Finding the marginal in marginalia: the importance of including marginalia descriptions in catalog entries

Journal article

Abstract:: Marginalia have been created by many varied readers across the centuries, transforming texts into personal artifacts and offering valuable insights into many varied socio-cultural contexts and communities. However, the tendency to record marginalia only where it pertains to bibliographical data has often privileged some voices over others, skewing the historical narrative available to researchers using archive and special collections catalogs. This article explores the importance of recording marginalia (both its presence and its function) in catalog entries in order to allow traditionally marginalized voices to be heard. It provides a brief overview of projects using marginalia to tell unheard stories of marginalized figures challenging authority before questioning the reluctance of catalogers to include detailed descriptions of marginalia, concluding by offering some recommendations as to how marginalia could be cataloged to better represent the myriad of voices as yet unheard.

Files:: Screti_2024_Finding_the_marginal.pdf

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Publisher:: SAGE Publications
Journal:: Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals More from this journal
Volume:: 20
Issue:: 1
Pages:: 122-141
Publication date:: 2024-01-19
Acceptance date:: 2023-02-06
DOI:: 10.1177/15501906231220976
EISSN:: 1550-1906
ISSN:: 1550-1906

Language:: English
Keywords:: archives

FFR

metadata

library

documentation

records

materiality

museum

provenance
Pubs id:: 1522008
Local pid:: pubs:1522008
Deposit date:: 2024-05-13
ARK identifier:: ark:/29072/ora_1fe2dff840c14cd19724315a266a59d3

Copyright holder:: Zoe Screti
Rights statement:: © The Author(s) 2024. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

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