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This has happened to duplicated microfilm from the 70s. It’s wet and smells like vinegar. The emulsion is coming off but not the images. Is this vinegar syndrome?

Hello. I'm basically new to digital archives.

Situation:

I have a collection (incomplete) of a local monthly magazine about animals (span of 10 years worth of issues with only a few missing) and I would like to digitize them before handing it over to either a physical magazine archivist or a local public library just to declutter.

My problem is that I don't have a professional magazine scanner nor I have the financial capacity to buy one nor to commission others to do it. However, I am willing to go DIY or think of an alternative solution.

Specs:

Magazine issues is around Legal/A4 (not sure) size in its early issues then became smaller (not sure of the exact dimensions). Magazines have glued (I think) bind and cutting the spine is not an option.

Questions:

What can you suggest? If I should use an old, secondhand phone as a camera (plus a suggestion scan/camera app), what could it be? If phone camera is not recommended, then what can I use? What accessories should I have?

Output:

I am hoping for a decent quality scan, texts must be readable and images are of decent quality. I'm not planning to OCR but I want the scans to be OCR-ready for people who wants to do it. Cropping should not be an issue, but I want to avoid glares and other major lighting issues. I want a flat scan as well, which is a challenge to me since some of the older issues are somewhat arching.

Thanks!

Hi Archivists, I've been doing a good amount of research into different programs and colleges for the last few months (for MILS), and I feel like I'm at a crossroads. My current two top choices, based on the programs' reputation and the curricula, are Alabama and Uni of Buffalo. Does anyone have any advice or experience with these two programs? I am definitely ready to hear it all at this point.

I'm also going into this Master's with an art background, mainly with no volunteer work just yet. I have about 12 years of customer service experience, so I'm hoping that'll help a little going into application season.

Hi folks, I’m looking for advice on moving into more ‘corporate‘ records roles, such as document controller, records manager, information management.

I qualified in Archives and Records Management in 2020, and have since done various project roles. These have mostly been either cataloging, or community focussed NHLF projects within small charities. Although I love the role, the lack of stability is getting difficult as my partner also works in heritage, and one of us ideally needs to have a more stable job to allow us to have kids, remortgage etc.

The city I live in has very few archivist roles pop up - however I often see adverts for records managers and document controllers. I feel like I have zero experience in either of these areas.

Has anyone switched over to records management and do you have any tips of things I could do in this year to learn to put me in a better position to apply to roles like this? Would it be advisable to look for entry level roles and take a hit on salary for better longterm prospects?

We recently moved my archive and our new vault has a bit of an odd layout as well as a mix of old shelves brought over from our old location and newly purchased shelves. I've figured out a numbering system to ID the shelves, but I'm having trouble labelling each shelf with its ID.

The new shelving has some sort of powder finish coating to it that I cannot get adhesive labels to stick to (the old shelves take the labels no problem). I tried ordering printable magnetic sheets and spent forever cutting each shelf label to size (~800 shelves!) just to learn that the magnets aren't strong enough when they're cut that small and are easily bumped off if you brush against the shelf walking by. Some of it is compact shelving, so I also had an issue when moving the carriages where the magnetic labels would stick to the shelves on the opposite carriage. I did do larger labels to ID each bay and those seem to be holding on fine.

Ideally, whatever we come up with works for both the old and new shelving so it can be consistent. I'm this close to taking a sharpie to every shelf and calling it a day (or, being more professional and using an IDentipen and Paraloid B-72), but I'm sure I'm missing a very obvious solution that won't leave me with writer's cramp! Please help!

Hi everyone,

I have a Bachelors of Fine Arts in photography and I am interested in transitioning to the Digital Asset Management field.

Would a certificate in Digital Asset Management prepare me enough to switch careers or should I consider an MLIS?

I’m in Detroit and I have familiarized myself with Wayne State University’s online MLIS program.

I understand that a photographers familiarity with image file formats, resolution, metadata, and editing software is highly transferable but I want to hear from others if an MLIS would be “too much” and a certificate program would prepare me enough for the career switch.

Any insight or information is appreciated!

I couldn't work out how to succinctly put this in the title.

I'm doing my masters in history, not archiving so I'm a little out of my depth. I'm currently doing an archiving job for all association I'm in with 50 years of records.

Because it's a volunteer association, I wanted software that, were the software to disappear tomorrow, the archive is human readable by anyone with a PC.

