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This essay uses the reprocessing of the "Luis Alberto Sánchez papers," the collection of a prominent Peruvian politician and author housed at Penn State University, to argue that ethical and reparative processing needs should be prioritized within an archives' overall extensible processing program. The author explores the tension between two differing threads within the archival literature of: (1) using minimal or extensible processing practices to efficiently process backlogs; and (2) of acknowledging the power of archivists in shaping the historical record and their ethical responsibilities towards communities represented within their collections. This essay argues that archivists should prioritize collections where archival practices have perpetuated in obfuscating or marginalizing the records of traditionally underrepresented communities. It also argues that prioritizing this work capitalizes on the inherent flexibility within an extensible processing framework.

An increasing fake paper problem is a cause for concern in the scientific community. These papers look scientific but contain manipulated data or are completely fictitious. So-called paper mills produce fake papers on a large scale and publish them in the name of people who buy authorship. The aim of this study was to learn more about the characteristics of fake papers at the metadata level. We also investigated whether some of these characteristics could be used to detect fake papers. For that purpose, we examined metadata of 12 fake papers that were retracted by Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology (NSAP) in recent years. We also compared many of these metadata with those of a reference group of 733 articles published by NSAP. It turned out that in many characteristics the fake papers we examined did not differ substantially from the other articles. It was only noticeable that the fake papers came almost exclusively from a certain country, used non-institutional email addresses more often than average, and referenced dubious literature significantly more often. However, these three features are only of limited use in identifying fake papers. We were also able to show that fake papers not only contaminate the scientific record while they are unidentified but also continue to do so even after retraction. Our results indicate that fake papers are well made and resemble honest papers even at the metadata level. Because they contaminate the scientific record in the long term and this cannot be fully contained even by their retraction, it is particularly important to identify them before publication. Further research on the topic of fake papers is therefore urgently needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last four decades, electronic games have profoundly changed the way people play, learn, and connect with each other. Despite the tremendous impact of electronic games, however, until recently, relatively few programs existed to preserve them for future generations of players and researchers. Recognizing the need to save the original content and intellectual property of electronic games from media rot, obsolescence, and loss, the Game Preservation Special Interest Group of the International Game Developers Association has issued a white paper summarizing why electronic games should be preserved, problems that must be solved to do so, some potential solutions, and why all these issues should matter to everyone interested in electronic games and play in general. In the white paper, the editing of which was partially supported by the Preserving Virtual Worlds project and by funds from the Library of Congress, its editor and six authors (Rachel Donahue created a survey for IGDA members not included in this article) issue a call for heightened awareness of the need to preserve electronic games--endangered by relatively rapid electronic decay and intellectual neglect alike--for play scholarship and for the culture of the twenty-first century. [This article was edited by Henry Lowood.]

