A trip into social media

Hello again!

When I signed up for Twitter, it became evident that I am part of a change that is happening in the archival profession. Archivists are surfing the net blogging and twittering and pointing to some good stuff. Moreover, by lurking around twitter for about an hour I was able to find Archives*Open, SAA, the Library of Congress and other archivists. All of these amazing feeds point the way to jobs, blogs and amazing collection on the web. I even found some other students doing what I am doing.

Last night I saw a tweet for the position for a digital archivist at Yale…I want this job. Not only would I get to work with born-digital material but I would “explore and propose new technologies, including Web 2.0, to meet research and reference needs of patrons and staff.” That was just in the first paragraph of the responsibilities and it was enough to hook me. The rest of the responsibilities and qualifications can be found here.

I used to scoff at social media but reading Mary Samouelian’s article “Embracing Web 2.0: Archives and the Newest Generation of Web Applications” swayed me. These emerging technologies can be quite useful to any archivist trying to promote access to their collections. Take a look. Also Elizabeth Yakel is worth looking at as well. Samouelian cites her articles several times in her own.

In particular take a look at Magia Ghetu Krause and Elizabeth Yakel’s, article “Interaction in Virtual Archives: The Polar Bear Expedition Digital Collections Next Generation Finding Aid.” They investigate whether or not patrons are using the web 2.0 tools put in place by the Finding Aids Next Generation Research Group at the University of Michigan. Their findings were a depressing “not so much.”

However, Krause and Yakel are hopeful that more users would be more inclined to use those as time went on. In the 2.5 years since the article was written the research landscape is heading in that direction. The Yale position denotes an awareness of this shift. As researchers and archivists alike become more comfortable with technology, repositories employing web 2.0 applications like Yale and the University of Michigan will become commonplace.

And I will get the job I want!


Citations:

Mary Samouelian, “Embracing Web 2.0: Archives and the Newest Generation of Web Applications.” American Archivist 72 (Spring/Summer 2009)

Magia Ghetu Krause and Elizabeth Yakel, “Interaction in Virtual Archives: The Polar Bear Expedition: Digital Collections Next Generation Finding Aid,” American Archivist 70 (Fall/Winter 2007)

Job posting accessed 3 Mar 2010: https://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1003&L=CODE4LIB&D=1&T=0&O=D&P=141878


Much love,

Am