Course talk:ARST573/Business and Corporate Archives

Hi Rosie,

Great job on your page. I noticed a minor grammatical error in your introduction. On the second sentence I would suggest you take out the word "can" and adding an "s"to refer. And you may want to take out the word "will". Overall the structure is well organized. Good job!

Hi Rosie,

looks really promising and I like the breadth of your coverage, especially the "outreach" section. There are a couple of spelling and grammar things, but I don't think it's fair for me to comment on that at this stage of the wiki. I know it's a broad topic as it is, but I kind of like Allison's suggestion to look at archives outside of NA. And to piggyback Allison again, you have good and really interesting discussion points and it would be great to get an idea of these in your overview, as I didn't get that at first blush. Looking good and I can't wait to see more of this wiki as you develop it.

Best,

Victor

Thanks for the feedback!

I'll be sure to expand the overview to include all of the talking points. You're right, that should be more comprehensive.

Hi Ms. B and fellow poddy,

I think you mentioned in class how vulnerable one can feel to expose your writing in its various draft forms and stages - and I of all people appreciate that, being a bipolar writer with a complete disregard for basic grammatical rules and spelling conventions - so when I say that your wiki has come a long way I mean it in the sense that you have addressed all of the various comments on your Wiki in such a impressively exact and flawless manner. Not that you should tailor your writing to others wholeheartedly, but you have managed to take into account what the people have said, while still remaining true to your voice, which . I think your overview is fantastic - and not necessarily because you made the changes I suggested : ) - although, just as a matter of personal taste, I think you could do without the last sentence: "These issues are exacerbated by the fact that most corporate archives are in the control of Fortune 500 companies," since it takes a way from the wonderful general Wiki tone your overview has. I like that you are specific about the region you are covering, and it reminds me that I need to do that for my Wiki as well. As a final point, and I am probably stating the obvious and what others may have already said, but would be great to see some media, especially a video (admittedly, I'm a visual learner), on your Wiki page.

All in all, very proud to have you part of my/our pod, one that I believe is filled with five of the "best" Wikis in our class.

Take care,

V

Hi Rosie, Great start so far! It's a huge topic to cover and you've done a good job covering the breadth of it. I realize you are still in the early stages of your wiki development so the following comments may not be relevant once you get going. I noticed that you have not hyperlinked any of your content so far which may enhance your wiki. Following the other pod members' comments, if you need any help getting your references sorted or linking, let me know. Again, I realize it's a huge topic to cover, however I found that your outreach section was a bit too general and specifically, the connection/link between the two outreach strategies was a bit vague to me and I couldn't follow it that well. This could be just me so take this with a grain of salt but maybe highlight the distinction more clearly? One other suggestion I have might be to change the title of your "struggles" section to something like "Issues in Corporate Archives" or something similar. 'Struggles' is quite broad in terms of its range of interpretation. Because your "ethics" section is quite small, I would also recommend amalgamating this "Ethics" section into the Struggles/Issues in Corporate Archives section, since this could be considered an 'issue' and could have its own subsection within the Issues Look forward to the end product!

Thanks for the feedback!

I like your suggestion about ethics, I'll definitely do that. I can definitely expand that section, but perhaps not enough to make it's own section tenable. I'll also rename the struggles section for sure.

I'm working on completely overhauling the Outreach section, so you'll have to tell me what you think!

Hi Rosie, I like the changes you've made to the outreach section- overall your wiki is looking really good! One thing I would still look at shifting around, in terms of organization, is the users/patrons section. Because you already discuss how business archives are not typically open to public users in the outreach section, you may want to incorporate the users/patron section into the outreach section OR put the users/patrons section before the outreach section. Other than that, I would maybe recommend expanding upon your examples of corporate archives in terms of content as your descriptions are quite brief. In the 'issues in corporate archives' section, I would maybe rename the 'power' subsection as something like 'power struggles' or 'influence' as power as a stand alone title is a bit vague. Awesome job- looking forward to reading the final product.

Hi Rosie

As others have said, good content so far. I really liked your introduction. It gives a nice overview of the many types of corporate archives. As far as suggestions go, you might consider case studies or something similar just to show the diversity of corporate archives or even use case studies to show the issues facing them (the Enron Scandal comes to might). Also, while not strictly about corporate archives, you may want to discuss how some corporations donate their records to archival institutions. James Fogerty wrote an article in American Archivist (60) about the Minnesota Historical Society and the problems they faced when collecting such records. It's more focused on the nature of corporate records rather than corporate archives but it might be worth including.

