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Seen but Not Heard: A Case Study of K–12 Web Archiving and the Importance of Student Participation in the Archives

Prior to the 1990s, student interaction with archives was limited. K–12 educators often struggled to access archival materials and primary sources, especially because most archivists failed to include K–12 audiences in outreach and programming efforts. Digitization and the emergence of the Internet during the late twentieth century changed the relationship between K–12 students and archives. Educators and students now have access to millions of digital archives online, and most statewide education standards require students to engage with primary sources regularly. As a result, the archival literature devotes more time and space to discussing the relationship between K–12 students and archives. This article uses the Archive-It K–12 Web Archiving Program, which began as a partnership between the Library of Congress and the Internet Archive’s Archive-It service, as a case study in participatory archiving. The research relies on interviews with educators involved in the program, published reviews of the program, and a survey of archival and pedagogical scholarly literature. The article concludes that participatory archiving has academic and sociocultural benefits for K–12 students. Participating in archival processes increases students’ digital literacy and critical thinking skills, transforms their understanding of history and personal identity, and gives them a means of expressing their culture. The research is significant because it shows that K–12 students have a voice in the historical record, and it challenges archivists to develop more opportunities to allow these voices to be heard.