Awesome Archives

A celebration of archives, archival material, and the amazing history that they protect. Expect to see a lot of strange historical finds, unique materials, and archives in the news. I throw up 5 posts a day.

[upennmanuscripts]

Coffee with a Codex: An Exciting NEW Acquisition!

An informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each

Coffee With A Codex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend.

On May 14, curator Dot Porter will be joined by Schoenberg Curator of Manuscripts Nicholas Herman to show you a very special and exciting new acquisition! What is it? We can't tell you, but we can promise that no matter what kind of manuscripts you're interested in, you will want to see this! One clue? ZODIAC MAN. See you there!

Register here:

Coffee with a Codex: An Exciting NEW Acquisition!

An informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each

GUYS I AM SERIOUS, IF YOU HAVE EVER THOUGHT ABOUT ATTENDING COFFEE WITH A CODEX BUT HAVEN'T, THIS IS THE ONE YOU WANT TO SEE.

(It will, of course, be recorded, so you can watch it later)

[digitalnewberry]

It's vintage vacation season at Newberry Transcribe

Les Parisiennes à la mer, early 20th c. John Monroe collection of artist-signed postcards, Newberry Library This summer, take a trip through the past via handwritten travel documents — from pioneer journals to handwritten postcards. See our May newsletter for more info!

E. Parkinson Texas frontier travel diary, 1843, at Newberry Transcribe

[rulon-miller]

Applications for ABAA's Diversity Initiative Discovery Program are now Open

The Antiquarian Bookseller's Association of America is yet again providing a opportunity for those curious about the rare book trade to come to Boston, hang out with amazing book people, and learn about the business of rare books.

If you've been curious about rare books or the book trade but haven't been sure where to start, or you've seen rows and rows of old guys in suits standing behind glass cases of expensive stuff and felt a little intimidated, this program meant to help break the ice and make the whole thing less mysterious.

All you need is to be available during Nov. 5-9 and willing to travel to Boston.

Details are here, and if you have any questions, you can shoot me an ask or email Xin, who has contact info in the application.

See you in Boston!

[awesomearchives]

The is a great opportunity to see cool stuff! Please share with all your bookish friends!

[digitalnewberry]

Ok we give up

Of the many weird items in the Newberry's collection of valentine postcard, this set -- featuring boot-faces pursuing romance and also money -- might be the weirdest? If you have any clue as to what's going on here, we'd love to hear it in the comments...

Anthropomorphic boot valentines, ca. 1900s. John Monroe collection of artist-signed postcards

[awesomearchives]

Every four years, before and after the U.S. presidential election, a team of libraries and research organizations, including the Internet Archive, work together to preserve material from U.S. government websites during the transition of administrations. These “End of Term” (EOT) Web Archive projects have been completed for term transitions in 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020, with 2024 well underway. The effort preserves a record of the U.S. government as it changes over time for historical and research purposes. With two-thirds of the process complete, the 2024/2025 EOT crawl has collected more than 500 terabytes of material, including more than 100 million unique web pages. All this information, produced by the U.S. government—the largest publisher in the world—is preserved and available for public access at the Internet Archive.

[stampedpub]

PLEASE NOTE

If you, like us, have strong opinions about stamp issues, you may now complete Linn's Stamp News' survey of the best and worst U.S. stamps of 2024. Choose wisely.

[stampedpub]

Also, you can see better images/get some info about the stamps from this year here.

[awesomearchives]

I'm planning on writing a goofy mad scientist character whose science is digital humanities, archival sciences and library sciences

I still haven't figured out how to go about it from a heroes and villains POV, still researching and brainstorming

But your blog is a treasure!

Archives are so cool! And my character would love all these different posts! 🤩

Thanks for sharing such cool posts! 🌟🤩🤗

Thank you, and that sounds like a fun project!

[jstor]

From 1976 to 2000, Feminist Bookstore News (FBN) acted as a vital connector in the feminist publishing and bookstore community. An ambitious idea at the first Women in Print Conference, it quickly became a must-read newsletter for sharing resources, uplifting voices, and chronicling the dynamic work of feminist and lesbian movements.

