Research of Archival Literacy among the Students of History and Information Sciences at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek

Abstract

The knowledge of basic archival terminology is an integral part of what can be regarded as archival literacy, which implies general and specific informational knowledge and skills applicable to finding and using archival materials. The archival profession looks at archival literacy in the context of providing services to users for work in the archives. Recently, archival literacy has become more important, with the increase of the independent use of archival materials, especially through online archival content. Among other things, the issue of archival literacy is also related to the education of experts working in archives or with archival materials. Such experts are educated in studies in the social sciences and humanities, primarily in studies of History and Information Sciences. In this article, the authors present the results of research regarding the knowledge of basic archival terminology among students of history and information sciences at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek, as an introduction to a future broader archival literacy research. Based on a theoretical approach to archival literacy research, and thus archival terminology, this research aimed to see how the major area of study and its level, attended courses with contents on archives and archival materials, as well as the individual experiences of respondents in archival research, can influence the results, that is, the knowledge of archival terminology. The data were collected in the second semester of 2022-2023 using a survey questionnaire and processed by methods of descriptive and inferential statistics. The results indicate the influence of individual factors, such as the major area of study, year of study, courses taken, on the accuracy of both simple and more complex questions on basic archival terminology.