At the core of an archivist’s social responsibility is recognizing that the archival record is a cornerstone of cultural heritage.
Service is at the heart of archival practice, underpinning the archivist’s commitment to facilitating access to primary sources.
Get the right records management consulting services from a qualified consultant. Learn to find and hire the best consultant to help you with your records management needs.
Beyond safeguarding historical records, archivists promote using and understanding invaluable resources.
I've crafted a travel memory workbook with 30 questions to capture family memories about their travels. The questions are crafted to give you more than yes or no answers and are tailored to uncover information about your loved ones. You can ask family members about their favorite trips, or use it yourself to write the next Eat, Pray, Love.
In your collections, you will often come across photographs in a format that you cannot identify. These are primarily early photographs. By understanding the type of photograph you have, you can begin to learn when or why it was taken. Knowing the format is also helpful in finding out the best way to preserve the images.
A zine (short for magazine or fanzine) is a small-circulation, self-published work. Zines come in a variety of styles: photocopied, printed on cheap paper, or professionally printed. They could and were about any topic imaginable. My favorites were the punk and true crime-related ones. Extreme Noise in Minneapolis had a free zine bin that I happily dig through every time I visited and I'd leave with the most interesting ones. Zines were particularly popular in the mid- to late-1990s, and were later replaced by blogs and social media.
Families gather together to celebrate the Festival of Lights because it brings warmth, hope, and coziness to our lives. Hanukkah is traditionally celebrated by lighting the menorah, playing dreidel, and eating foods like latkes, or potato pancakes. Chocolate gelt, a candy that gets its name from the Yiddish word for money, is another popular treat.
As Thanksgiving and the holidays approach, I wanted to create a 40-question guide that could capture these special food-related memories. I crafted a list of questions to record as much information about a favorite family recipe as possible. As you gather together over a meal, take a moment to ask about the nuances of your favorite dishes.
One of the most common questions I receive from people learning how to create their family archives is what supplies to buy. I've curated a collection of the best, most affordable, and most useful archival products that every home archivist should invest in.
I was recently interviewed on the Genealogy Happy Hour podcast about my book, Creating Family Archives: A Step-by-Step Guide for Saving Your Memories for Future Generations. Considering that I just got back from a red eye flight from Portland, Oregon for the annual conference of the Society of American Archivists, I think I did pretty good!
