Reading List
Sources
I engaged with the following sources when researching and designing my archive.
Caswell, Michelle. "The Making of Records." Chapter 1 in Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014.
Caswell argues that records cannot be looked at as simply documenting reality. They have a key role in constructing it. This led me to add Commissioning Organization into the metadata, since knowing whether a poster came from United Air Lines or a federal agency changes its purpose and who it was targeting.
Luiselli, Valeria. Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 2017.
In the immigration questionnaire Luiselli discusses, a response is correct when it fits into an existing legal category, not necessarily when it captures a child's experience. This caused me to reflect on what my archive would fail to recognize if I only recorded basic metadata such as title, artist, and date.
Region of Peel Archives. "What Do Archivists Keep (or Not)?" Peeling the Past (blog), April 4, 2018. https://peelarchivesblog.com/2018/04/04/what-do-archivists-keep-or-not/
This source discusses the process of appraisal, which is how archivists describe what gets preserved. Only about five percent of an organization's records are typically preserved, which reflects how archives are a series of choices rather than just what survived.
Gilliland, Anne J. "Setting the Stage." In Introduction to Metadata, 3rd ed., edited by Murtha Baca. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2016. https://www.getty.edu/publications/intrometadata/setting-the-stage/
Gilliland's writing that describes the difference between content and context shaped my fields for my metadata. She also notes that when an archive restores a place's original Indigenous name, the English name assigned later can be listed as an alternate rather than the primary one.
Projects I'm Learning From
The Los Angeles Public Library recognized that its photo collection didn’t capture the diversity of the city, and invited residents to supply family photographs. They received nearly 10,000 images from more than 650 donors. They created this collection after noticing a gap, which is similar to what my pairings are doing at a much smaller scale.
Pimu Catalina Island Archaeology Project
This project combines archaeological methods with Indigenous knowledge, with Tongva tribal members teaching and interpreting the island's history. This project reminds me to ask myself whose knowledge I am treating as authoritative.
UCLA La Raza Photograph Collection
This collection contains nearly 25,000 images documenting the Chicano movement, created by photographers who were also activists. This is a good example of how a community can produce its own archive.