical Exploration of the Theory and Practice of Archival Classification and Arrangement
  Ciaran B. Trace
• Curating Digital Surrogates in a Museum Archives: The Historic Boards Collection at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University
  Peter Botticelli
• Partnering Preservation with Sustainability
  Carli V. Lowe

Reviews

• We Are All Connected
  Bethany Anderson, Reviews Editor
• Review Essay: What We Talk about When We Talk about Archiving the Web
  Ed Summers
• Teoria i praktyka archiwistyki USA
  Bartosz Nowozżycki
  Reviewed by Teresa Sromek
• The Monumental Challenge of Preservation: The Past in a Volatile World
  Michele Valerie Cloonan
  Reviewed by Sam van Schaik
• Reappraisal and Deaccessioning in Archives and Special Collections
  Edited by Laura Uglean Jackson
  Reviewed by Veronica Martzahl
• Archives
  Andrew Lison, Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, and Rick Prelinger
  Reviewed by Brian M. Watson
• Leading and Managing Archives and Manuscripts Programs
  Edited by Peter Gottlieb and David W. Carmicheal
  Reviewed by Helen Wong Smith
• Archive fur Literatur. Der Nachlass und seine Ordnungen
  Edited by Petra-Maria Dallinger, Georg Hofer, and Bernhard Judex
  Reviewed by Julius Gerbracht
• Flood in Florence, 1966: A Fifty-Year Retrospective
  Edited by Paul Conway and Martha O’Hara Conway
  Reviewed by Miriam Centeno
• Arranging and Describing Archives and Manuscripts
  Dennis Meissner
  Reviewed by Amanda Wick
• The Digital Archives Handbook: A Guide to Creation, Management, and Preservation
  Edited by Aaron D. Purcell
  Reviewed by Ashley Howdeshell 

Love what you’ve read? Share it with a friend or colleague!