{"id":1273,"date":"2019-11-06T22:21:32","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T22:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/?p=1273"},"modified":"2019-11-24T17:35:38","modified_gmt":"2019-11-24T17:35:38","slug":"distant-reading-game-changer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/special\/distant-reading-game-changer\/","title":{"rendered":"Special Collections Research Center- A great Resource"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The experience today with the Special Collections Research Center at GMU was awesome. As a budding archivist it was great to how other archives handle their collections. Most of the rules outlined on the policy page <\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> were what I have experienced in other archival centers. I was impressed with the wide range of materials that they had for the Federal Theatre Project. Being able to interact with the puppet and the \u201cDark Coat\u201d was interesting and enjoyable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was interesting when Brittany described the decision process for digitization, seeing that they had a \u201ctop ten list\u201d was genius! Her description of reasons for digitizing certain items was informative. I had only considered accessibility as a reason to digitize documents. But her statement about a documents stability as a deciding factor was interesting. If the document is physically compromised, but it\u2019s contents are invaluable then digitizing it is a way to maintain that information for future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Archives are a fantastic resource for university students and the general public alike. They are the repositories of information that could otherwise be lost. It was interesting that she mentioned the political reasons that some collections are part of the GMU Library collection. My personal experience with archives has been in the public sphere, dealing with publicly owned government records, but in considering private collections I have new questions. Her mentioning of being obligated to accept a collection because of a monetary donation fascinated me. I am of the thought that most collections are inherently valuable. She seemed to imply that some of these collections are unwanted or burdensome for the SCRC. I found that interesting, but reading the conversation between Thomas Padilla and Elvia Arroyo-Ramirez \u201cBias, Perception, and Archival Praxis\u201d I understand that there is another side of archives. In this conversation Arroyo- Ramirez discusses that there is a sense of bias in collections. She states that scholars are discussing \u201cissues of power, representation, and accountability by challenging the existing canon of archival neutrality and objectivity; speaking on colonialism, apartheid, and transitional democracies and their relationships to record keeping; and connecting these challenges to current archival practices.\u201d <\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> I have always considered archives to be neutral, but I understand how accepting collections only from certain people or groups they could be bias. If the documents collected only pertain or describe one side of history then they are not in fact neutral. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is something that I think is really special about the Library of Congress Slave <\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> narratives. These are stories from the other side of history, the often underrepresented stories. It is important for that history to be preserved alongside of the nations history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Through our discussions about the Federal Theater Project this week I realized how much social politics affected the New Deal projects. I had the impression that they were all welcomed and celebrated for having put artists back to work in the economic crisis. It was fascinating to see that that was not the case. Our group examined the programs for the Children\u2019s Theater\u2019s production of \u201cThe Revolt of the Beavers\u201d which we had previously learned was associated with communism and helped to fuel tensions for the FTP. It was really interesting to see these documents in person. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The experience today with the Special Collections Research Center at GMU was awesome. As a budding archivist it was great to how other archives handle their collections. Most of the rules outlined on the policy page were what I have experienced in other archival centers. I was impressed with the wide range of materials that … Continue reading “Special Collections Research Center- A great Resource”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-1273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special","tag-fall-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1273"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1574,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273\/revisions\/1574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}