Princeton ARCH Program

The second iteration of ARCH will take place from July 20-August 14, 2020. In response the new, COVID-19 normal, ARCH 2020 is a remote experience that will expose students to the pillars of the ARCH program: Archival Research, Archival Processing, Digital Archiving, and Critical Archives. The program welcomes 12 students, 11 undergraduate and 1 graduate student from HBCUs across the country including Fisk University, Lincoln University, North Carolina Central University, Spelman College, Tougaloo College, and Tuskegee University.

The program will be utilize weekly synchronous and asynchronous sessions on Zoom and Canvas for 1 month total. ARCH staff identified articles, presentations, and media based on the pillars for the students to interact with. Students will respond to the articles as discussion board posts asynchronously, and then as a group in a synchronous Zoom meeting. Throughout the duration of the program students will have the opportunity to converse with archival professionals on a variety of professional subjects during weekly, themed, open office hours.

Week 1: Orientation and Personal Digital Archiving (July 20-24)

• July 20: Orientation (Zoom), 1-3 pm
  • Introductions
  • Open office hours, Topic: Processing Physical and Digital Archives with Annalise, Faith, Kelly
• July 20: Discussion board assignment (Canvas)
• July 23: Personal Digital Archiving meeting (Zoom), 3-4 pm
  • Description: This session will provide you with an introduction to managing and preserving your research, academic, or personal digital files. This session is also a chance to get a consultation from a Digital Archivist. 
  • Required Readings
    • Specific presentations regarding personal digital archiving and student organizations toolkit.

Week 2: Archival Processing (July 27-31)

• July 27: Discussion board assignment (Canvas, open all day)
• July 27: Open office hours, Topic: Reference and Public Services with Emma, Mandy, Sara (Zoom), 2-3 pm
• July 30: Archival Processing meeting (Zoom), 1-2 pm 
  • Description: Archival processing is the method of organizing a collection into thematic/chronological groupings and communicating that process with researchers through a tool called a finding aid. There are many aspects of archival processing that may be included in our discussion, such as why it’s done, the traditional approaches and philosophical underpinnings of processing, the structural details, and the modern critiques of each.
  • Required Readings
    • Introduction to Archival Processing and Basic Concepts (presentation slides and speaker notes)
    • Drake, Jarrett M. RadTech Meets RadArch: Towards A New Principle for Archives and Archival Description. Transcription of talk delivered the 2016 Radcliffe Workshop on Technology & Archival Processing, held on April 4–5, 2016, in Cambridge, MA.
    • Statement of Principles. Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS). Society of American Archivists.
  • Optional Readings
    • Lyon, Meghan. Rubenstein Library Processing Manual Zine, 2016.

Week 3: Archival Research (August 3-7)

• August 3: Discussion board assignments (2 total), (Canvas, open all day)
• August 3: Special session with Princeton University Museum staff (Zoom), 1-2:30 pm
• August 3: Open office hour, Topic: Collection Development and Library Leadership & Management with Alexis and Dan (Zoom), 3-4 pm
• August 6: Archival Research meeting (Zoom) 1-2 pm
  • Description: In this session, we will provide you with an introduction to primary sources, discuss using archives in your own research projects, and explain what it's like to visit a special collections reading room (i.e. where's the stuff? and how do I access it?).
  • Required Readings
    • The Hows and Whys of Finding Aids by Dorothy Berry
    • “Meditation on a Receipt” by David Levy
    • “Archives, Education, and Access: Learning at Interference Archive”  by Gordon, Bonnie et al. Radical Teacher (Summer 2016).
  • Optional Readings
    • Do’s and Don’ts of the Library - AACA: Antique Automobile Club of America Library & Research Center (video)
    • Doctor or Doctress?: Explore American history through the eyes of women physicians (for more context on working with primary sources)
    • AfroAm Studies Roundtable: Ashley Farmer on 'Archiving While Black' (audio recording)

Week 4: Critical Archives - Collecting and Representation (August 10-14)

• August 10: Discussion board assignment (Canvas, open all day)
• August 11: Open office hour, Topic: Retention of BIPOC staff within the field and self preservation in relation to systemic racism within the workplace, with Valencia and Mandy (Zoom), 2-3:30 pm
• August 13: Critical Archives meeting (Zoom), 2-3:15 pm
  • Description: Critical Archives encourages critical thinking about the historical record, archives, and the archival profession. For this session, we will focus on the archival practices of collecting and appraisal, review critiques of these practices, and look at ways in which archivists are working to preserve the records of those who historically have been excluded from traditional methods of record keeping.
  • Required Readings
    • Drake, Jarrett. “Expanding #ArchivesForBlackLives to Traditional Archival Repositories.” 27 June 2016. 
    • Galloway, Patricia. Archives, Power, and History: Dunbar Rowland and the Beginning of the State Archives of Mississippi (1902-1936). American Archivist 69:1 (Spring/Summer, 2006), pp. 79-116. 
    • Jules, Bergis. “Confronting Our Failure of Care Around the Legacies of Marginalized People in the Archives.” Digital Preservation 2016 keynote; 11 November 2016.
    • Omowale, Yusef. We Already Are
  • Optional Readings
    • Caswell, Michelle. "Teaching to Dismantle White Supremacy in Archives," The Library Quarterly 87, no. 3 (July 2017): 222-235. https://doi.org/10.1086/692299
    • Collier, Zakiya. “Call to Action: Archiving State-Sanctioned Violence Against Black People.”
    • Cook, Terry. “What is Past is Prologue: A History of Archival Ideas Since 1898, and the Future Paradigm Shift.” Archivaria 43 (Spring 1997), pp. 17-63
    • People’s Archive of Police Violence
    • South Asian American Digital Archive 
    • Zavala, Jimmy, Alda Allina Migoni, Michelle Caswell, Noah Geraci & Marika Cifor. “‘A process where we’re all at the table’: community archives challenging dominant modes of archival practice.” Archives and Manuscripts. (2017) Pages 202-215 
    • “Post-Custodial Archiving for the Collective Good: Examining Neoliberalism in US-Latin American Archival Partnerships”?.

Closing Ceremony

• August 14: Closing ceremony (Zoom), 10-11 am