The Archives Hashtag Party – Archives Unboxed

by Rebecca Sasseville

There’s no avoiding the power of social media for a cultural heritage institution. It’s free and easy to use for accounts and followers alike. Social media is used by all walks a life, everywhere in the world. Any person who has an internet connection is a potential follow of an institution’s social media account. Facebook has approximately two billion users. Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter accounts number in the hundreds of millions. Sharing online is embedded in today’s culture.

Archives Hashtag Party (AHP) started in the summer of 2017 by the National Archives Records Administration (NARA). Their press release asks archives to, “Come hang out on social media and share highlights from your collections around a different theme each month. We want to mingle with archives from all over and learn about the treasures you hold.” David S. Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, wrote in his blog that, while the hashtags are entertaining “it also show[s] the relevance of archives.” AHP asks all to participate if they can, not just archives, but libraries, museums and all cultural institutions around the world. NARA posts the theme about a week before the first Friday of the following month. In the past eight months over 500 institutions have participated!

I run a public library for a small town in Massachusetts and I have very little funding that can go towards outreach. Our business Facebook and Instagram accounts are free and it’s so simple I can have my high school volunteers make a post for us on the fly. Due to the bundling of posts using the same hashtag, an AHP post by my little library will be seen among posts from larger institutions, giving us enormous potential exposure worldwide. Institutions are working together to advocate for the field. The fact that partakers in AHP can include accounts ranging from the almighty NARA to my small library further shows how much power social media has.

The first hashtag was #ArchivesSquadGoals in August 2017. NARA’s blog explains it as, “a theme that celebrated friendship, style, and history.” By embracing a term like “squad goals” the parties are reaching a younger audience. So far, most of the themes have fit at least vaguely with a holiday that occurs during that month: January’s hashtag was #ArchivesResolutions and February’s was #ArchivesBlackHistory. September’s hashtag was #ArchivesCute, which doesn’t fit into a typical September celebration, but there’s never not a good time to see photos of kittens and babies!

#ArchivesAwesomeWomen was March 2018’s hashtag making use of Women’s History Month’s rise in popularity. Many cultural heritage institutions may have already queued up social media posts about women in their collections so adding this hashtag once it was announced would have made sharing content easier. NARA naturally joined in that March by sharing a photograph of astronaut Sally Ride on Instagram, writing that she ”was just 32 when she became the first American woman in space. 🚀✨ So yeah, we’re feeling pretty good about our lifetime accomplishments so far. 😬” National Archives uses emojis, everyone, can you believe it? How cool!

Down time on Air Force One during a trip to Oklahoma calls for a game of #TrivialPursuit! 06/05/1985 #PresidentReagan #ArchivesGameNight pic.twitter.com/Uxaa7Cbyer

— RonaldReaganLibrary (@Reagan_Library) October 12, 2017

In October 2017 the hashtag was #ArchivesGameNight. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library posted a photo on their Twitter of travelers on a flight to Oklahoma on Air Force One who are playing Trivial Pursuit to pass the time. The photo gives Reagan, a leader that many people on social media may not have even been alive for during his presidency, some personality and humanity and it’s fun to see the 80’s clothing and large eyeglasses of the women!

The power of photographs are undeniable. Archives are showcasing their collections and their personalities. Archives having fun with their posts by using hashtags, emojis and casual language invites new users to their social media accounts and therefore the institutions’ resources. Ferriero, wrote in his blog that, “One of our primary goals for this campaign is to boost the visibility of archives across the country.” Judging by the likes, reblogs, and retweets of the many of posts using the AHP hashtags it’s working.