Editor’s Introduction

The image gracing the cover of this issue of Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals is striking. The array of political buttons speaks to times seemingly long past and at the same time reflects elements – many troubling – of the present. This is what collections do – or, at least, what they have the potential to do. “When what was made past is understood as part of ongoing struggles, history is no more,” argues Ariella Aïsha Azoulay. ¹ GLAM institutions and practitioners play a crucial role in making critical engagement with the past possible for students, the public, and researchers. This is precisely what the University of Idaho Library’s Special Collections and Archives did when they received a donation unusual for archives to handle: nearly 2000 political buttons. In the case study associated with the cover image, “Archives and Artifact Collections: Managing Political Buttons at the University of Idaho,” digital archivist Rebecca Hastings and archivist and special collections librarian Kelley Moulton describe the challenges and opportunities this donation created and the process by which they preserved and transformed it into an accessible teaching and learning resource.

In different ways, each of the contributions in this open issue of Collections demonstrates how collections are part of ongoing struggles (and not just of the practical and political sort). The first research article in the issue, “The Acquisition, Use and Fate of Anatomical Teaching Models: The McGill University Medical Museum Experience 1852 to 2025,” by Noah Tonnesen, Sabina Boudames, and Rick Fraser, highlights the shifting contours of this collection due to factors such as fire, fragile materiality, perceptions of aesthetics and usefulness, and advances in science. As Stephanie M. Luke, Ruthann E. Mowry, and Rachael Johns demonstrate in their research article, “From Tactile to Digital: Translating Complex Physical Collections Through Digitization and Description,” while digitization may preserve fragile artefacts for study, it does not provide the same tactile experience as the original objects. They argue for the potential of play-based approaches to transform the digitization of special collections. The third research article in this issue, “Practicing Archival Sustainability Through Degrowth” by Hannah Pryor, shifts our attention to the threats to archives posed by climate risk factors and the ways archival institutions can contribute to decreasing these risk factors for all by reducing activities that rely on non-renewable resources.

Moving on to the three case studies in this issue, following Hastings and Moulton’s contribution is Tory Luel Schendel-Vyvoda and Oliva Horn’s important case study, “A Multi-Institutional Approach: Honoring the Early Black Descendants of Evansville, Indiana through Collaborative Community Memorialization.” When the Evansville African American Museum in Indiana faced politically charged funding cuts that threatened plans to honor some of Evansville, Indiana’s earliest Black residents, institutions and the local Black community came together to see it through. In the final case study of the issue, “Collaborative Dynamic System for Enriching and Disseminating Digital Collections,” Alí Martínez Albarrán pulls on threads from the previous issue of Collections, a focus issue on Ethical AI (22:2), by introducing the concept of Dynamic Collaborative Systems (DCS) for digital libraries.

We have two contributions to the Notes From the Field category in this issue. The first is Neha Khetrapal’s “Review of Exhibition of the Pagoda Odyssey 1915: From Shanghai to San Francisco at Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum,” followed by Mary Alice Weppler-Van Diver’s “Teaching Archives and Museum Studies: Using Collections in the Classroom to Enhance Learning Outcomes.” Closing the issue is a book review of Museum Design with, by, and for Children: Innovative International Approaches by Clare Murray (Routledge, 2025), contributed by Arunima Baiju.

I would be remiss if I did not recognize that Editor Emeritus Juilee Decker’s presence is still to be felt in this issue, as several of the submissions originated during her time as editor of the journal. She also continues to be an important presence for me as I learn the ropes as her successor. I’d also like to take a moment to welcome two new members of our editorial team: Laura Phillips of the University of Oklahoma, USA, and Mansi Kashatria of Linköping University, Sweden. If you are interested in joining the editorial board, feel free to contact me at victoria.martinez@hist.lu.se. The same any ideas you have for a submission or focus issue. In the meantime, enjoy this issue!