{"id":1700,"date":"2019-11-13T15:13:54","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T15:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/?p=1700"},"modified":"2019-11-24T20:17:21","modified_gmt":"2019-11-24T20:17:21","slug":"blog-post-8-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/special\/blog-post-8-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Post 8"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

               Two\nclasses ago we met in Fenwick Library to visit Special Collections to explore\nthe Federal Theater Project. I found the experience very interesting in the\nsense that it was different from my other \u201cout of classroom\u201d class sessions. I\nhad never dealt with physical archives before and had little knowledge that\nGeorge Mason University had archives, let alone that students were allowed to\nview them. I think the significance of the Special Collections archive for\nscholars is that it provides a more in depth look to further their research.\nThese are records that are not openly available to the general public and need permission\nto view due to their fragility. According to Thomas Padilla\u2019s Bias. Perception,\nand Archival Praxis<\/em>, \u201cArchival work requires an ethics of care for the\ndeeply personal and the deeply political. [\u2026] Record creation, keeping,\nobstruction, or misrepresentation are all acts of identity and power\u201d(2017). Padilla\nalso notes that \u201cthere is a definite value to be gained from working across\nphysical and digital legacies. The work helps us recognize our shortcomings\u201d(2017).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

               Regarding\nthe archivist\u2019s decisions about which materials should be digitized or not, I\nthink they make these decisions based off of how well they are able to\nphysically preserve the archive. Susan Manus addresses this in her blog, The\nArtifactual Elements of Born-Digital Records, Part 1<\/em> by saying \u201c preserving\nthe artifactual elements of a digital record introduces a unique set of\nintellectual and technical challenges\u201d (2011). Padilla answers this subject in\nhis article as well stating, \u201cOf course privacy and volume are issues present\nin analog collections, but they are further problematized when we consider the\ndigital deluge and the responsibility of determining permanent historical\nvalue. In analog archival collections donors and creators can physically comb\nthrough and filter materials they do not want to deposit in an archival\nrepository due to the presence of sensitive or personal information.\nAcquisition of entire hard drives makes appraisal for donors a lot more difficult\nand places the responsibility of protecting sensitive or personal data on\narchivists, who, on the whole are not nearly paid enough; not equipped with the\nnecessary tools and infrastructure; and do not have enough hours of the day to\ndevote the labor necessary to peruse every file\u201d (2017).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

               Visiting\nthe Special Collections changed how I viewed the Federal Theater Project in the\nsense that I saw it on a more fragile scale. I always just considered it as\nsome point in time that happened and passed, sort of like a start up company\nthat never exactly took off. Having seen the records in front of me made me\nrealize that it was much bigger and important than I had thought. Having the\nactual brochures in front of me and learning how they gave off different messages\nthan intended and how political this project had gotten was interesting because\nwhen I thought of the project all I considered was the arts portion and never\nthe messages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manus,\nS. (2011, November 28). The Artifactual Elements of Born-Digital Records, Part\n1 | The Signal [Webpage]. Retrieved November 13, 2019, from \/\/blogs.loc.gov\/thesignal\/2011\/11\/the-artifactual-elements-of-born-digital-records-part-1\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Padilla, T. (2017, September 13). Bias, Perception, and Archival Praxis [Text]. Retrieved November 13, 2019, from Dh+lib website: https:\/\/acrl.ala.org\/dh\/2017\/09\/13\/archivalpraxis\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

               Two classes ago we met in Fenwick Library to visit Special Collections to explore the Federal Theater Project. I found the experience very interesting in the sense that it was different from my other \u201cout of classroom\u201d class sessions. I had never dealt with physical archives before and had little knowledge that George Mason … Continue reading “Blog Post 8”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700","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\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1700"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1701,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700\/revisions\/1701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}