Caution should be exercised when drawing conclusions from these results. In a study over time, it is easy to slip into a whiggish, or teleological, mode that looks for or
advocates progressive trends over time, assuming that the present state of affairs is better and more worthy than that of the past. Wertheimer noted that LIS has a tendency to fall into this trap: he argued the decline of historical research in librarianship in favor of quantitative approaches derived from the social sciences has led to an "ahistoricism" in library education - and this is surely far from a positive trend.41 The problems and issues faced by the archival profession thirty years ago are different from what they are now, and if we are wiser today we must also resist condescension to (for instance) the narrower range of methods utilized by past scholars. What is clear, however, is that the library and archival professions today are faced with enormous change, and that the literature of LIS should be able to both explain and address this change. To do so requires both a
historical perspective and a focus on contemporary issues in its journal literature.
Firstly, the data examined here showed that archival journal literature of earlier years tended to be dominated by studies of particular archival environments or collections, although they exhibited a fairly wide range of concerns overall . From the 1990s, examinations of particular functional areas in archives such as appraisal, description and public services became more important. Although this trend may be connected with the rise of academic authorship (see below), it might also be evidence of a greater degree of professionalization, a response to technological and organizational advancement (and
hence change in the way archives are organized, made available and researched), and the influence of other research areas in LIS.
Secondly, academic authors have become far better represented in archival literature since the 1990s. This coincides with the trend of specialized archival programs being offered at LIS schools, and given the increased demand in archival skills in the electronic age (not to mention the need for archivists to process and make accessible the enormous amount of physical and electronic records generated in the twentieth century) this trend is likely to continue. As Richard Cox and Donald Larsen noted in their recent study,
archival studies programs became firmly "embedded" in LIS departments from the 1990s.42 They also argue that archival science has much to offer the emerging "iSchool" movement:
Might it not be the case that the staid (some might say stodgy) discipline known as archival studies might, in fact, provide a window to our future?... Despite the magnitude of the transformation brought about by digital technologies, it is the archivists (and, yes, the librarians), who have made a career out of understanding, whether analog or digital, which it is all information [sic], and there are a set of principles and practices that transcend the medium.43
This assertion of the importance of archives and archival principles to the digital age can only be fulfilled if archival education continues to develop. If this is the case, then the archival literature will continue to be enriched by highly-trained faculty and graduate students who may have access to resources (technological, intellectual and financial) that archival practitioners find difficult to obtain. At the same time, however, it seems likely that practicing archivists will continue to be represented given that they continue to be the main readers of archival journals. Being directly involved in the organization or archives
42 Cox and Larsen, 307. 43 Ibid., 324.
and the provision of archival services, they are also in a unique position to contribute research that focuses on practical concerns.
Thirdly, the trend toward empirical and quantitative approaches observed by previous authors in LIS has been reflected in archival literature, but to nowhere near the same extent. The strong strain of descriptive and historical content in archival journals, and the persistence of historiographical methods in archival discourse, has been maintained over the last three decades (a trend that Wertheimer, at least, would find encouraging). Notwithstanding Richard Cox’s criticism that historical perspectives in archival studies are often too narrow and provincial, the fact that they continue to be present shows that the field is not blind to insights derived from its own history.44 Despite the increased use of empirical methods (qualitative and quantitative), non-empirical methods still dominate amongst archival practitioners, whether historical, conceptual and theoretical, or
descriptive. I would argue that diversity and balance is to be desired.45 What might be more important is the willingness of journal editorial staff to publish special issues on areas of contemporary importance or interest, such as "Archives, Space and Power" (Archivaria 61), or "Digital Convergence: Libraries, Archives and Museums in the Information Age” (Archival Science 8, no. 4). By examining these topics from different angles (appraisal, description, user services, planning) the archival literature provides the knowledge and tools needed for archivists to more deeply understand the problems and opportunities they face.
44 Richard Cox, Closing an Era: Historical Perspectives on Modern Archives and Records Management
(Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000): 1-14.
45 Lövblad argued that systems theory holds a way forward to reconciling the different approaches; however, I believe that a multiplicity of approaches is a strength that archival studies (and LIS in general) should foster.
Finally, this study revealed some of the advantages and disadvantages of a content analysis of a segment of journal literature. A relatively large amount of archival discourse over a significant time period was analyzed in this paper, but at the cost of depth. The coding system, although derived from a proven model, was imperfect - and, like any such system, had areas of semantic uncertainty. Directions for future research might include refining the present coding scheme and extending the analysis back further (the American Archivist was founded in 1938, and it would be a valuable exercise to track its development over 70 years). Another might be an examination of “other” content (such as book reviews and technical notes) present in LIS journals. A further area of archival discourse that could be examined is that of blogs, open-access publishing, and archive websites.