FBN documented the nascent world of feminist publishing. Through listing books from independent feminist presses or gossiping about "bookwomen" (in the best way), it captured a changing tide in publishing, bookselling, and culture.

FBN’s archive, now part of Reveal Digital on JSTOR, is a treasure trove for researchers and dreamers.

Explore the archive and read the full article from JSTOR Daily.

🌈 Join Sinister Wisdom’s efforts to catalog every book FBN ever mentioned! Learn how to contribute.

[vintage-tech]

The big announcement of the day is

that a couple days ago someone was searching through a VMS/VAX tape backup from 1983 of a computer that had been in Atari's coin-op division, when they found...

...a previously unknown Atari 2600 game named 'Fish'.

No one knows for sure who the programmer was, or whether this was something official or just a fun project someone was working on (since this was not found in the home console division).

But I'm here to tell you it is freaking amazing. I've thrown the ROM at every emulator I have (Stella 7 on the PC, StellaDS on the Nintendo DS, Dingux Stella on the Dingoo A-320 handheld, and of course the Atari Flashback Portable) and it plays in all of them.

Where to get the ROM as a .bin [AtariAge] A review and instructions thus figured out [AtariProtos]

[awesomearchives]

LA Fires claim Theosophical Society building and archives

Multiple reports say that the building housing the Theosophical Society of America in Los Angeles has been destroyed along with the majority

In addition to the terrible loss of life, homes and livelihoods in the California fires, many important libraries, archives, and historical artifacts are now lost to us forever.

[princetonarchives]

Throwback Thursday: Jeremy Furchtgott '12 lighting the Hanukkah menorah at Princeton University's Center for Jewish Life, 2010.

Photo from the Daily Princetonian.

[libraryofva]

Recent Acquisition - Postcard Collection

Spirit of Thanksgiving. M.W. Taggart Design Co, 1908

[jstor]

With America's Thanksgiving holiday on the horizon, it is crucial to delve deeper into the historical context and dispel the sanitized notions surrounding the colonization of the "New World" by Europeans. While the Europeans considered this land new, it was home to Indigenous peoples for generations, with rich cultures and traditions that often go unacknowledged.

Thanksgiving was established as a national holiday in 1863 by President Lincoln, during a time marred by the deeply divisive Civil War. The intention was to foster a sense of togetherness among the American people. However, the holiday's origins are rooted in notions of peaceful coexistence between European Pilgrims and the Native Americans already residing in the Plymouth region. This narrative, though popularized, is built on flimsy foundations, as it only represents a few decades of relatively minimal conflict between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag.

Contrary to common belief, the Pilgrims' gratitude for surviving their initial winter was not directed towards the Wampanoag, whom they viewed as instruments of God's will, but rather towards God himself. It is important to acknowledge that while there may have been a period of relative peace, primary sources reveal an underlying sense of white superiority rather than a genuine atmosphere of open cultural exchange.

The initial cooperation and mutual assistance during the early 17th century gave way to a chapter in history characterized by brutal violence and the detrimental impacts of colonization. As European settlers expanded their presence, territorial disputes, cultural clashes, and the introduction of diseases took a devastating toll on Indigenous communities. The narrative of Plymouth Colony's early years must be examined in its entirety, recognizing the complexities and consequences that arose from the subsequent period of colonization.

By delving into these historical details, we can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the complexities surrounding Thanksgiving and its historical context. Learn more in this Open Access book chapter: "Pilgrims and Puritans and the Myth of the Promised Land."

🖼️ : Winslow Homer (American, Boston, Massachusetts 1836–1910 Prouts Neck, Maine), “Thanksgiving Day – The Dinner (from ‘Harper’s Weekly,’ Vol. II).” Wood engraving, November 27, 1858. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[libraford]

I am becoming aware of the effect a lack of trust in the media has had on people, paired with a dearth of research skills.

[libraford]

I'm thinking about the argument I got caught in yesterday- the subject of it doesn't matter.

Often, pseudoscience and misinformation comes packaged with a lot of very important sounding words, and the jargon gets to the point where it seems like a lot of work to fact check it. Which makes the 'I encourage you to do your own research' statements real obnoxious. If it's phrased in a way that's impossible to navigate, good luck.

