Notices by Eira Tansey (archivist@scholar.social)

Eira Tansey (archivist@scholar.social)'s status on Monday, 07-Oct-2019 09:50:11 EDT Eira Tansey

I have gotten 3 desk rejections in a row for an article that I think is one of the best things I've ever written. This is the first time I'm trying to introduce some core aspects of my discipline into other journals, and this experience has been incredibly demoralizing. Any words of advice from other interdisciplinary folks?

In conversation Monday, 07-Oct-2019 09:50:11 EDT from scholar.social permalink
Eira Tansey (archivist@scholar.social)'s status on Wednesday, 28-Aug-2019 16:40:08 EDT Eira Tansey

Wrote a little overview about how I review tons of PDFs in one go as part of my research on recordkeeping and environmental regulation https://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/liblog/2019/08/a-needle-in-a-pdf-haystack/
In conversation Wednesday, 28-Aug-2019 16:40:08 EDT from scholar.social permalink
Attachments
1. File without filename could not get a thumbnail source.
  
  A needle in a PDF haystack
  
  from LiBlog
  
  A needle in a PDF haystack
Eira Tansey (archivist@scholar.social)'s status on Monday, 26-Aug-2019 10:44:16 EDT Eira Tansey

I am taking my first sabbatical beginning next week (culture among faculty librarians here is to stretch our 6 months across a year, alternating months on and off site). I am completely freaking out and welcome your collective advice, everyone.

In conversation Monday, 26-Aug-2019 10:44:16 EDT from scholar.social permalink
Eira Tansey (archivist@scholar.social)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jul-2019 15:14:16 EDT Eira Tansey

Honestly kinda stunned I've never seen such a simple write up of "how to visit archives" before but this is great so hey here ya go https://tinysubversions.com/notes/library-archive-tourism/

In conversation Wednesday, 03-Jul-2019 15:14:16 EDT from scholar.social permalink
Eira Tansey (archivist@scholar.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-May-2019 16:44:13 EDT Eira Tansey

Not my field question: if I wanted to read about political critiques/social implications of military contractors like Lockheed Martin, what academic books, scholars, or journals should I be reading?

In conversation Thursday, 16-May-2019 16:44:13 EDT from scholar.social permalink
Eira Tansey (archivist@scholar.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-May-2019 09:17:59 EDT Eira Tansey

broke: quickly reading up on a new interest via Wikipedia
woke: quickly reading up on a new interest via Oxford Very Short Introductions
bespoke: quickly reading up on a new interest via the Congressional Research Service

In conversation Thursday, 16-May-2019 09:17:59 EDT from scholar.social permalink
Eira Tansey (archivist@scholar.social)'s status on Thursday, 25-Apr-2019 16:26:49 EDT Eira Tansey

I recently learned that environmental historian Bill Cronon has a whole website dedicated to teaching research methods - much of it is geared for undergraduates new to research but I'm still getting a lot out of it and you might too http://www.williamcronon.net/researching/

In conversation Thursday, 25-Apr-2019 16:26:49 EDT from scholar.social permalink
Eira Tansey (archivist@scholar.social)'s status on Thursday, 18-Oct-2018 16:13:19 EDT Eira Tansey

Is #AcWriMo a thing? Anyone I know in the GLAM sector interested in being an Accountability buddy with me?

In conversation Thursday, 18-Oct-2018 16:13:19 EDT from scholar.social permalink
Eira Tansey (archivist@scholar.social)'s status on Wednesday, 07-Mar-2018 14:31:56 EST Eira Tansey

My research collaborators & I have been undertaking a major effort to identify every archive in the US, and some of our early maps show how badly we need this data - existing data sets don't come close to what we've turned over. Please share! https://repositorydata.wordpress.com/2018/03/07/making-archives-visible-through-maps/
In conversation Wednesday, 07-Mar-2018 14:31:56 EST from scholar.social permalink
Attachments
1. Making Archives Visible Through Maps
  
  By Eira Tansey from Repo Data
  
  As we previously noted, the only existing open data set for archival repositories – OCLC’s ArchiveGrid – lacks representation of many small archives, historical societies, and other nebulously-defined archives. As many of you know, inclusion in ArchiveGrid is primarily driven by having various descriptive data (MARC records, EAD finding aids, etc) online and crawlable to OCLC. This means that repositories with professional archivists on staff and the resources to make archival description available online are over-represented in the ArchiveGrid data set. In reality, there are many archives that don’t fit this description, and are therefore literally invisible to much of the profession.
  
  This has been frustrating to us as we pursue our work on archival vulnerability to climate change. The institutions that are most at risk for sea-level rise and climate change influenced disasters are also the least likely to have professional staff and sufficient resources to sustain archival collections even in “normal” times – let alone during an emergency. And yet, these are the archives that weren’t visible in our first pass at mapping repository vulnerability to climate change.
  
  But now we’d like to show you the dramatic way in which our research project has uncovered how many archives exist – even if they aren’t putting their finding aids online.
  
  This is the “Before” map, reflecting OCLC’s data – according to ArchiveGrid as of 2016, there are approximately 44 repositories in the state of Ohio:
  
  Although this data is not yet final, this is our beta data set for Ohio – i.e., our “After” map. You can see a dramatic difference in how many more archives have been revealed thanks to our efforts (and especially that of Whitney, our fantastic research assistant, who has done the heavy lifting in reaching out to archival organizations to compile and clean data). According to our preliminary* data, there are well over 500 repositories in the state of Ohio.
  
  I want to highlight that constructing archives as those repositories that participate in networked archival descriptive infrastructure tends to erase the visibility of small archives, especially those outside of major population centers. Let’s use southeastern Ohio – aka Appalachia – as an example.
  
  The light-green counties are those that are part of the federally-defined Appalachian Regional Commission’s jurisdiction. (Clearly there are cultural constructions of Appalachia that do not fit in with these county delineations, but those aren’t as easy to find as open GIS data!)
  
  In the “before” map, only 3 archives exist in Ohio’s Appalachian counties, and they are all associated with higher education: Marietta College, Youngstown State, and Ohio University.
  
  But in the after map, we see that there are roughly 100 (100!!!!!!!!!!) archives in Ohio’s Appalachian counties. Why the massive difference? Because our efforts to get as much data from local, regional and state archival organizations means we have pulled in dozens of small historical societies, public libraries, and museums.
  
  We haven’t done before and after comparisons yet with other states, but I anticipate they would look very similar to what we’ve seen with Ohio. Building the first comprehensive data set of US repositories is no small task, but we think the preliminary results speak for the importance of our work.
  
  *We say preliminary because we still have some cleaning and minor de-duplication tasks left with our data.

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Notices by Eira Tansey (archivist@scholar.social)