Take the Trouble to Compile a Whole New World: The Role of Event-Based Participatory Projects in Institutional Archives (open access)

Take the Trouble to Compile a Whole New World: The Role of Event-Based Participatory Projects in Institutional Archives

Event-based mediated participatory archives, in which communities of ordinary people contribute their records to archives during collection day events represent a paradigm shift within the archival field. Applying a qualitative approach, this study investigates event-based mediated participatory archives using Bastian's communities of records and memory as a guiding framework. Using the Mass. Memories Road Show as a case study, data collection and analysis took place over three phases. In Phase I, archive supporting documents were collected and analyzed using "against the grain" historical analysis methods. In Phase II, data from the Mass. Memories Road Show digital collections were collected and analyzed using grounded theory analysis methods. In Phase III, ethnographic research data, including a direct observation and semi-structured interviews, was collected and analyzed using ethnographic analysis methods. The results of this study suggest that community participants' motivations to contribute to participatory archives are rooted in self-fulfillment while institutional archives personnel members' intentions are based in inclusive community-building. Furthermore, the contribution of records to the archives allows community participants to share personal stories that serve as evidence of their historical legacies and as affirmation of their roles in their communities. Throughout the findings, moments of connection which enable the sharing of …
Date: December 2021
Creator: Roeschley, Ana Knezevic
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Ethnography of a Digital Archive: A Usability Study of the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) (open access)

An Ethnography of a Digital Archive: A Usability Study of the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA)

Digital language archives are used for the preservation of documented language data, such as video and voice recordings, transcriptions, survey data, and ethnographic fieldnotes. This data is most often used for research and linguists and anthropologists are generally heavily involved in the creation of language archives. Ideally, Indigenous communities that are represented in the archives are also able to access their data, but this is not always the case, especially if poor internet access and lack of technological know-how prevent archive use. In addition, western epistemologies are embedded in archival logics, exacerbating the issues surrounding Indigenous access and pointing to the need for a decolonizing archival design that centers the needs of its users. Using ethnographic research methods and a decolonizing framework, I conducted a usability study on the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) to uncover the cultural-based meanings that inform AILLA use. Using linguistics and anthropology listservs, I recruited research participants for a Qualtrics survey and conducted semi-structured interviews that explore the user perspective on AILLA. I analyzed AILLA's Google Analytics data and used qualitative and quantitative research methods to build upon the previous literature in user-centered design approaches to language archives. As one of …
Date: December 2021
Creator: Ewing, Michael
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Information Representation and Knowledge Organization in Cultural Heritage Organizations in Arab Gulf Counties: A case study of Alqabas Archive (open access)

Information Representation and Knowledge Organization in Cultural Heritage Organizations in Arab Gulf Counties: A case study of Alqabas Archive

The goal of this study is to explore how information is currently organized in digital cultural heritage collections in Arabian Gulf countries. it focused on Alqabas – a Kuwaiti institution with a strong reputation of early adopter of digital archiving and developer of major digital collections in Arab Gulf counties, accumulated experience in knowledge management. The mixed-methods study combined semi-structured interview of the Alqabas archive manager and in-depth content analysis of a sample of metadata records that represent items in Alqabas digital collections for accuracy, completeness, consistency, use of knowledge organization systems. The study reveals high metadata quality overall but lack of consistency for many metadata fields, explained in part by the absence of metadata creation guidelines and professional training for metadata creators. This indicates potential barriers to metadata interoperability in an aggregated environment for future projects similar to DPLA or Europeana.
Date: December 2020
Creator: Aljalahmah, Saleh & Zavalina, Oksana
Object Type: Paper
System: The UNT Digital Library

Women's Suffrage Centennial Commission

Website for the Women's Suffrage Centennial Commission, documenting historical context as well as events that occurred throughout 2020 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of women's right to vote in the United States.
Date: December 2020
Creator: United States. Women's Suffrage Centennial Commission.
Object Type: Website
System: The UNT Digital Library

[Katy Allred wearing a face mask at University of Houston Special Collections]

Selfie of Katy Allred wearing a cloth face mask in front of archival boxes while working at University of Houston Special Collections.
Date: December 11, 2020
Creator: Allred, Katy
Object Type: Photograph
System: The UNT Digital Library

