Interpreting the gaps in collections and drawing inferences from which materials are missing.
Mind the Gap: Archival Silences
This is a session that can be taken outside the SCUA reading room!
Recommended Duration:
One full class session.
Objective:
As part of the analysis of available resources, identify, interrogate, and consider the reasons for silences, gaps, contradictions, or evidence of power relationships in the documentary record and how they impact the research process.
Outcome:
By considering the gaps in our holdings, students will gain some understanding of past collecting approaches, the limitations of the historical record, and how materials come into Special Collections and University Archives’ care. Students will develop deeper thinking about the layers of bias and point of view that go into archival collections, despite idealistic goals of evenhandedness.
Activity
The archivist will deliver a presentation on the subject of gaps in archives, using Reno's Chinatown as a case study. The presentation will pause at various points for brainstorming with the students about the reasons for materials' absence from the University of Nevada, Reno collections, both generally and specifically as relates to Chinatown. If there is time, students will be encouraged to identify and search for materials not held by the University of Nevada, Reno that could reasonably be expected to be held here.
Discussion and wrap-up will encourage students to draw inferences from the silences to enhance their interpretation of historical events, and will also touch on some techniques for locating primary source materials held outside the University of Nevada, Reno.
Standards (based on Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy):
- Critically evaluate the perspective of the creator(s) of a primary source, including tone, subjectivity, and biases, and consider how these relate to the original purpose(s) and audience(s) of the source. (GPSL 4B)
- Situate a primary source in context by applying knowledge about the time and culture in which it was created; the author or creator; its format, genre, publication history; or related materials in a collection. (GPSL 4C)
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