Purpose -To examine the reasons behind, and issues involved in digitisation projects at archival repositories. Design/methodology/approach -The paper uses practical examples from the University of Dundee Archive Services to consider why archivists devote time and resources to digitising collections and to mounting digital images online. Advantages to collections, services and users are considered in the context of the archival mission and user expectations. Findings -Despite the need to divert existing resources or to attract new ones, digitisation is becoming a core activity in many archives. Originality/value -The paper should be of value to information professionals interested in the use of new technology by the archival profession. Many of the issues raised are cross-sectoral and not just of interest to the archival world but to anyone with a role in preserving and using records.

This number of Archival Science is a special issue featuring papers originally presented at the conference 'Memory, Identity and the Archival Paradigm: an interdisciplinary approach'. Held in Dundee at the end of 2010, the conference was hosted by the Centre for Archive and Information Studies at the University of Dundee and supported by the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The conference was part of a series of events organised by an interdisciplinary research network funded by the RSE and followed the successful Philosophy of the Archive conference, papers from which were published in Archival Science (9, 3-4, 2009). 1 Archival literature frequently refers to the concepts of memory and identity but often without examining fully what these terms mean or the nature of their relationship to archives. The conference was an opportunity to encourage discussion and debate between people from a number of disciplines and the papers published in this issue each relate to some aspect of the role of archives and archivists in the creation and evolution of memory and identity. 2 This introduction to this special issue reviews some of the current archival dialogue around memory and identity and provides an outline of how the articles in this issue complement or challenge this. 3 Terry Cook, who opens this special issue with a reflection on the shifting and liberating nature of the archival role, has written frequently on the interrelationship of archives, memory and identity. In an introduction to a previous special issue of

Specialized primary source holdings, not only manuscripts and books but also audio and moving images, are difficult to discover, often requiring users to navigate multiple search tools. These discovery challenges arguably lead to underutilization of specialized primary source holdings in the higher education curriculum. Faculty often include collections in their syllabi only if they have a direct relationship with an archivist or know of specific relevant collections. Similarly, archivists have the most success matching collections to courses when they have built individual relationships with professors, becoming familiar with course content. Particularly at a time when academic libraries are under increasing pressure to link their holdings to student outcomes, a new discovery paradigm to augment personal relationships is needed. This article suggests a conceptual model that would provide a mix of traditional methods and new data mining tools to increase access points to curricular content. The article consists of two parts: a review of existing methods, both human and computer, for connecting curriculum to library resources and a pilot of a software curriculum-to-collection crosswalk that matches course content to specialized primary source holdings via subject. The crosswalk creates recommendations of specialized primary source holdings relevant to specific courses for use by special collections librarians and archivists in working with faculty and students.

Humanities award, the conference was part of the ongoing Investigating the Archive project which was established to examine the role and nature of archives and the debates surrounding their selection, application and interpretation. The project aims at promoting interdisciplinary scholarship on research into the construction, representation and use of archives, examining the theoretical issues inherent in their preservation and interpretation in all formats. Two other interdisciplinary conferences have been held during the first phase of the project: A Triangular Traffic: Literature, Slavery and the Archive (2007), which considered the literary/archival and creative and scholarly work in literature, grounded in archival research; and Media, Migration, Archive (2008), which examined the issues surrounding the use of photographic collections, both practically and theoretically. The second of these brought together archivists and theorists from a variety of disciplines for discussions relating to historical context, method and policy in the context of the empirical investigation of photography's archival presence. Two workshops, 'Across the Divide: Interdisciplinary Dialogues on the Archive' and 'Archives and Publics' sustained the interrogative and self-reflexive methodological critiques brought to light during the conferences.The Philosophy of the Archive (2008) conference focused on the philosophy and politics of identifying, selecting and preserving archives. It addressed debates surrounding the evidential and historical value of archives, social and political agendas and the changing nature of archives. It also examined how social, cultural and personal memories and identities were represented and recorded and the inherent tension between the use of archives to ensure accountability and their role as cultural artefacts. Keynote speakers included Verne Harris, Terry Cook and Elizabeth Shepherd who provided the focus and context for five sessions: Recording and Representation, Collecting and Representing, Memory and Identity, Social Memory and Evidence and Representation, Justice and Power.The questions raised by this conference were based upon the diverse interdisciplinary agendas which have an impact on the creation, interpretation and use of archival material. Attended by theorists, archivists, historians and discipline-specific scholars, the conference addressed the ways that institutional, political and temporal frameworks have impacted on how archives are accumulated and used. The conference debated ethical issues and policy formulation in relation to use and abuse of archives in specific contexts and in recording social, cultural and personal memory and identity. In particular, it examined how collections relate to larger stories of regional, state or national narratives.In framing the conference within the context of the title The Philosophy of the Archive, we hoped to be deliberately provoking, to attract papers that would echo the aims of this journal to consider 'archival science in the broadest sense ...

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