End of Term Presidential Harvest 2020

This is the collection of WARCs created by the University of North Texas Libraries for the End of Term Presidential Harvest 2020, an effort by the Library of Congress, Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, the University of North Texas Libraries, the Internet Archive, Stanford University Libraries, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, and the U.S. Government Printing Office to preserve public United States Government web sites at the end of the presidential term that ended January 20, 2021. This collection documents federal agencies' presence on the World Wide Web during the transition of Presidential administrations.
Date: 2020-12-17/2021-02-04
Creator: University of North Texas. Libraries.
Object Type: Website
System: The UNT Digital Library
Special Collections Spanish Translation Pilot Project (open access)

Special Collections Spanish Translation Pilot Project

This report documents the Special Collections Spanish Translation Pilot Project funded by the Dean's Innovation Grant. The final report describes the project purpose, activities, budget, outcomes and best practices, and program continuity.
Date: December 14, 2021
Creator: Parker, Jaimi; Judkins, Julie & Knighton, Maia
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library

[Methodist Church Historic Site Marker]

Photograph of a marker mounted on a wall inside the narthex of the Austin Avenue Methodist Church of Waco. The marker is rectangular with a rounded top and has a dark blue textured background with a raised metallic border and design. At the center, a minister on horseback is riding within a globe; the illustration has the text "United Methodist" above and "Historic Site No. 390" below. The Historic Site marker was awarded by the General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church.
Date: December 2, 2022
Creator: Willis, T. Bradford
Object Type: Photograph
System: The Portal to Texas History

[Plush Interurban Railway Museum mascot with face mask]

Photograph of a plush mouse, Eugene the Motormouse, mascot of the Interurban Railway Museum, wearing a face mask.
Date: December 2, 2020
Creator: Herring, Hunter
Object Type: Photograph
System: The UNT Digital Library
Document and Information Experience in Virtual Zenanas: An Exploration of a Diaspora Small World (open access)

Document and Information Experience in Virtual Zenanas: An Exploration of a Diaspora Small World

The word diaspora is currently understood as the large scale voluntary movement of people, along with capital and goods due to the mechanisms of globalization. Adopting a diaspora, gender and leisure perspective, this dissertation looked at the information and document experiences of a particular fan community of women belonging to the Indian diaspora and the online spaces created and occupied by them (fan fiction blogs which can be viewed as book clubs). The study also looked at memory making and documenting of the same as a part of document experience, resulting in what can be termed as "serendipitous memory archives." The blogs hosting fan fiction and the mediated practices they support were viewed as documents for the study. The online spaces were conceptualized as small worlds and the theoretical framework used for the study consisted of a preliminary model of a small world (based on literature review and my understanding of the world under study), information experience as a concept as well as document experience models. The results show that social ties play a big role in the information and document experience, while memory making and documenting of the same are also seen to happen as part of the document …
Date: December 2020
Creator: Kizhakkethil, Priya
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Wisdom as it Exists in a Professional’s Life (open access)

Wisdom as it Exists in a Professional’s Life

Recent years have seen the development of quite a few measures of wisdom (e.g. Ardelt (2003); Glück (2017); Staudinger and Pasupathi (2003); Sternberg (1998); Webster (2003)). With a focus on information professionals working in the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) sector, this study is unique in the way it translated the quantitative measures used in previous study into a qualitative instrument that can allow wisdom aspects to be explored through interviews. Thus the purpose of this research was to investigate the key characteristics of wisdom for professionals working in the GLAM sector.
Date: December 2020
Creator: Qayyum, M. Asim; Khan, Arif & Redshaw, Sarah
Object Type: Paper
System: The UNT Digital Library
Artist interviews and revisionist art history: women of African descent, critical practice and methods of rewriting dominant narratives (open access)

Artist interviews and revisionist art history: women of African descent, critical practice and methods of rewriting dominant narratives

Article reflecting on over ten years of conducting and collecting interviews with and by women artists of African descent in a variety of formats (e.g. narrative arts writing, academic research and documentary film/video) to note the specific ways that artists’ interviews help to rewrite art-historical narratives.
Date: December 2020
Creator: Cross, Lauren E.
Object Type: Article
System: The UNT Digital Library
Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (open access)

Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol

"This report will provide greater detail about the multistep effort devised and driven by Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election and block the transfer of power. Building on the information presented in our hearings earlier this year, we will present new findings about Trump's pressure campaign on officials from the local level all the way up to his Vice President, orchestrated and designed solely to throw out the will of the voters and keep him in office past the end of his elected term." [Page X]
Date: December 2022
Creator: United States. Congress. House. Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
Object Type: Report
System: The UNT Digital Library
Horses Against Tanks: Historical Memory and the German Invasion of Poland (open access)

Horses Against Tanks: Historical Memory and the German Invasion of Poland

The entrance of the German Invasion of Poland and depiction thereof into modern historiographical conversations offers historians superior articulation of the creation of historical memory, mythos, and identity ‒ especially in wider terms of European Imperialism. By utilizing the current trends in gendering of empire, the use of auto-biography and life writing to understand felt realities and obfuscated truths, and the attempts by empire to queer and utilize labeled deviations to control and gain power over their colonized subjects, one is presented a better understanding of how the German Invasion of Poland fits into the story of empire and indigeneity. That story continues past the Third Reich however, as German propaganda in its various forms was accepted as truth after the Second World War, providing justification for and rationalizing post war political power structures of Western nations. As the threat of a cold war with the USSR loomed, many in the American military felt it necessary to accept and support German myths about their military prowess (and non-culpability for the Holocaust) and the inferiority of Slavic military forces. By analyzing not the myths themselves, but how they were created and propagated, historians can add to this historical conversation a case …
Date: December 2023
Creator: Palmer, Matthew Steven
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Understanding the Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) of Data Professionals in United States Academic Libraries (open access)

Understanding the Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) of Data Professionals in United States Academic Libraries

This study applies the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) framework for eScience professionals to data service positions in academic libraries. Understanding the KSAs needed to provide data services is of crucial concern. The current study looks at KSAs of data professionals working in the United States academic libraries. An exploratory sequential mixed method design was adopted to discover the KSAs. The study was divided into two phases, a qualitative content analysis of 260 job advertisements for data professionals for Phase 1, and distribution of a self-administered online survey to data professionals working in academic libraries research data services (RDS) for Phase 2. The discovery of the KSAs from the content analysis of 260 job ads and the survey results from 167 data professionals were analyzed separately, and then Spearman rank order correlation was conducted in order to triangulate the data and compare results. The results from the study provide evidence on what hiring managers seek through job advertisements in terms of KSAs and which KSAs data professionals find to be important for working in RDS. The Spearman rank order correlation found strong agreement between job advertisement KSAs and data professionals perceptions of the KSAs.
Date: December 2021
Creator: Khan, Hammad Rauf
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

III Corps during the Surge Campaign: Operational Art and Counterinsurgency Myths

The role of Odierno's III Corps as MNC-I has failed to receive sufficient attention from studies of the 2007-2008 surge of U.S. forces in Iraq. However, was Odierno's employment of military force in time, space, and purpose based on the logic of conventional military operations that laid the groundwork for the successes gained in 2007 and 2008. III Corps's achievements as an operational headquarters were rooted in the successful application of operational art. Operational art is a way to conceptualize how to fight wars using campaigns of multiple, simultaneous, and successive operations across a theater of operations to achieve a unifying goal. While neither downplaying nor minimizing the importance of Army COIN principles, a study of MNC-I's December 2006-February 2008 campaign in Iraq through the neglected prism of operational art suggests that the campaign's success was due to the successful application of already established operational principles rather than from a revolution in the profession of arms.
Date: December 2022
Creator: Blythe, Wilson Clinton, Jr.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Professor Carl A. Helmecke and Nazism: A Case Study of German-American Assimilation (open access)

Professor Carl A. Helmecke and Nazism: A Case Study of German-American Assimilation

Carl A. Helmecke, like many German Americans marginalized by the anti-Germanism of the First World War and interwar period, believed that democracy had failed him. A professor with a doctoral degree in social philosophy, he regularly wrote newsletter columns declaring that the emphasis on individualism in the United States had allowed antidemocratic forces to corrupt the government, oppress citizens, and politicize schools and institutions for propaganda purposes. Moreover, widespread hunger and unemployment during the Great Depression added to the long list of failures attributable to democracy. What the United States needed, Helmecke thought, was political change, and he believed that the Nazi regime in his homeland, albeit flawed, had much to offer. In 1937, he went on a teaching sabbatical to Nazi Germany to study the Third Reich's education and social programs. When he returned to the United States, he began promoting Nazi ideals about education and labor camps. Although Hitler's 1939 invasion of Poland, followed by the United States entry into World War II, brought his fascist illusions for political change in the United States to an abrupt end, his belief in the correctness of an autocratic system of governance for Germany rather than that of the western democracies …
Date: December 2022
Creator: Collins, Steven Morris
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Conover 101: Intro to Willis Conover [Presentation Notes]

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Notes to accompany a presentation on the life and career of Willis Conover for the Willis Conover Centennial Symposium held virtually on December 11, 2020.
Date: December 11, 2020
Creator: Feustle, Maristella
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Lynching of Women in Texas, 1885-1926 (open access)

The Lynching of Women in Texas, 1885-1926

This work examines the lynching of twelve female victims in Texas from 1885 to 1926.
Date: December 2020
Creator: Brown, Haley
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Hellcat News (Garnet Valley, Pa.), Vol. 76, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, December 1, 2022 (open access)

Hellcat News (Garnet Valley, Pa.), Vol. 76, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, December 1, 2022

Monthly newsletter published by the 12th Armored Division Association, discussing news related to the activities of the U.S. Army unit and updates on previous members of the division.
Date: December 1, 2022
Creator: Twelfth Armored Division Association (U.S.)
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
A History of the University of North Texas Marching Band from 1911-2021 (open access)

A History of the University of North Texas Marching Band from 1911-2021

This paper explores the history of the University of North Texas' marching band, the Green Brigade Marching Band, including it's early iterations in 1911 to achievements in 2021.
Date: December 3, 2021
Creator: Murthy, Amrutha V.
Object Type: Paper
System: The UNT Digital Library

Conover 101: Intro to Willis Conover [Presentation]

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Presentation on the life and career of Willis Conover for the Willis Conover Centennial Symposium held virtually on December 11, 2020.
Date: December 11, 2020
Creator: Feustle, Maristella
Object Type: Presentation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Electrophysiological Auditory Measures to Identify Potential Cortical Markers of Tinnitus (open access)

Electrophysiological Auditory Measures to Identify Potential Cortical Markers of Tinnitus

Tinnitus, or the perception of sound in the absence of external acoustic stimuli, is a common condition that impacts approximately 10-15% of the United States population, with similar prevalence rates reported in other countries. Current diagnosis of tinnitus relies on case history and audiometric testing, which depend on responses provided by the patient. To date, there is no objective test that can be used for tinnitus diagnosis, despite the high prevalence and significant financial impacts of this condition. Cortical auditory evoked potentials have shown promise in their ability to assess not only the integrity of the auditory system, but also higher level preattentional and cognitive processing. For this study, the pitch-matched tinnitus frequency was used to evoke an auditory late response. Double oddball paradigms with the tinnitus frequency as the deviant stimuli were also used to evoke a mismatch negativity and P300 to determine where along the auditory pathway biomarkers of tinnitus may exist. The results of this study suggest that when the tinnitus frequency is incorporated into paradigms designed to produce cortical auditory evoked potentials, differences exist between participants with tinnitus and matched controls without tinnitus. Individuals with tinnitus exhibit smaller MMN amplitudes and area under the curve and …
Date: December 2022
Creator: Caldwell, Joshua
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
2021 State of the Fleet Report (open access)

2021 State of the Fleet Report

Report over the Texas State Vehicle Fleet Management Plan, which identifies standard processes for establishing the appropriate number and type of state-operated vehicles and provides guidelines to maximize fleet use and maintain efficiency.
Date: December 2020
Creator: Texas. Comptroller's Office.
Object Type: Report
System: The Portal to Texas History