User Needs in the Digital Archives of the Popular Movement

Olle Sköld; Isto Huvila

doi:10.37683/asa.v52.11049

Olle Sköld Department of ALM, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0904-7222
Isto Huvila Department of ALM, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9196-2106

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37683/asa.v52.11049

Keywords: user studies, digital archives, community archives, popular movement archives, focus groups

Abstract

A comprehensive understanding of user needs is required to support the development of useful digital archives. While archival science research has met this demand by inquiring into a significant range of user groups, users of popular movement archives remain understudied. Addressing this gap, this paper reports on a focus group study of key academic and professional users (N = 21) of popular movement archives. This study reveals user needs that are an amalgamation of informational, management-related, social, personal, and technical needs that principally emanate from the archival records themselves rather than the digital archive platform. Purposes and uses, archive and digital archive, disciplinary background, and expertise are four contexts of user needs with a significance of how users frame and express their record-finding and record-use needs in popular movement archives. The main conclusion of this study is that while it is important to recognize the heterogeneity of user groups and archives, it is similarly important to be aware and explicit about what kind of an archive a popular movement archive is for its different users and uses, and when developing a digital archive, what kind of an archive a particular digital popular movement archive is aiming to be and for whom.

Author Biographies

Olle Sköld, Department of ALM, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Olle Sköld (0000-0002-0904-7222), Ph.D., works as a Senior Lecturer at the Department of ALM at Uppsala University in Sweden. He received his MA degree in archival studies in 2010 at Lund University, and a doctoral degree in information studies in 2018 at Uppsala University. His research is characterized by a broad interest in the ALM field, knowledge organization and production, research data creation and use, and digital humanities. Sköld has published in information studies journals including the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Journal of Documentation and Information Research.

Isto Huvila, Department of ALM, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Isto Huvila (0000-0001-9196-2106), PhD, is professor in information studies at the Department of ALM at Uppsala University in Sweden. He received a MA degree in cultural history at the University of Turku in 2002 and a PhD degree in information studies at Åbo Akademi University (Turku, Finland) in 2006. Huvila was chairing the recently closed COST Action ARKWORK and is directing the ERC funded research project CAPTURE. His primary areas of research include information and knowledge management, information work, knowledge organization, documentation, and social and participatory information practices.