Archives in libraries: The impact of a parent-child relationship on corporate identity and user perception

Todd-Diaz, Ashley

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/105283 Copy

Description

Title

Archives in libraries: The impact of a parent-child relationship on corporate identity and user perception

Author(s)

Todd-Diaz, Ashley

Issue Date

2019-09-24

Keyword(s)

• Archives
• Academic libraries
• Administration

Abstract

Archives are educational, scholarly, and culturally significant resources that afford the user opportunities to engage in informal learning, develop information literacy and critical thinking skills, encounter one-of-a-kind materials, and interact with history. However, research has shown that in the United States (U.S.) there is a lack of awareness for these affordances compared to the information resources available in libraries, museums, and other cultural heritage organizations. Both libraries and archives share a focus on organizing and providing access to information; however, they possess equal and distinct professional identities, organizations, values, and curricula. Despite these differences, the majority of academic archives in the U.S. are located within the physical and organizational structure of the library. This places archives in a parent-child relationship with libraries that introduces a dynamic of physical and organizational subservience that has the potential to introduce power dynamics, political negotiations, and complex corporate identities for users to navigate. Despite the large impact this parent-child structure may have on internal operations and user perception, this dynamic between libraries and archives has previously not been studied empirically. This original dissertation research used Cyert and March’s (1963) behavioral theory of the firm and Freeman’s (1984) stakeholder theory as a theoretical framework to explore the physical and virtual power structures and dynamics within libraries that have an archives unit. This study used a collective case study methodology that employed three complementary investigations to examine the perspectives of corporate identity messaging crafted by libraries and archives units, library administrators throughout the administrative chain between the head of the archives unit and the library dean, and archives users. This poster will provide an overview of the study’s key findings and implications for theory and practice in relation to some of the core concepts of archival science.

Series/Report Name or Number

• Archives
• Academic libraries
• Administration

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105283

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