‘Runaway’ Ads as Records of Life Writing: Ariadne’s Story This article explores the methodological and epistemological issues of using colonial records of violence from the Caribbean as a starting point for life writing about the enslaved. It does so thro...

This essay had previously been published as part of the Life Writing journal special issue.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

(In)Dependent Selves: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Life Writing, Slavery and Dependency This book brings into conversation perspectives from the disciplines of history, literary studies, archival studies and religious studies, and explores the entanglements of life writing and dependency...

I have a chapter in this newly published book.

"‘Runaway’ Ads as Records of Life Writing: Ariadne’s Story."

The essay explores methodological & epistemological issues of using colonial records of violence from the Caribbean in life writing abt enslaved people.

www.routledge.com/InDependent-...

Journalist plans to create new archive of residential school survivor stories — before it's too late | CBC News A new project from award-winning journalist Connie Walker aims to create an archive of testimonies of abuse at residential schools before the accounts are destroyed in September 2027.

an incredibly important project by Connie Walker — most Canadians don't know that the government has an archive of 38,000 residential school survivor testimonies, which are slated to be destroyed next year www.cbc.ca/news/indigen...

"Microscopy in PRTD allows us to investigate materiality on a new scale, shifting our perspective so that we can continue to check our assumptions, help preserve the collections, and answer questions about materiality."

We need more historians because history is one of the most powerful forms of knowledge. Just ask any autocrat why they want to control it! #TalkAboutHumanities

"AI research assistant" researching data that is

incomplete
biased
skewed
missing
excluded
obscured

extracted from collections that were already a partial, skewed view of the past (unless one really interrogates the sources of the data).

What could go wrong...

Thanks for your comment. Yes--I've come out of many archives with hands completely covered in dust and soot. My comment was mostly a musing, referring to those who see archives as dusty=boring, old. And in fact, dust and soot, and everything on the pages can tell a lot about a record's history.

Thank you for pointing me to this!

The University of Virginia Archival AI Protocol governs "how artificial intelligence systems may access + use arch collections."

Core rules:
- item-level provenance + attribution
- institutional control
- donor + community responsibilities

#ai #archives

libraopen.lib.virginia.edu/public_view/...

:) So many things!
But primarily, I'm impartient with people who cannot imagine anything else about archives other than them being...dusty [even though dust itself can tell a lot of things].

Archives are
neither dusty
nor old stuff
neither dead
nor boring.

Archives are what we make of them.
Each generation, each of us sees diferent things in an item.
Each of us adds something new every time we engage.
Each item in the archives is the sum of all these interactions.

Also worth noting for the ‘everything is online’ crowd that the numbers of archives being destroyed means that an increasing proportion cannot ever be online.

Awesome work, result of *collaboration* btwn historians & comp scientists!

Nice shoutout to underlying work of generations of archivists and librarians who "over more than a century, transcribed, collated, gathered and published biographical records for over 20,000 individuals." #archives #labor

⬇️ This.

Many collections everywhere, but particularly beyond Europe or N. America, are undercatalogued or not catalogued at all. When they burn, no trace survives.

For the "everything is online" crowd in the back:

Important to consider that "everything" cultural heritage related that is accessible online represents only 1% (one percent) of archives, libraries, and museum collections worldwide.

Journal of Caribbean History | University of the West Indies Press The Journal of Caribbean History (JCH) is a peer reviewed journal produced by the Departments of History, The University of the West Indies, and published by the University of the West Indies Press. T...

IN THE SAME SEA's team and Dr. Joy Lewis have guest-edited the special issue “Small Islands, Proximity and Connection in the Eastern Caribbean” of the Journal of Caribbean History.

See: www.uwipress.com/journals/the...

Thanks to all contributors and the journal’s main editor Kathleen Monteith.

Missed this 3 days ago, but we're thrilled this is out.

@ruthahnert.bsky.social @danielwilson.bsky.social & I wrote this after 6 years of collaboration + discussions about
- what "data" and "digitization" mean [in History]
- what we need to do to ensure data is findable & accessible

The Cyberattack That Exposed The Fragility Of Digital Heritage Saturday 28 October 2023 is a date that will live long in the memory of staff at the British Library. As they arrived for work that day, they encountered

"Cultural institutions face a perfect storm of risk factors. Operating budgets prioritise immediate public service – acquisitions, exhibitions, programmes, access – over invisible infrastructure investments."

informationsecuritybuzz.com/the-cyberatt...

The Cyberattack That Exposed The Fragility Of Digital Heritage Saturday 28 October 2023 is a date that will live long in the memory of staff at the British Library. As they arrived for work that day, they encountered

On ransomware and under-funded GLAMs: 'At no point was the British Library particularly negligent or unprepared. Instead, it was hindered by vulnerabilities shared by the majority of cultural institutions. ...the attack [is] a warning to the whole sector.' informationsecuritybuzz.com/the-cyberatt...

Important article that emphasizes proliferation + fragmentation of hist datasets & the need to

- rethink our responsibility+commitment as scholars to FAIR principles
- reeducate in dig skills for locating/navigating/using hist datasets
- build communities around data to naturalize reuse/engagement

Looking forward to listening to this work, Elise. Your paper "Morbid Crossings" has stayed with me...

6/6 In most of this cases, in lack of good inventories, we'll never know the true extent of what was lost.

It is sad to see how little heritage is valued. Despite frequent assertions to the opposite, there is a lack of serious and consistent funding and commitment for its protection and promotion.

Haiti - FLASH : The royal chapel of Milot, world heritage destroyed by fire - HaitiLibre.com : Haiti news 7/7 On the night from Sunday to Monday, April 13, 2020, a fire broke out in an annex building to the Royal Chapel of Milot, before spreading to this historic monument classified as World Heritage by UNESC...

5/ In 2020, the Royal Chapel in Milo, Haiti, was burnt, and its dome collapsed.

www.haitilibre.com/en/news-3052...

National Museum of Brazil fire - Wikipedia

4/ On September 2, 2018, the National Museum of Brazil's collections were up in fire.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...

3/ On March 25, 2019, the St. Lucia Folk Research Centre's collections were destroyed.

www.caribbeanliteraryheritage.com/archival-tre...

Historic documents destroyed in fire at Archives Department - Barbados Today A fire sparked by a lightning strike just before midnight destroyed a two-storey block at the Archives Department which housed major historic documents. Chief archivist at the Barbados Archives Depart...

2/ On June 18, 2024, a major fire at the Barbados Archives Department destroyed important original documents, as Tara Inniss' article describes.

barbadostoday.bb/2024/06/18/h...

1/ Important new article by Dr. Tara Inniss that discusses the "chronic underfunding, aging infrastructure, and climatic threats" of Caribbean archives, compounded by vulnerabilities and policy gaps.

Thread w recent examples of destruction of collections by fire:

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

If Federal Museums Aren’t Allowed to Tell the Truth About the Past, it’sTime to Start Supporting… By Michelle Caswell and Bergis Jules

Community archives "have been chronically underfunded by government agencies and private foundations..., passed over in favor of wealthier institutions that...promise longer term stability and prestige, but they also propagate dominant narratives."

medium.com/community-ar...

Thank you for reading! 🤗