Foreign Archival Blogging: Institutional and Personal Practices of New Communication Formats

The purpose of the article is to characterize the nature, intended function, features, and classification of blogs as a socio-communicative phenomenon, the legal aspects of their functioning, and the ethics of editorial policies; to reveal the types of institutional, group, and individual blogs in archival studies, the specificity of sectoral blogging, and its significance for archives, archivists, and civil society. The research methodology relies on a combination of general (universal) and specialized methods, including analytical, synthetic, empirical-descriptive, systemic, and generalization. Methods of analysis and synthesis were applied to clarify the theoretical foundations of studying institutional, group, and personal blogs. The empirical-descriptive method was useful for representing various types of foreign blogs. The systemic method contributed to the study of archival blogs in the context of the field and social communications. The generalization method was applied to formulate the results and conclusions regarding the development of foreign archival blogging. The scientific novelty lies in addressing the issue of foreign archival blogging with the aim of studying the experience of colleagues and solving urgent problems of Ukrainian archival science, in particular through the cultivation of the idea of participatory archives. Conclusions. Blogging as a web tool serves as an important guide within the archival information environment. It is noted that state archival policy, the image of archives in society, and the overall state of archival education, culture, and advocacy determine the specificity of archival blogging. It is indicated that the main types of archival blogging, according to the criterion of ownership, are institutional, group, and individual. Their primary purpose is: close interaction between providers of archival services and their users, as well as the joint enrichment of information resources; radical enhancement of openness and resolution of operational problems of archives and the field; promotion of the profession and professional education. It has been established that important features of foreign archival blogging include: a widely developed blogosphere represented by classical blogs and microblogging; regulatory and legal support for its functioning; clear algorithmization of activities and recommendations for creating an appropriate narrative.