Volume 45, Issue 1

Authors and other creative workers today are faced with the (r)evolution of digital technology and media that slowly change and challenge the way they create, disseminate, and preserve their work. The purpose of this paper is to explore the attitudes, habits, and practices of contemporary Croatian writers in a small-scale sample in terms of the creation, organization, and preservation of digital documents and various literary forms. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with nine contemporary Croatian writers and examined through narrative analysis of the interview transcripts. The research highlighted areas that need to be more thoroughly considered when we are dealing with issues of personal digital archiving, digital legacies, and the preservation of digital cultural heritage in general. In-depth interviews with respondents indicated one particularly important issue: that preserving the context of their work is as important as preserving the work itself.

This article traces the history of books, and reading and writing technology, for the blind through an analysis of collections held in the Perkins School for the Blind Archives in Watertown, Massachusetts. These collections include books using embossed text and braille as well as raised figures and other writing systems. The confusion created by competing systems in the United States, especially with regard to Helen Keller’s education, is also considered. The authors establish that if we are to preserve such special collections, we must have an understanding and appreciation of their history and use. The goal of this article is to share information on the challenges of and solutions for preserving and digitizing embossed materials for other archivists and librarians who may have stewardship over similar collections, and to educate readers on how these materials might be used to study the history of reading and writing technology, especially those created for use by the blind.

The Archival Education and Research Initiative (AERI) was begun in 2008 to stimulate the growth of a new generation of academics in archival education who are versed in contemporary issues and knowledgeable about their colleagues’ work. The initiative nurtures and promotes state-of-the-art scholarship in archival science broadly conceived, and encourages curricular and pedagogical innovation in archival education. This paper reflects on its genesis and activities over the past eight years and points to its future.

The Archival Education & Research Institutes (AERI) have created a generation of scholars more engaged with research in archives and information than ever before. AERI has fostered international collaborations and collegiality among emerging and established scholars of archival studies since 2009. Members of the community have been successful and have shared in the success of others, and this interconnectivity has raised the caliber and expanded the impact of archival scholarship. This essay, drawing on the author’s experiences, discusses how three components of the AERI program have catalyzed doctoral education in archival studies: scholarship, community, and pedagogy.