Follow the instructions attached below.

SocSci 3A Exercise: Digital Archives 1

Ruby Baranbo

Exercise #3: Archives

For your exercise, we get to dig into some dusty archives! Thankfully, no need to sneeze as we will do this digitally. While the contents of most archives are not digitized, we are lucky that archivists have worked to create digital records of them available so that you can see what is available and see which ones might be useful for your own research. You are going to search through various archives to try and find possible data sources. This then allows us to see what we can access digitally as well as what might be available to get access to in person. Important note: there are a lot of numbered items here but within each section, they are often located together so you’re pulling key information from a single page.

For this assignment, please use a different font color so it is easier to see your answers

Part 1: Online Archive of California Go to https://oac.cdlib.org/, which is the main list of collections across the state of California, including the UCs Do the following:

• Click "Contributing Institutions" at the top • Scroll down to "UC Irvine" on its own (or try doing ctrl+F to search for "irvine" to find

that). UCI has multiple collections listed. o *NOTE* Putting "irvine" in the search bar pulls a variety of collections, from

things related to UCI to things in UCI’s collection, through to anything that has that word in it. Though searching for just a word, as you’ll see, brings a lot of unexpected results. For example, when I put in “Irvine” the fifth result is the “Star Trek Association of Irvine publications 1977-1991.” If this is something that intrigues you, UCI actually has these in their collections.

Answer the below questions

You will see five listed: Critical Theory Archive, Orange County Regional History Collection, Southeast Asian Archive, Special Collections, and University Archives. Click “Special Collections.” On this page, look for “Show collections with online items” so that you see what you can access online. Click on “Cancian (Frank) papers” 1. What sort of stuff (items, documents, etc.) does this archive hold? (note: look for

“collection scope and content summary) This archive holds Frank Cancian’s anthropological study of Mayan culture which include field notes, interviews, diaries, and background research.

2. How was it obtained? (look for “acquisition information”) Gift of Frank Cancian in 2010.

3. What is the size of the collection and what years does it cover? Does it specify exactly how many items it contains? Does it give measurements/volume? This collection contains digital photographs that cover the years 2010-2015 as well as 11 boxes. It does not give measurements/ volumes.

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4. What is the sample/preferred citation? Frank Cancian papers. MS-F034. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. Date accessed.

5. Now that you’ve read the description, click the link near the top that says “Online items available” and look at some of what’s here. What sorts of research do you think these documents might be useful for? These documents might be useful for studying the Mayan culture and to examine the people’s everyday lives.

Part 2: California Archives available online Go back to http://www.oac.cdlib.org/. Do the following:

• Enter in a search term, anything you would like but you’re welcome to repeat prior searches/topics you’ve used in other assignments

5. What search term did you use? Syria

6. How many results came back? (i.e. how many collections have this term attached to them?) 326

7. Pick one of the collections that appears interesting to you that is available online (it’ll have the eye symbol next to it; you can also delimit the results to just those by clicking “Online itmes available” on the right). Which did you pick and why? I chose photographs of Syria and the coastal regions of the Levant because I am from Syria and I am interested in seeing how it used to look.

8. Please copy and paste the web address here. https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8cf9z1v/?query=syria

9. Which sort of stuff (items, documents, etc.) does this archive hold? This contains 42 photographs of Syria and the coastal regions of the Levant taken by E.G. Rey during his 3 year expeditions in levant.

10. How was it created? (i.e. what was its acquisition) It was acquired in 2023 and they were digitized in 2024

11. What is the size of the collection and what years does it cover? Does it specify exactly how many items it contains? It contains 42 photographs and they cover the years of 1857-1870

12. What is the sample citation? E. G. Rey photographs of Syria and the coastal regions of the Levant, 1857-1870, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2023.R.29.

13. Is everything available online or only parts of it? Are there things you wish you could access that you can’t? I was able to access everything online.

14. Now that you’ve read the description, what sorts of research do you think these documents might be useful for? I think this collection would be useful for doing further studies on the history of Syria as well as parts of Levant and its architecture.

SocSci 3A Exercise: Digital Archives 3

Part 3: California Archives, not available online Go back to http://www.oac.cdlib.org/. Do the following:

• Enter in a search term, anything you would like but you’re welcome to repeat prior searches/topics you’ve used in other assignments

15. What search term did you use? levant

16. How many results came back? (i.e. how many collections have this term attached to them?) 118

17. Pick one of the collections that appears interesting to you that is not available online (it won’t have the eye symbol next to it). Which did you pick and why? Inventory of the Turkey newspaper collection. I chose this because it sounded interesting to see old newspapers from Turkey.

18. Please copy and paste the web address here. https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8m90gj5/?query=levant

19. Which sort of stuff (items, documents, etc.) does this archive hold? This archive holds Turkey newspaper collection that comprises 105 titles of publication.

20. How was it created? (i.e. what was its acquisition) It was acquired by the Hoover Institution Library and Archives in 2019.

21. What is the size of the collection and what years does it cover? Does it specify exactly how many items it contains? It has 132 boxes and it covers the years of 1867-1977

22. What is the sample citation? [Title/Date of Publication], Turkey newspaper collection, [Box no.], Hoover Institution Library & Archives

23. Now that you’ve read the description, what sorts of research do you think these documents might be useful for? These documents can be useful for doing research on 20th century wars, political regimes, propaganda, and regional studies in Turkey and central Asia.

