Archives And Automation: Issues and Trends
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This paper focuses on the archives and automation and reviews literature on various topics concerning archives and automation. Topics include: resistance to technology and the need to educate about automation the change in archival theory due to the information age; problems with technology use; the history of organizing archival records using automation; and the use of problems with MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging)- AMC (Archival and Manuscripts Control) records for archives. The American Memory project is an example of how the technology of today is used to make collections more accessible to the general public. Library of Congress archivists organized a collection of historical materials on a CD-ROM in Macintosh format. The multi-media, automated archival project contained such items as political cartoons (1770-1981), early sound-bytes from American leaders (1918-1920), early motions pictures from New York City (1898-1906), and many other collections. It offers Boolean keyword searching and user friendly access to MARC records. Archivists are beginning to see the value of the Internet in the organizational efforts, and several additional examples of archival use o the Internet are cited. (contains 24 references)