1. Rethinking Archives: A Concept-Mapping Approach
Shimberg Health Sciences Library, University of South Florida, 12901 Bruce B. Downs Blvd. MDC31, Tampa, FL 33612
Ashley C. Ashabranner, MA Graduate Student; Allison M. Howard, MLIS, AHIP
Introduction Methods
Brief Description
Outcomes
This poster explores the use of concept-mapping for
the organization and structure of University of South
Florida’s archives for the Colleges of Medicine,
Nursing, Pharmacy, and Public Health, available at
Shimberg Health Sciences Library. The College of
Medicine (COM) archives became a high priority due to
the upcoming 50th anniversary, and an anticipated
increase in requests for materials.
A concept-mapping approach was used to identify the
shared relationships between the different colleges. What
emerged were potential series titles that represented
collections. A relationship between potential Series Titles, or
categories by which to organize similar materials, was
explored further in an effort to produce a simple, yet
accommodating, archives structure for the remaining
colleges’ collections.
The concept-mapping approach provided the
organizational structure as well as the flexibility to make
changes easily during the planning and populating stages
of archives.
This adaptability reduced the time spent physically
sorting, changing, and rearranging content. It is expected
that the new structure will help in material discoverability
and maintenance as new materials are added. The
departmental hierarchy used for the COM archives has
worked very well and will also be used for the Colleges of
Nursing, Pharmacy, and Public Health archives.
The College of Nursing archives is underway. In the first
phase of sorting, the above Series Titles emerged as
sorting categories, as was predicted for the remainder of
the USF Health archives.
A review of the literature revealed that the use of visual
analytics to organize and describe information is of
growing interest in the field of archives. The use of
concept-mapping as a visual analytic tool involves
identifying relationships between core concepts, their
definitions and their details. In the COM archives, the
departmental hierarchy of USF Health (the “core
concept”) led to the mapping of relationships between
departments, creators, and objects (the “details”).