Abstract

New technology allows for and supports new workflow methodologies in academia and, more specifically, the Library world, from the digitization of analog materials for remote patron access to social media and the tagging of resources in the Library catalog. Data visualization and mobile media add an interesting wrinkle to this environment. But can these means and tools revolutionize the way that professionals provide intellectual access to, in this case, archival collections? We are introducing 20 undergraduate students to an unprocessed Congressional collection and asking them to create a finding aid for it. Employing a tablet, we want them to track and represent relationships graphically as part on an interdisciplinary class taught by a Political Scientist and a Librarian. Will the Archival finding aid of the future not be an EAD-encoded electronic document, but an interactive "picture" generated by Open Source software? And, more importantly, will these students not only make and depict connections within the collection, but will they draw from these connections a well reasoned research paper linking the raw material to broader issues, stories, and people in American social and political history? Beats me.