I've written my own software to do this but obviously if there's existing application it would be great. All the ones I looked at so far seem to have a database that needs to be maintained, usually using the software.

TIA

Hi All,

I'm a member of a housing and dining co-op of ~360 members run almost entirely by undergrad students with the exception of 2.5 non-student employees. We have a physical archive which we are working on improving, but I'm looking into digitally archiving some things.

We have quite a lot of photos and manuals, but first and foremost we have ~weekly board packets, yearly board manuals, and yearly owners manuals going back to the 60s. Pretty much all organizational happenings are in our board packets, and our policy and general practice is in our owners/board manuals, so having the contents of these easily searchable would make looking for most information much, much easier than it currently is. I want these to be easily searchable and stored "in the cloud." I have enough knowledge to be more comfortable with storing them locally, but any way we can minimize chances for user error is good because of our 4 year (often more like 2 year) turnover. We had our own servers a few years back and lost the majority of the data in a migration.

I have been using CONTENTdm for another project and I've enjoyed it in some ways, but it feels rather clunky, particularly in the search function. I also just tested out catalogit, but was disappointed to find it's ability to search inside PDFs lackluster. In summary:

Need:

• Stores PDFs
• Cloud storage
• Easy to access and manage
• Good support team
• Robust search that looks inside PDFs

Want:

• Reasonably priced
• Support for other file types for future projects like scanning photos
• Access management (anyone can access without an account)
• Support for mobile access

Thanks All!

Hello fellow archivists,

I was wondering whether the archival analysis of our collections is the same in every country. In France, archival analysis is generally structured as follows: "Subject, action: record type."

Example: Notre-Dame de Paris, stained-glass restoration: photographs (2026).

Same thing in your country ?

So. I have been dreaming about a non-existent Collection for years; I even brought it up to The Man Himself at a Meet & Greet two years ago.

Why, why, why, in a world where the George A. Romero Archival Collection at the University of Pittsburgh exists- why is there no Sam Raimi Archival Collection?!?!

I bring it up (again) because the Scott Spiegel Estate is about to auction off the Evil Dead II Production Bible, as well as many, many other items from the late writer and producer's estate.

https://goldin.co/item/scott-spiegel-personal-evil-dead-ii-production-filebahee

https://goldin.co/item/scott-spiegel-4-personally-assembled-vintage-monster-scrapbooks-from-ti9dhm

My fan-heart as well as my Archivist-heart is wailing in despair. I keep hearing Indiana Jones' shout of rage: "IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!"

I'm looking for a little help sorting through the options for online MLIS programs with archival concentrations. Ideally, I wanted to go in person, but I just got a first round interview for a part-time archives job, and I don't want to have to leave it when I start grad school, or to not get it because I'll be moving away for grad school.

As such, I'm looking for recommendations for good online programs! I know Simmons offers one online, and so does UMD, but I'm wondering if people recommend other programs. Drexel is on my radar because I have a friend doing an online masters there and loving it. Wisconsin also was recommended to me by a friend?

Hi all,

Any guidelines for finding a good vendor to digitize a VHS tape? What quality do I look for and questions to ask?

Preferably - based in Arizona or Southwest.

Please share some good examples if known. Thank you

Hi everyone! Just wondering if anyone could give guidance on what is causing this kind of deterioration / how to avoid it – the spotty yellow / black marks.

For context this was being stored alongside paper which doesn't have this kind of marking.

Hey all! I am a professional genealogist and although I have used a bunch of different scanners at different facilities, I figured you might know of some different scanners I might not be aware of.

In particular, I am looking for something that is fast, can handle fragile documents, and sometimes things larger than a standard letter size paper.

I'm my family's historian and the sheer amount of paper/photographs I have that are not digitized is getting ridiculous. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

I'm considering Clayton State University's Master of Archival Studies program, but I'm unsure whether it's worth pursuing since it isn't ALA-accredited. For those working in archives, libraries, or museums, how much does ALA accreditation matter when applying for jobs, and could graduating from a non-accredited program limit my career opportunities?

Hello Archivists!

I’m stuck trying to decide between two online MLIS programs focused on archives and digital archives: Dominican University and Catholic University of America (CUA). Both offer solid pathways, but they represent very different institutional profiles and regional footprints.

