Archival Certificate-required

This course will address the impact of technology on the fundamentals of libraries, archives and records management. Many librarians, archivists and records managers who have been working for even a few years find that they need to know more about working with digital information, the shift from paper to electrons caused a shift in the fundamental nature of the professions. To thrive in the digital era, they need new skills to accomplish many of the same tasks. Collections will no longer be physical, bur virtual. Patrons will often be thousands of miles away, not just the other side of the reference desk. This course is intended to help you understand this new environment.

This course examines the archivist’s ‘first’ responsibility – the appraisal of records for long-term preservation. Appraisal is first in the sequence of archival functions and, therefore, influences all subsequent archival activities. Importantly, appraisal is integral in archiving as, through  it, archivists determine what silver of the total human documentary production will actually become ‘archives’ and thus part of society’s historical narrative and collective memory. By performing appraisal and selection, archivists are thereby actively shaping the future’s history of our times.

Provides an introduction to the archival profession with focus on theory and practice in the areas of appraisal and acquisition, arrangement and description, reference, preservation, exhibitions, outreach, and electronic resource development.