Part 4: Going Beyond California Now you’re going to need to find an archive outside of the state of California. For this, I want you to use ArchiveGrid (but, keep an eye out and don’t choose an archive that’s in California!). https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/ Do the following:

SocSci 3A Exercise: Digital Archives 4

• Enter the same search term you used in Part 2.

24. How many results came back? (i.e. how many collections have this term attached to them?) 2,201

25. Pick one of the collections that appears interesting to you. Which did you pick and why? Letter books containing copies of letters to and from their agents, chiefly in Constantinople, 1632-1661. This sounded interesting to view.

26. Please copy and paste the web address here. https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/collection/data/702324132

27. Which sort of stuff (items, documents, etc.) does this archive hold? This archive holds letters from levant and letters from London.

28. How was it created? (i.e. what was its acquisition) There is no info on this

29. What is the size of the collection and what years does it cover? Does it specify exactly how many items it contains? It doesn’t specify what is in this collection it just says 3 v. V. 1: Letters from the Levant. -- v. 2 and 3: Letters from London. It covers the years of 1632-1661.

30. What is the sample citation? Hazen, A.T. Catalogue of Horace Walpole's library, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q107434276 no. 2535

31. Is it available online? (note: on this site, it may only state this in the description, they don’t use a clear symbol like the California site.) This is not available online

32. Now that you’ve read the description, what sorts of research do you think these documents might be useful for? (If there are items available online, you should try and look through like the prior part of this exercise; if it says available online but you can’t access anything make sure to note that.) This is not available to access online but from what I gathered these letter books are useful for research on early modern English trade. Particularly British-Levant relations and merchant activities.

Part 5: Going Beyond California Now you’re going to need to find an archive outside of the state of California. For this, I want you to use ArchiveGrid (but, keep an eye out and don’t choose an archive that’s in California!). https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/ Do the following:

SocSci 3A Exercise: Digital Archives 5

33. Enter a new search term. What did you choose?

Israel-Palestine conflict 34. How many results came back? (i.e. how many collections have this term attached to

them?) 572

35. Pick one of the collections that appears interesting to you. Which did you pick and why? I chose Search for Justice and Equality in Palestine/Israel records, 1960-2006. I chose this because I took a peace in the middle east class last quarter at UCI and this was one of the topics covered.

36. Please copy and paste the web address here. https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/collection/data/902736732

37. Which sort of stuff (items, documents, etc.) does this archive hold? This archive includes correspondence, administrative files, petitions, newspaper clippings, publicity materials and mailings

38. How was it created? (i.e. what was its acquisition) Founded in 1972 by Edmund R. "Ned" Hanauer

39. What is the size of the collection and what years does it cover? Does it specify exactly how many items it contains? It does not say what the size of the collection is or how many items it contains but it covers the years of 1960-2006

40. What is the sample citation? Swarthmore College Peace Collection, DG 257, Search for Justice and Equality in Palestine/Israel records

41. Is it available online? (note: on this site, it may only state this in the description, they don’t use a clear symbol like the California site.) This archive is not available online

42. Now that you’ve read the description, what sorts of research do you think these documents might be useful for? (If there are items available online, you should try and look through like the prior part of this exercise; if it says available online but you can’t access anything make sure to note that.) It says the research is available without any restrictions but I was not able to access it. These documents are useful for studying American activism for Palestinian right and how US media and politicians responded to the conflict as well as how public opinions was influenced from the 1960s to 2000s.

Part 4: Archival Reflection Archives represent a variety of potential data sources that can be used (some for quantitative work) to address aspects of a topic unexpectedly. I’d bet that many of you are aware of (and maybe part of) fandoms. They’ve gotten a lot of coverage and are especially active on social media, though they’re far from being something new. That Star Trek archive I mentioned at the top is a prime example. BTS has a huge, worldwide fandom. So does Star Trek. Are they similar? Different? Does the internet influence changes in the processes of fandom formation and engagement? How might you figure that out? Well, one way that this can be/is approached is

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accessing documentation of earlier fandoms which you can analyze and compare to more recent ones. This is the space where I want you to reflect upon the process of finding resources. What was it like combing through a list of results and finding ones that seemed useful/interesting to you? Do the descriptions of archive contents intrigue you? Why or why not? Methodologically, three approaches regularly have the most coverage and interest: surveys/secondary data analysis, interviews, and ethnographies. Interviews and ethnographies especially because they get to be more interactive with people, but archives push us to deal with the traces of people. Are archives something you could see yourself wanting to dig into? Why or why not? I even recommend you spend some time just googling around, searching for archives and seeing what you can find, especially since the databases used here don’t cover everything. Going through the archive results was surprisingly interesting because it made me realize how many sources exist beyond what I usually find online. The ones that stood out to me the most were the ones involving photographs and newsletters from many years ago. They gave me a different kind of insight by seeing what was done in the past. I think archives offer a way to trace long-term changes and patters in topics like political activism, which is what interested me the most. I see myself digging into archives about topic I’m interested in because they give me access to perspectives that don’t show up in google searches or anywhere else.