{"title":"A case study of guerrilla virtual reunification from the Morningside Hospital History Project: privacy and access, independence and sustainability","authors":"Shir Bach","doi":"10.1007/s10502-025-09519-4","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The Lost Alaskans Morningside Hospital History Project (MHHP) is a grassroots community archival project documenting the nearly 3500 Alaskans who were institutionalized at a private psychiatric hospital in Oregon from 1904 to 1960. Through semi-structured interviews with volunteers and researchers, this article analyzes the MHHP’s online patient database as an experiment in guerrilla virtual reunification—digitally reuniting scattered archival records outside of institutional partnerships. The study highlights two pairs of competing archival virtues: privacy and access, and independence and sustainability. The research underscores how community archives navigate ethical, legal, logistical, and affective challenges in their goal of documenting marginalized histories. In particular, the article discusses the fragility of grassroots digital preservation and the special challenges in documenting and identifying institutionalized people.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46131,"journal":{"name":"ARCHIVAL SCIENCE","volume":"25 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1000,"publicationDate":"2025-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"ARCHIVAL SCIENCE","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10502-025-09519-4","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The Lost Alaskans Morningside Hospital History Project (MHHP) is a grassroots community archival project documenting the nearly 3500 Alaskans who were institutionalized at a private psychiatric hospital in Oregon from 1904 to 1960. Through semi-structured interviews with volunteers and researchers, this article analyzes the MHHP’s online patient database as an experiment in guerrilla virtual reunification—digitally reuniting scattered archival records outside of institutional partnerships. The study highlights two pairs of competing archival virtues: privacy and access, and independence and sustainability. The research underscores how community archives navigate ethical, legal, logistical, and affective challenges in their goal of documenting marginalized histories. In particular, the article discusses the fragility of grassroots digital preservation and the special challenges in documenting and identifying institutionalized people.
期刊介绍：
Archival Science promotes the development of archival science as an autonomous scientific discipline. The journal covers all aspects of archival science theory, methodology, and practice. Moreover, it investigates different cultural approaches to creation, management and provision of access to archives, records, and data. It also seeks to promote the exchange and comparison of concepts, views and attitudes related to recordkeeping issues around the world.Archival Science''s approach is integrated, interdisciplinary, and intercultural. Its scope encompasses the entire field of recorded process-related information, analyzed in terms of form, structure, and context. To meet its objectives, the journal draws from scientific disciplines that deal with the function of records and the way they are created, preserved, and retrieved; the context in which information is generated, managed, and used; and the social and cultural environment of records creation at different times and places.Covers all aspects of archival science theory, methodology, and practiceInvestigates different cultural approaches to creation, management and provision of access to archives, records, and dataPromotes the exchange and comparison of concepts, views, and attitudes related to recordkeeping issues around the worldAddresses the entire field of recorded process-related information, analyzed in terms of form, structure, and context
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