Web 2.0 Tools and Strategies for Archives and Local History Collections

Citation

MacRitchie, J. (2010), "Web 2.0 Tools and Strategies for Archives and Local History Collections", The Electronic Library, Vol. 28 No. 5, pp. 761-762. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471011082077

Those of us working in the dust and cobwebs of archives and local history collections are keenly aware that the game is changing. Potentially, our collections can now be made available to everyone, and we are spending increasing amounts of time and money to achieve this, not least because the more people use our collections, the more glittering our status. We are faced with a huge range of attractive possibilities – but how to prioritise? Theimer has written a much‐needed guide to the multiplicity of web 2.0 services which librarians and archivists should be using, and she has done so in a clear, accessible fashion. This is an extremely helpful introductory guide for anyone wanting to assess how effective their collection's web presence is.

Theimer jokes that in some ways this is a “crowd‐sourced” book. One of the book's strengths is its broad range of question‐and‐answer interviews with innovative practitioners, who point out the pratfalls they have made as well as the deserved successes they have garnered. Their inspirational can‐do attitude pervades the book. It is well worth exploring the particular sites mentioned as examples of good practice, since these are real, working archives, which should help us think of ways to make our own organisation's web site more useful. Refreshingly, examples are taken not just from American practice but also from outstanding British, Australian and European sites.

And yet, making the collection available online is just the beginning. A minority of local history collections have begun weblogs, where the collection can be discussed, interpreted and exploited in a myriad of ways. Blogging eats up staff time, but its rewards can be unexpected and fruitful. Theimer gives numerous examples of chance discovery and serendipitous donations achieved through creative blogging, microblogging and podcasting. She outlines ways of exploiting image‐sharing and video‐sharing sites, and she addresses the big concern in this area – copyright issues.

In one of the most interesting chapters Theimer looks at wikis and their use in local history web sites, using examples from Montana, the UK and New Zealand to show the variety of activities which can be undertaken. She discusses how to have a presence on social networking sites, and also in online environments such as second life. She gives inventive examples of mashups created by librarians on the cutting edge.

This is a large, burgeoning subject area, expertly delineated. This book should be compulsory reading for archivists, local studies librarians and library managers. A real air of excitement can be sensed in this area of the profession; Cinderella, it seems, is going to the ball.