Notwithstanding my caveat regarding teleological views of history, this study has painted a fairly rosy picture of the development of archival discourse as a whole, and showed that archival literature has developed a balance in both topics and methodologies over the thirty years examined. However, this balance should be maintained and editorial boards should beware of complacency and stagnation. In particular, as the world of scholarly communication changes, professional discourse should be able to change with it. In comparison with the whole of LIS literature archival journals were relatively slow to grasp the potential of quantitative methods; as Cory Nimer argued, editorial boards
should remain cognizant of trends in scholarly communication and the needs of their readers, and further research must be constantly performed to examine these topics.46
46 Nimer, 325-325.
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Appendix A: Coding Scheme
The topic of the article T was classified as follows:
1. Education in archival studies 2. Archival appraisal
3. Archival arrangement/description (includes discussion of processing and provenance)
4. Archival access (user services, instruction, public displays) 5. Administration/planning/management
6. Special archival environments and collections (for instance, archives in a particular country or context)
7. Special archival formats (such as digitally-born materials, microfilm, photographs)
8. Archival ethics, political and legal issues 9. Preservation/conservation
10.Professional issues (for instance, surveys on the archival profession, reflections on the archivist’s role, etc.)
11.Biography
The author type A was classified by:
1. Practitioner 2. Academic 3. Both
4. Unable to be determined
The type of analysis N was coded:
1. Qualitative 2. Quantitative 3. Both
4. Not applicable/unable to be determined
As was the type of investigation I:
1. Historical 2. Empirical
3. Conceptual/Theoretical 4. Methodological
Appendix B: Järvelin’s and Vakkari’s Classification Scheme
The information below is transcribed from pages 418-421 of Kalervo Järvelin and Pertti Vakkari, "Content Analysis of Research Articles in Library and Information Science" Library & Information Science Research 12 (1990): 395-421.
Topic
Library and Information Science Topic A 01 the professions
02 library history
03 publishing (incl. book history)
10 education in LIS
20 methodology (as the study of research methods)
30 analysis of LIS (both literature based on empirical and theoretical)
40 research on library and information science activities 41 study on circulation or interlibrary loan activities 42 collection study
43 study on information or reference services 44 study on user education
45 study on library buildings or facilities 46 study on administration or planning
47 automation study (except when concerned with some particular activity) 48 study on other library and information service activities
49 study on several interconnected activities 50 research on information storage and retrieval 51 cataloguing study
52 study on classification and indexing 53 study on information retrieval
54 study on bibliographic databases or bibliographies
55 study on other types of databases (factual, textual, numeric…) 60 research on information seeking
61 information dissemination study
62 study on the use or users of channels or sources of information 63 study on the use of library and information services
64 study on information seeking behaviour
65 information use study (whether (and how) information has been used) 66 study on information management, IRM
70 research on scientific and professional communication 71 study on scientific or professional publishing
73 study on other aspects of scientific or professional communication 80 study on other aspects of LIS
90 other study (other discipline) Approaches
Viewpoint on Information Dissemination
P 10 study on several interconnected phases of dissemination 11 information producer’s (originator’s) viewpoint
12 information seller’s (marketer’s) viewpoint 13 intermediary’s viewpoint
14 intermediary organization’s viewpoint 15 end-user’s viewpoint
16 end-user organization’s viewpoint
17 viewpoint of the developer of the process or a service (prefer the alternatives above) 18 LIS educator’s viewpoint
19 other viewpoint
00 no viewpoint on information dissemination Societal Level S 1 individual 2 organizational 3 societal 4 multi-level 0 not applicable Method Research Strategy
M 10 empirical research strategy 11 historical method
12 survey method 13 qualitative method 14 evaluation method
15 case or action research method 16 content or protocol analysis 17 citation analysis
18 other bibliometric method 21 secondary analysis
22 experiment
29 other empirical method 30 conceptual research strategy 31 verbal argumentation, criticism
32 concept analysis
40 mathematical or logical method
50 system and software analysis and design 60 literature review
70 discussion paper 80 bibliographic method 90 other method
00 not applicable, no method Data Collection Method C 1 questionnaire, interview 2 observation
3 thinking aloud 4 content analysis 5 citation analysis
6 historical source analysis 7 several methods of collecting 8 use of data collected earlier 9 other method of collecting 0 not applicable
Type of Analysis Q 1 qualitative 2 quantitative
0 not applicable (not empirical, not an investigation) Type of Investigation I 10 empirical 11 descriptive 12 comparative 13 explanatory 20 conceptual 30 theoretical 40 methodological
50 system description (constructive) 90 other type
00 not applicable, not a research article