AI: Archival Intelligence and User Expertise

User studies in archives have long focused on researchers' satisfaction, behaviors, and use of primary sources. Yet, archivists have never defined what characteristics denote an expert user of archives. This article reports on a research study involving in-depth interviews with twenty-eight individuals. The analysis of these interviews led to the development of a model of researcher expertise that might be incorporated into archival user education to create information literacy for primary sources. The authors assert that there are three distinct forms of knowledge required to work effectively with primary sources: domain (subject) knowledge, artifactual literacy, and the authors' own concept of archival intelligence. Archival intelligence is a researcher's knowledge of archival principles, practices, and institutions, such as the reason underlying archival rules and procedures, the means for developing search strategies to explore research questions, and an understanding of the relationship between prima...