From Information to Knowledge Creation in the Archive: Observing Humanities Researchers' Information Activities

As primary sources, archival records are a unique information source at the very heart of humanities research. However, how humanities researchers move from information to knowledge creation by making meaning from archival records has not been the focus of previous empirical research. This is surprising, as creating new knowledge through (re)interpretation of records is a core motivation and outcome of humanities research; as representations of historical and social occurrences, archival records rely on researchers’ interpretation of content, context, and structure to establish an ‘archival’ meaning of the record, before applying this meaning within their own work. Therefore, constructing knowledge from archival materials necessitates a dual process of knowledge creation to create novel insights from a hybrid interpretation of archival meaning and the researcher’s own interests. This paper presents findings from a naturalistic empirical observation of 11 humanities researchers engaging in research at a national archive, centring on key information activities that facilitate knowledge creation from archival records: Scanning, Relating, Capturing and Organising. Through these activities, scholars integrate their research aims and objectives with archival meaning to generate new insights. Deeper understanding of the nature of knowledge creation in archives can benefit archivists, archive users and systems designers alike