‘Into/Out of the Box’: deconstructing the archival catalogue

Georgina Orgill

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2019)
'Libraries, Archives and Special Collections' special issue

Case Studies

‘Into/Out of the Box’: deconstructing the archival catalogue

Published 2019-06-21

Georgina Orgill

Georgina Orgill
University of the Arts London

Authors who publish in this journal agree to the following terms:

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g. publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g. on their own website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.

Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal has made best effort to ensure accuracy of the contents of this journal, however makes no claims to the authenticity and completeness of the articles published. Authors are responsible for ensuring copyright clearance for any images, tables etc which are supplied from an outside source.

Abstract

The University Archives and Special Collections Centre worked with academics from London College of Communication to showcase and highlight part of our collection of alternative and underground comic books in an exhibition - Into/Out of the Box - held as part of the London Design Festival 2018. The exhibition celebrated a part of what is a significant and under-researched collection, but also aimed to foreground a critical approach to archives cataloguing and the way in which this affects archives users. It provided a catalyst for archives staff and academic staff to think about this issue, and provides a starting point for future projects on the same theme.

Keywords

archives, special collections, cataloguing, exhibition, graphic narratives

HTML PDF

Author Biography

Georgina Orgill

Georgina Orgill is the Stanley Kubrick Archivist and Assistant Manager at the University Archives and Special Collections Centre at University of the Arts London. She gained her MA in Archives and Records Management from University College London in 2015, and has worked in local authority, business and higher education archives. She is a unit tutor for MA Culture, Criticism and Curation at Central Saint Martins, introducing students to archival theory and cataloguing. She also works with the university’s Academic Support Online team to run workshops engaging students across UAL with archive collections.

References

Bearman, D. (1992) 'Documenting documentation' in Archivaria, 34, pp.33–49. Available at: https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/11839/12791 (Accessed: 10 April 2019).
Cook, T. (2001) 'Fashionable nonsense or professional rebirth? Postmodernism and the practice of archives', Archivaria, 51, pp.14–35. Available at: https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/12792/13989 (Accessed: 10 April 2019).
International Council on Archives, ICA (1999) ISAD(G): general international standard for archival description, second edition. Ottawa: ICA. Accessed at: https://www.ica.org/en/isadg-general-international-standard-archival-description-second-edition (Accessed: 10 April 2019).
Jimerson, R. (2003) ‘Archives and memory’, OCLC Systems and Services, International Digital Library Perspectives, 19(3), pp.89–95. https://doi.org/10.1108/10650750310490289. (Accessed: 10 April 2019).
Kaplan, E. (2000) ‘We are what we collect, we collect what we are: archives and the construction of identity’, American Archivist, 63(1), pp.126–151. https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.63.1.h554377531233l05. (Accessed: 10 April 2019).
London College of Communication, LCC (2018) Into/Out of the Box. Curated by Ian Horton, John Miers, Ian Hague, Nina Mickwitz and Georgina Orgill. Part of LCC Design School Everything Happens So Much and London Design Festival, LCC, London, 15 and 17–22 September. https://www.londondesignfestival.com/event/everything-happens-so-much (Accessed: 10 April 2019).
McNally, A. (2013) ‘All that stuff! Organising records of creative processes’ in Vakim, J, Stuckey, K. and Lane, V. (eds.) All This Stuff: Archiving the Artist. Faringdon: Libri Publishing, pp.97–108.
Nesmith, T. (2002) ‘Seeing Archives: Postmodernism and the Changing Intellectual Place of Archives, The American Archivist, 65(1), pp. 24-41. Available at: https://americanarchivist.org/doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.65.1.rr48450509r0712u (Accessed: 10 April 2019).
Zinn, H. (1977) ‘Secrecy, archives and the public interest’, Midwestern Archivist, 2(2), pp.14–26. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41101382 (Accessed: 10 April 2019).