Dominican is local to me and offers strong regional connections within the Midwest, but its curriculum feels heavily oriented toward practical execution over academic theory and lacks R1 brand equity. On the other hand, CUA brings R1 status, direct links to D.C. federal repositories and hiring panels, a curriculum that explicitly bridges archives and museum curation, and unique study abroad opportunities like their summer LSC course in Rome and Florence. However, as an online student taking CUA from a distance, the logistics of finding my own hands-on practicum placements fall entirely on me.

For working archivists and hiring managers in the field:

How much weight do you actually give to an R1 program, specialized global opportunities like international archival study abroad, or a D.C./federal pipeline when hiring for archival positions compared to strong regional institutional networks?

For those who completed an online MLIS at an out-of-state or non-local school, how manageable was it to secure quality, hands-on practicum sites independently without built-in local institutional support?

Finally, as someone aiming for a career in digital archives and looking for deep theoretical grounding, is a program’s heavy tilt toward immediate "real-world" skills a potential bottleneck down the line, or does practical experience always take precedence in hiring decisions?

I’d love to hear your perspectives on how these trade-offs actually play out in the job market. Thanks for the guidance!

Hi all in the title.
I need to class historical documents that have non-standard sizes of paper.
Basically they're either 2 cm longer than a standard A4 sheet, or 1 cm larger.
I'm having trouble finding perforated pouches that can accommodate those documents and especially ring binders that can adequately protect them, as the standard A4+ ring binders let parts of the original documents stick out, which isn’t ideal.

We're 10 person team and we're using a shared folder system atm where we pretty much have our own workflows but when it's time to bring everything together it just collapses. Trying to figure out if buying a DAM platform will solve our organizational problems. How much can it help if your teams work on different workflows but somehow need to be unified in the end (if that makes sense)

Hi everyone! I’m working with a small state library organization that is looking into creating a digital archive of our association’s records. We’re hoping to preserve a variety of materials, including webpages, correspondence, meeting minutes, reports, conference materials, photographs, legislation, procedure manuals, and some video.

At this point, the archive would be for internal use by designated association staff, rather than public access, so our biggest concerns are long-term preservation stability, reliable backup/replication, ease of organizing and maintaining the collection, available storage capacity, and cost. We also want to keep the system manageable for future staff and committee members rather than creating something that requires extensive technical expertise to maintain.

Our main ones we're looking at right now are SharePoint, Preservica, Google Workspace for Nonprofits or Google Drive or JSTOR Digital Stewardship           

I’d really appreciate hearing from other librarians and archivists who have experience with these or similar systems. What are you currently using for your organization's digital records, and how has it worked in practice? Are there any systems you would particularly recommend for a small organization with limited staff and technical resources? Conversely, are there any options you've used that you would caution us against?
We're especially interested in hearing about the long-term sustainability and maintenance burden after the initial setup.

Thanks in advance for any advice or experiences you’re willing to share!

So, I am currently getting my MLS with a concentration in Archival studies online. I took a semester off between undergrad and grad school with the intention of bolstering my resume and gaining some experience, but opportunities in my state are slim unless there's a nearby library program. I am finishing my technically third semester and still have not gained any hands-on experience. I've seen multiple posts/comments about the futility of pursuing an MLS/MLIS without some prior experience, on top of many of my peers working in a library to some degree, and it's culminating in a bit of a crisis. I always understood how dire the job market is, so that never quite fazed me, but idk now it's culminating in a bit of a crisis, I guess. I am still constantly searching and applying, and I know this is what I want to do but that doesn't mean im not super worried.

Basically, am i cooked?

This is what has happened to the staffing in the Archives since the end of May this year.

The Administrative Assistant retired and her position was eliminated by the university; a loss of 40 staff hours per week. In July, the new library budget did not allow for the Archival Department Student worker position; a loss of 10 more staff hours per week. This is a total loss of 50 staff hours per week, or 800 staff hours per semester. Also, four Work Study students are employed for 66 hours a semester.

Currently, the only option to add to the staff is through the Work Study program. In addition to the four regular Work Study student employees, 12 more student workers would have to be hired to compensate for lost hours due to budget cuts.

Training 12 or 13 new Work Study students for archival work is a pipe dream. Add to the fact that the hiring process is consistently slow and ineffective.

My solution is not working any harder than I have for the last 17 years. I refuse to cover the university's deliberate disinvestment. The school’s true regard for the preservation of its history has been exposed. I’m not busting my ass for them. Not this Lone Arranger.

Thanks for the vent.

does anyone have any advice to applying to the masters courses in the UK? a lot of guidance is quite broad; im curious about advice specifically about applying to this kind of course. tia