Kelly

Thanks for the suggestions!

I have some case studies already, but didn't think quoting them was worth it in the initial draft. I know better now, and plan to incorporate them a bit better.

As for adding stuff about Historical Societies, I'm not sure about that. My knee-jerk reaction is "no", just because that seems like a whole other rabbit hole. Is there something you're think, specifically, that I should add?

Hi Rosie,

I too am experiencing the rabbit hole with some of my own topics and deciding what to include. In that regard, I don't think you need specifically need a section on historical societies because they aren't strictly related to the topic at hand. Maybe include a reading in a "Further Reading" section or a brief mention in the wiki if you feel it's relevant but I don't think it's by any means necessary.

Kelly

HI Rosie,

The wiki is coming along nicely. I like the layout out of the content, the only thing I would suggest is placing "Users/Patrons" in "Outreach" or placing "Users/Patrons" before the "Outreach" Section. My thinking is it would explain the types of users of corporate archives and then flow into the kinds of outreach done for the clients.

Kelly

Hi Rosie,

Really great wiki so far! Just a couple of minor things I noted. In your introduction, I recommend adding in the word "business" into the first sentence so it reads "When speaking about business and corporate archives..." This way it matches your wiki title and eliminates readers getting confused from the start. Also, I was recently informed that the wiki title should be bolded within that first sentence in order to follow wiki formatting rules. So, bold "business and corporate archives" in the first sentence.

Also within the introduction, your last sentence in the first paragraph ("Sometimes the archives in general needs to pull double duty and be both, and sometimes the Records Management and Archives are completely separate from each other.") is a little confusing. Perhaps do some rewording here and be sure to be consistent if using capitalization. I think the first "archives" is the same as the second "Archives," correct? I recommend making this more apparent.

Hi Rosie! I learned a lot reading your page - I especially hadn't thought of how archivists in corporations lack power, and what implications that has. One grammar issue: I think in you intro it should be "the way that corporations use their records varies instead of vary. Other than that the only thing I can think of is that you could possibly expand your examples of corporate archives, to includes the dates they've been functioning etc. Christie

Hello Rosie,

I was wondering if you're aware of the article by Steven L. Wright in Archival Issues called "Love Me or Leave Me: Getting Businesses Interested in Archives". I think it would help with your "Struggles" section as it references reasons executives do not want to maintain an archives and the nature of the executive/archives relationship. The majority of the article focuses on the Business Archives Program by the Cincinnati Historical Society Library, which is interesting.

Also, you may want to format your page so that the references appear as footnotes to specific sentences.

Looks good so far!

Thanks for the feedback!

Took a second, just wanted to say I'm in the midst of first major overhaul, so you'll have to see what you think after! And yes, I'll put in the references.

Hi Rosie, I think you're off to a great start on your page. I have to second Eric's notes about the references, but if you click on the "Help" tab on the toolbar and scroll down, the References section does a good job of walking you through how to make footnotes appear on the page for you. Are you going to look at Records Management at all within this topic? I know you've mentioned it briefly at the beginning, but it isn't clear to me from your overview or the sections you've got laid out so far. I think it might also be interesting to look at corporate/business archives from outside of North America as part of your page, but you might already be planning on doing this! I'm looking forward to seeing where you take this. Best, Allison

Thanks for the reply!

Hm, I made need to consider how I present the records management part. Corporate archives are odd, in that the archives and records management sides are smushed together. There isn't really a division from what I can tell. Perhaps I just need to make that clearer. Good to know, though!

As for corporations outside of North America, I'll see what I can do, but no guarantees that I can find anything in English.

The content is good, I can follow along pretty well with what corporate archives are and their mission. The main issues are primarily grammatical, such as; “Corporate archives are typically regarded are the archives that are”. I believe you meant “regarded as”. So just some small issues like this that I am sure will be fixed upon your further revisions. Regarding references, I am pretty sure we are supposed to use the footnote styled referencing for the wiki. I would take a look at some other developed page codes and then tag the specific places to connect the reader more easily between sources and content. If you can’t find the right coding let me know and I will get it to you. Otherwise, great work so far and look forward to its further development.

Thanks for the response!

The way the footnotes are now are mostly the result of a time crunch. I know that's something that needs to be changed. I'll see if I can get them up with the next update, but we shall see. I'll look out for grammatical errors as well and see what I can do to correct them.