The traditional boundaries of the archival and curatorial professions are today beginning to crumble as archivists and curators increasingly become responsible for all aspects of heritage, be it textual, visual, cultural, built or material heritage. Both professions are currently debating how their traditional roles are now evolving and being challenged in the ever-changing heritage landscape. The need for cross-domain understanding and collaboration becomes more apparent, as the defining lines between archive and museum collections become more blurred.
These and other recent trends pose numerous questions about the intersection of archives and museums. For example:
- What are the commonalities and divergences between archival theory and material culture theory, and how can these inform professional practice on both sides?
- What is the professional impact of the recent divergence of government strategy and funding for archives and museums?
- How have archivists and curators developed historically as two different professions?
- How are the traditional roles and skillsets of the archivist/curator and their areas of expertise being challenged into the 21st century?
- How is digital technology changing the way that archive and museum professionals interact with archive and object collections and with each other?
- How can archive and museum ‘best practice’ in collections management, cataloguing, accessibility and interpretation be shared, rethought and improved?
This special issue of Archives and Records seeks to explore approaches to archives and museums taken from a wide range of disciplines. The issue aims to provide a space for encounters between researcher and practitioner discourses, and to encourage the fertile cross-pollination of ideas from archivists, curators, educators, users and scholars.
We invite papers on any aspect of archives and museums. Contributions might consider, but need not be confined to, the following themes:
- The archivist and the museum professional
- Training and CPD
- Collections management, standards and best practice
- Definitions of objects, archives and ephemera
- Material culture and archival theory
- Cross-sectoral and cross-domain working in the culture and heritage industries
- The impact of the digital world on archives and museums
Further details
The full Call For Papers is available at the homepage of the journal: