State of the Union Archives: Labor History and Archival Description on the World Wide Web

by O'Connor, Brian C.

This paper reports on how archives employ electronic finding aids and other online resources to provide access to labor history materials. It includes an annotated listing, or webliography, of fifty-five repositories with distinct or significant holdings in labor history that have Web sites. The webliography illustrates great diversity in site features, structure, and function. A survey of a cross-section of archival professionals provides information unavailable from analysis of the Web sites. Questions emphasized collection development, the creation and use of online description, and ongoing or future projects. Fifteen archivists participated in the survey. The survey revealed that collection development has slowed since the 1960s and 1970s, with more emphasis on corporate business collections. Web authoring skills remain mainly self-taught, or borrowed from other staff and outside agencies. Nearly all of the archivists who responded claimed their Web sites had expanded interest in and use of their labor collections. Finding aids remain a priority in developing online resources, and the use of Encoded Archival Description continues to grow, albeit slowly.