In the course of 2020-2023, the Centro Studi Piemontesi renewed its commitment to the preservation and promotion of the memory of the history and culture of Piedmont and the ancient Savoy States, both through the targeted purchase of a number of documentary sources available on the antiquarian market, and through the donation of various private documentary collections, accepted with the commitment of taking care of their reorganization, inventorying and utilization. Among the purchases are two letters written by Count Gian Francesco Galeani Napione di Cocconato (1748- 1830) in 1807 and the Catalogo de’ Cavalieri dell’Ordine della Santissima Annunziata drawn up by Giovanni Toja in 1779. The donations include: the valuable series of diplomatic honours given by the heirs of Manlio Brosio (1897-1980), linked to his activities as a minister in the Bonomi, Parri and De Gasperi governments, as an Italian diplomat and as Secretary General of NATO from 1 August 1964 to 1 October 1971; the documentary fonds on journalist and academic Francesco Pastonchi (1874-1953), donated by Count Piero Gondolo della Riva; the war and captivity diary written by Alessandro Forchino during his time as a fighter in World War I, donated by his daughter Gabriella and published by Centro Studi Piemontesi; and the documentary fund on the Vitelli and Losa families, of particular interest for the industrial history of Piedmont. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As cousins, we discovered a treasure trove of family papers, revealing the intricate relationship between precarity and privilege of our family from Salonica navigating the post-Ottoman transition. Recognising the potential of family history to provide a more intimate and complex historiography, this article offers our initial study of these family papers. By highlighting the challenges posed by the scarcity of such documents in Middle Eastern studies, emphasising women’s roles in preserving family memory and focussing on the interplay between personal and political domains, we identify the preparation of a family tree as a gendered and socioeconomic project of preserving the past and shaping the present. By tracing our family's origins, including unsettling discoveries, we address matters of identity and memory before embarking on our analysis. By reconstructing the biographies of two generations, we characterise the family’s socioeconomic struggle to sustain their precarious privilege amid shifting frontiers and along their journey from Ottoman Salonica to Kemalist Turkey. Ultimately, this article underscores the significance of family history as a transnational, intergenerational, intersectional and social history that enriches our understanding of the post-Ottoman transition through the lives of ordinary (and some extraordinary) Ottomans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Honesty of publications is fundamental in science. Unfortunately, science has an increasing fake paper problem with multiple cases having surfaced in recent years, even in renowned journals. There are companies, the so-called paper mills, which professionally fake research data and papers. However, there is no easy way to systematically identify these papers. Here, we show that scanning for exchanged authors in resubmissions is a simple approach to detect potential fake papers. We investigated 2056 withdrawn or rejected submissions to Naunyn–Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology (NSAP), 952 of which were subsequently published in other journals. In six cases, the stated authors of the final publications differed by more than two thirds from those named in the submission to NSAP. In four cases, they differed completely. Our results reveal that paper mills take advantage of the fact that journals are unaware of submissions to other journals. Consequently, papers can be submitted multiple times (even simultaneously), and authors can be replaced if they withdraw from their purchased authorship. We suggest that publishers collaborate with each other by sharing titles, authors, and abstracts of their submissions. Doing so would allow the detection of suspicious changes in the authorship of submitted and already published papers. Independently of such collaboration across publishers, every scientific journal can make an important contribution to the integrity of the scientific record by analyzing its own pool of withdrawn and rejected papers versus published papers according to the simple algorithm proposed in the present paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aging behavior occurs in the storage process of paper archives, which accelerates the aging process of the paper. Therefore, it is important for paper archives management to explore the aging behavior of acidified paper (AP) and to delay or prevent its further aging. The aging behavior of the commonly used university archives paper with artificial acidification were studied by measuring pH value, electrical conductivity, mechanical properties and whiteness. The results show that the pH value, conductivity, mechanical properties and whiteness of AP change significantly compared with the non-acidified raw paper (P). After dry-heat aging treatment, the pH value of AP decreased more obviously than P, which shows more obvious aging degradation and further acidification of AP. During the aging process of AP, the molecular and structural degradation are promoted by the presence of acidic substances, which increase the electrical conductivity of the system. The microstructures of the paper are changed by acidification and aging treatment, and more fiber fracture, etching and microscopic holes are found in the surface SEM images. The reductions of the tensile index and whiteness of AP are also more significant because of the degradation acceleration of the acid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aging process of paper will be accelerated by acidification behavior during the storage process of paper archives, and the mechanical properties of paper archives will be weakened. By deacidizing and strengthening, the further aging of the acidified archives paper can be delayed or prevented, and the mechanical properties can be improved, so that the service life of paper