Analyzing archives and finding facts: use and users of digital data records

Abstract

This article focuses on use and users of data from the NARA (National Archives and Records Administration), U.S. Who is using archival electronic records, and why are they using them? It describes the changes in use and consequently user groups over the last 30 years. The changes in use are related to the evolution of reference services for electronic records at NARA, as well as to growth in the types of electronic records accessioned by NARA. The first user group consisted mainly of researchers with a social science background, who usually expected to handle the data themselves. The user community expanded when electronic records with personal value, like casualty records, were transferred to NARA, and broadened yet again when a selection of NARA's electronic records became available online. Archivists trying to develop user services for electronic records will find that the needs and expectations of fact or information seeking data users are different from those of researchers using and analyzing data files.

Participatory archive: towards decentralised curation, radical user orientation, and broader contextualisation of records management

“…Adams (2007) points out that in the United States there has been a change in the user base of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) during the last 30 years. Traditionally, the principal group of users has been researchers.…”

“…The relative proportion of non-researchers among users is expected to increase in the future (Menne-Haritz 2003), but also researchers, the traditional archive users, are beginning to place non-traditional demands on archives and their services (Lybeck 2003). Adams (2007) asserts that the changes in user population relate to the growth of the types of records hosted by NARA, but also to the evolution of reference services in the electronic records section. The increase in the volume and the types of both records and services have their roots in the evolution of recordkeeping practices (Wareham, 2002;Bruebach, 2003).…”

The unbearable lightness of participating? Revisiting the discourses of “participation” in archival literature

“…Theimer, 2011a). Adams' (2007) findings suggest that the efforts to meet user expectations related to digital data can lead to a significant expansion of the community of the users of archival records, but as the experiences from other projects demonstrate, the participation can be very sporadic (Flinn, 2010b). There is also very little systematic data on how archivists perceive the phenomenon of participation.…”

Recordkeeping and research data management: a review of perspectives

“…She also suggests that the definition of records should perhaps cover not only business transactions, but evidence of human activity. O'Neill Adams (2007) describes how the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration accessions collections from federal agencies that are generated by data processing applications, comprised predominantly of quantitative data, specifying that governmental records can and do constitute research data when they are the by-product of governmental research. While administrative datasets also exist, they are considered to be a separate category to research datasets.…”