Articles

The Participatory Finding Aid and the Archivist: How User Annotations are Changing Everyone's Role

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Abstract

With increasing budgetary restraints and backlogs of collections receiving minimal processing, supplementing online finding aids with user annotations connects users to collections in a more personal way, brings to light valuable records not described in the finding aid, allows multiple interpretations of collection content, and creates a research trail for others. Using the digital finding aids at the Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Special Collections Department at the J. Y. Joyner Library at East Carolina University as case studies, this article argues that online participatory finding aids with user annotations are feasible for a repository of any size and budget, and will result in more complete resources for users and archivists. This article discusses issues in implementing user annotation and proposes three methods for increasing user annotation.

How to Cite:

Farley, L., (2013) “The Participatory Finding Aid and the Archivist: How User Annotations are Changing Everyone's Role”, Archival Issues 35(2), 79–98. doi: https://doi.org//archivalissues.10994