archives is prolonged. To delay even to prevent the aging process, deacidizing and strengthening technology is employed. Herein, the "hybrid" system was reported by combining nano-calcium carbonate as deacidification agent, modified hydroxypropyl cellulose as reinforcement agent and ethanol as dispersant. The artificially acidified paper was brushed with it, and the pH value, mechanical properties and whiteness were measured to study the effect of deacidification and reinforcement. The results showed that oleic acid was successfully grafted onto hydroxypropyl cellulose by N,N′-carbonyl diimidazole mediated method to obtain oleic acid grafted hydroxypropyl cellulose with good dispersion in ethanol. After treating acidified paper with "hybrid" system, the pH value and the tensile strength index increase, the whiteness is almost unchanged, that is, the use of "hybrid" system plays a good deacidifying strengthening effect. The acidified paper samples before and after treatment with "hybrid" system were subjected to dry-heat aging treatment. Compared with acidified paper, the pH value, tensile strength index and whiteness of acidified paper treated with "hybrid" system are effectively inhibited, that is, the use of "hybrid" system can effectively delay the aging and acidification process of paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the number of digital archives increases – both traditional archives that have been digitized and 'born digital' collections – so, too, grows the number of tools and methodologies through which they can be better understood. This article explores how archives can be 'mapped' digitally, using network analysis to examine epistolary networks built on the State Papers archives of England. It will outline some of the core contributors to the archives, while also pointing to smaller actors and collections, whose place in the epistolary network and the archives are best revealed when viewed at scale within this 'mapping' process. This article demonstrates that – as with any other historical dataset – understanding the archives and the ways in which they are constructed is vital to further quantitative analysis, and how this is turn may bolster digital historical narratives. As such, this article not only demonstrates the outcomes of adopting digital methodologies, and how they may shape ongoing historical research and narratives, but also illustrates the ways in which the adoption of these quantitative measures allows for a critical reconsideration of historical sources, their origins and the ways in which they can be used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note is based on hitherto untapped visual resources (photographs, presentation albums, and scrapbook) on post-World War I Russian refugees in Istanbul that belong to the Anna Mitchell Papers, which were gifted to the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University in 1967. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fraudulent papers from paper mills are a serious threat to the entire scientific community. Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology has become the target of a massive attack of fraudulent papers originating from paper mills. This editorial highlights 20 important features we observed with paper mills and explains how the journal is responding to this serious threat to restore the integrity of science. Hopefully, this editorial is also helpful for editors of other scientific journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the history of the relationship of papermaking and paper to libraries over time. Paper was first made in China and is traditionally considered one of that nation's four greatest inventions, along with gun powder, printing, and the compass. Papermaking was often associated with archives in its early development in China, as well as when it was introduced to Japan, where it came to be a part of some Shinto and Buddhist temples, and later governmental agencies. Under Islam, the availability of paper was linked to increased literacy and growth of libraries. In early modern Europe, before the widespread use of wood in the papermaking process, libraries and archives were part of an "economy of paper" with paper at times being in short supply. In the modern era, the world of papermaking did not intersect much with the world of the library, which made progress with the problem of brittle books, one of its greatest challenges, slow, though recent efforts of government, industry, scientists, and representatives of the library have produced positive results. The damage caused by wood-based paper in libraries was mirrored by the environmental damage caused by wood-based papermaking in communities. The history of papermaking and libraries demonstrates the importance of understanding the technologies which support the library, while also advocating effectively to the representatives of all its sources of support in ways which promote the values of the library and its associated community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the Kazuo Ishiguro Papers, preserved and accessible for research at the Harry Ransom Center, providing insight into Ishiguro's unique approach to archiving and offering a rich resource for studying his creative process. It mentions that Ishiguro's meticulous organization of the archive, accompanied by detailed annotations and "archive notes," provides a distinctive collection of original manuscripts with the author's personal reflections.

This article examines issues faced by scholarly societies that are developing and sustaining online paper repositories. It is based on the AERA Conference on Online Paper Repositories, which focused on fundamental issues of policy and procedure important to the operations of online working paper repositories. The report and recommendations address a range of issues and offer recommendations relevant to disseminating scholarly knowledge online. It is meant to serve as useful guidance for scholarly societies that might undertake such an endeavor and for researchers and other readers interested in wider access and use of scholarly work. It also aims to be informative to authors who might consider placing their working papers in an online paper repository.