Annotated Bibliography: Legal And Ethical Dilemmas?

In December 2002, the directors of 18 museums located throughout Europe and the United States issued the Declaration of the Importance and Value of Universal Museums. The declaration is an attempt, by the directors of major Western museums, to defend against demands for restitution of museum objects by defining themselves as “universal museums” which are of value to all of humanity. This document fails as a convincing defence against restitution claims for several reasons. First, it dismisses circumstances of older acquisitions without considering the ethics or legality of surrounding the acquisition. Second, while it pronounces these museums “universal,” it approaches this from a distinctly Western perspective and perpetuates colonial and imperialist ideas. Finally, it ignores important debates that are occurring between and within scholarly, professional, and activist communities.

Memorial museums, in contrast to the “generic history museum which provides a container for a wide variety of topics” [Williams, 221], usually entwines intimately with its events

Everything centers on the connections between people’s past through the archive. Archive being able to provide the evidence and importantly provide meaning to people through connecting with their past with the availability in the archives. That can give the people knowledge or little bit clearer understanding. In addition, archives are experiences to kept the historical materials. Archivists have increasing opportunities for collaborations at universities by trending affecting higher education today and understanding of varying experiences of archives should only strengthen these collaborations through enabling clear communication. Moreover, archivists need to reconsider and develop new approaches to the important issue of the use of archival material. Six approaches to this challenges are suggested and discussed, developing better means of tracking research use, improving procedures for interpreting and reporting on that use, promoting increased research use, emphasizing use as a means of garnering program support, reaching out to the user community for assistance in dealing with certain archival issues and expanding the concept of reference service to a broader notion of researcher service or public service. Last but not least, the aims of this paper research is to promote the public access of the archival institution. Thus, the archival institution and its organization needs to think of the promoting or also known as marketing. Promoting and marketing are very important in an organizational as it can help to improve the services of an organizational n order to meet the needs of the

Public Historians use such tools as photographs, oral histories, museum exhibitions, and multimedia to address a wide variety of historical issues and to present those issues to a non-academic audience.

Metadata will include access management, preservation, administrative, descriptive, technical and structural data. Much of the metadata will have to be created. The original volumes had no table of contents, index, or other description of the records. Additionally, volumes were arranged chronologically with no attention paid to document type, source, or content. In addition to author, title, publisher, and date, descriptive metadata will be expanded include keywords regarding subjects, individuals, locations, or events referenced in the document, as well as any related documents. This will be a time consuming and costly effort, but it required to maximize the value of the online data to researchers, students, teachers, etc. An index for all volumes was completed after the fact in 1909 and that index will be incorporated into a referential database behind the web page front end, rather than in the metadata itself. A complete list of metadata elements are provided in Appendix

I have to let the readers know how I stumbled upon this topic to introduce where I get my ideas from. It all started in the archive located on the second floor of the library in a dark corner behind a clear glass doors at the Hunter College. I have been attending Hunter College for four years and never have I stumbled on such an amazing place full of live history. I say live history because all the documents and books that are held in the archive are all preserved originals, which fascinated me. Thinking how people who lived more than century ago wrote and read the same things I’m writing and reading about excited me to my very soul. Archive research though fascinating is not an easy task that can be done in within fifteen minutes like how researches are done these days using convenient technologies at hand.

The purpose of this essay is to analyse a chosen database in terms of its usefulness as a resource for local history research. The database which has been chosen for its usefulness as a resource for local history research is The Charles Booth Online Archive. To analyse The Charles Booth Online Archive, it will be necessary to briefly examine the accessibility of the archive, together with its functionality as a local history research tool. In addition, it will be vital to consider how the scope and organisation of the archive is structured and arranged. Finally, to demonstrate the archives usefulness as a local history research tool it will be crucial to undertake a case study to show how the archive can be utilised for a local history research

LIM 503- Organization, Access, and Retrieval of Information deepened my understanding of bibliographic tools and the ability to identify and create records using the necessary mechanics. Due to this course, I have the competence to recognize, create, and manage bibliographic records. This course deepened my appreciation for the attention to detail of the practices that must be considered when developing and maintaining information.

What I have found surprising about my professional experience so far is how much I have come to enjoy conducting oral histories and working in an archival setting. While volunteering with the Los Alamos Historical Society, my mentor has given me the primary task of helping them complete their oral history project, which has been an ongoing project for the society for nearly a year and a half. The oral history project has provided me with a new perspective of the past. The other task that my mentor has given me is to help the historical society to catalog their archive’s artifacts. I was surprised while cataloging the archive’s artifacts the amount of photographs, videos, and many other historical objects that the historical society possesses. While the projects that my mentor has instructed me to work on while volunteering with the historical society has surprised me in several ways, I

This article provides information concerning: memories that society wants to acknowledge and pass on to future generations; the manner in which those memories are represented; the responsibility that society has to fully represent aspects of history while also brining into questions the unwillingness to recognise and respect different conceptions of history and how this can diminish the potential that museums have to advance cross-cultural understanding.

First, the speed of accessing and retrieving of data relies heavily on how we organize materials. Also, the purposes of holding information allow society to maintain records of the past and present, to store data for later use, and the ability to access such information for knowledge. Lastly, examples of retrieval tools include catalogs, indexes, search engines, bibliographies, museum registries, and library portals. Chapter 11: Information Retrieval: Designing, Querying, and Evaluating Information Systems With the advances in technology, more information is available online for consumption. Additionally, the art of retrieving of information relies on one’s capability to find data and the effectiveness of search engines to find the most relevant resources.

The Richler Room left by famous Canadian author Mordecai Richler contains all the books he has collected throughout his life as well as a collection of objects he had used during his writing career. Using Alberto Manguel’s quote about the difference between a public library and a private library, I consider the Richler Room more than a space defined by the two terms, but a space in which people can gather and feel the presence of the past through the objects and books within the room.

Katharine Cousins’ presentation on the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris (MNHN) explored the ideas surrounding collecting and collections addressed in the Sharon Macdonald reading ‘Collecting Practices’, focusing particularly on the notion of collections as representations of a national identity. Katharine began her presentation by defining what constitutes a collection. Here, she rightly emphasised the important role selection plays in collecting activities, while also acknowledging that collections are fundamentally the result of personal pursuits by collectors. This said, the act of collecting is perhaps best differentiated from other types of accumulation activities (e.g. hoarding), by the potential it offers in terms of order, system and completion.

Cobb (2002) states improving access to materials should be one of the goals for all librarians. Generally speaking there is little disagreement related to this goal and many collection development policies refer to Open access and, in the USA, official US government depository libraries are required to provide access to government documents and to provide public access to those collections. However, there are limits to access and map collections are no exceptions. It is the larger collections that may have more restrictions for it is often their sheer size that creates limits. While many people believe that the new digital age and the concept of the shrinking world will Open access to all materials, digital access is actually increasing limits

EBSCO describes itself as ‘the leading discovery service provider for libraries worldwide with more than 8,000 discovery customers in over 100 countries. EBSCO Discovery Service™ provides each institution with a comprehensive, single search box for its entire collection, offering unparalleled relevance ranking quality and extensive customization.’ (EBSCO, 2015) This all sounds very impressive but how does it stand up in comparison to other databases and just how easy is it use? This review will set out to show the advantages and disadvantages of using EBSCO Host and what it has to offer.