Volume 44, Issue 1

This paper reports the findings from research which explored decision making and practices underpinning the implementation or non-adoption of social media in archives and libraries worldwide. Archives and libraries continue to face demands, whether from senior management, funding agencies, the government, or taxpayers to demonstrate accountability. Evaluation provides evidence to meet such demands and to gain, validate, or sustain support for programs and activities. Being able to show success is a key step for archives and libraries that need to rationalize or win support for the continuance of their social media efforts. Related to this are questions about whether or not there should be a preservation strategy for the content of social media as well as a plan for sustainability of infrastructure to support these activities. Our survey findings suggest that archives and libraries know that they are not necessarily choosing the evaluation methods that can best demonstrate the achievement of their intentions, and furthermore that they lack strategies and policies for preservation and sustainability.

This article explores the possibility that public libraries can be repositories for digital community archives. The overarching goal is to establish a case for public libraries’ developing digital community archives that are participatory and which emphasize born-digital items rather than digitized physical items. This discussion follows my own research and experience in this area to include personal information management, social media and the personal archive, and the accidental community archive, and demonstrates that public libraries can focus on communities’ current events and people rather than solely on those from the past.

In 2003 an international survey described digital preservation in Australia in these words: “For a country with a relatively small population, Australia has a relatively large number of leading-edge online projects across all sectors.” Is this still the case in 2014? This paper gives a personal view of the current state of digital preservation in Australia and examines what we have learned since 2003 to answer this question; it then notes what we still need to learn about digital preservation-in particular, the activities of the National Library of Australia and of the key roles that research and collaboration play in digital preservation are noted.