It sucks, but you gotta.

If you don't want to fact check individual words, that's fine. That's a lot to ask of someone that's just trying to figure out whether something is true.

This is where we get into something called 'lateral research.' Instead of trying to draw a map to a sentence, you check the credibility of their source material.

This is your Snopes, your Fact Check/Media Bias, your Follow The Money.

Knowing more context about what someone is saying will save you a lot of time and energy.

If you're not sure about something, question it.

[zetabrarian]

I feel like I've been throwing this around a LOT lately, but:

Practice SIFT! SIFT is based on lateral research and can be very helpful for these situations.

DON'T just share information without doing your due diligence.

[elizeshiro]

whyyy the fuck does this not have more notes please rb this more often qwq

[libraford]

Well, I mean... probably because I posted it like an hour ago.

[weaselle]

STOP

i have found this post and infographic and i want to share it

INVESTIGATE THE SOURCE

zetabrarian's blog says they are a socially progressive librarian monsterfucker, which a quick scroll through their blog seems to support. This makes them pretty cool but not necessarily the perfect source -- anyone can say they are a librarian, and surely not every librarian is correct about processing information

FIND BETTER COVERAGE

if i go to a search engine (in this case google via firefox) i see that several universities, libraries from large municipalities (like Los Angeles) as well as the BBC all agree that this is a real method experts in information fields recommend. I wouldn't necessarily take any single one of these sources as 100% credible, but they are individually reasonably reliable, and taken together indicate a high probability of factual information

TRACE TO ORIGINAL CONTEXT

A brief search reveals that the SIFT method was created by Mike Caulfield, who is a research scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, where he studies the spread of online rumors and misinformation. This is an extremely good source of information for how to process information on the internet. As the creator of the SIFT method, he has taught thousands of teachers and students how to verify claims and sources through his workshops.

I could not find a post or page about SIFT written by Mike Caulfield himself, so i went to the University of Washington's website for this page about it, since that is the university that employs him.

It corroborates the above information, though there are a few notable differences. For example, under the "trace to original context" section in the Washington U. source (again, as close to the original as i could find) this step contains advice to check the date. This seems very good to include, as in the fast moving world of internet information, things become outdated or get updated very quickly, and yet first takes and outdated articles hang around and get shared for a long time.

EXTRA CREDIT

I personally find that it is important to outright search for the opposite information. For example, I put in a few searches like "Mike Caulfield discredited" "Mike Caulfield wrong" "SIFT method bad" etc. I found nothing showing me any indications this method has any problems. Interestingly, somehow this did turn up an article about news literacy on Medium, which was actually written by Mike Caulfield in April of 2017

[questionableadvice]

I decided to play 17th century death roulette. I immediately died of Lethargy. This is not surprising

[awesomearchives]

Digitizing rare ‘hidden’ trans archives - University of Victoria

Hundreds of at-risk, rarely seen, audio visual items that document the history of Trans+ activism will be made digitally accessible with the

The majority of the video and audio files consist of recordings from the 1970s to the 1990s, including: Fantasia Fair Conferences featuring workshops, individual and panel interviews, awards and fashion show events; video and audio interviews with prominent activists, educators and physicians such as Dallas Denny, Richard Doctor, Ariadne Kane, Allison Laing, Virginia Prince, Joann Roberts, Dr. Eugene Schrang, and Stephen Whittle; and conference audio recordings, among many other items. The UVic Libraries’ Transgender Archives is the largest collection of original materials chronicling Trans+ history and activism in the world. With evolving technology turning media into quick obsolescence, there is an urgent need to document and make accessible the fragile digital history of the Trans+ community. The unique magnetic media items (316 video recordings, 205 audio recordings) record significant historical and cultural events, and include interviews with prominent activists, educators, and physicians. Over the next two years, UVic Libraries will create advanced metadata to promote, enhance, and support future learning and research with the digitized collections by working closely and in consultation with Trans+ elders; the world’s only Chair in Transgender Studies; and with the Trans+ community at the 2025 Moving Trans History Forward conference at the University of Victoria.

[publicdomainreview]

Published by the National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company in 1917, this little book’s pages are entirely blank. More on it here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/why-women-should-not-vote