Published: April 2, 2016 by Anna Maloney

Archives 2.0 has been described as “an approach to archival practice that promotes openness and flexibility” and requires archivists to “be user centered and embrace opportunities to use technology to share collections, interact with users, and improve internal efficiency” (Theimer, 2011). One of the most popular realizations of Archives 2.0 has been the use of social media web sharing tools, such as blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, to engage users with archival collections and records.

The National Library of New Zealand uses a blog to share detailed articles about manuscripts in their collections. Check out the article Surveying in the South Pacific to discover how they pair images with text excerpts and contextual description of people and events to pull users into New Zealand’s history. Have you seen other effective examples of Archives 2.0?