Archival Theory

The Intimate Archive

by Maryanne Dever

Maryanne Dever, The intimate archive. Co-authored with S. Newman and A. Vickery.

This article is an edited version of the introduction to The Intimate Archive: Journeys Through Private Papers (2009) and appeared in Archives and Manuscripts, v.38, no.1, May 2010: (94)-137.

Writing Archives / Crafting Order : A critique on the longstanding archival practices of arrangement and description

by Bertram Lyons

Archives are a discipline, a profession, and a philosophy; and archives are a story—a way of telling the future about... more Archives are a discipline, a profession, and a philosophy; and archives are a story—a way of telling the future about the past from an ever-changing present, a tool for remembering. The practice of archives is not inherent to human society. Archival practice has a history, a dramatic history with dynamic and diverse characters, power struggles, and disparate intentions.

My story, this critique, is an evaluation of the deterministic principles upon which archival practices are built. “Writing Archives / Crafting Order” traces the development and implementation in Western archival practice of the underlying theories of provenance, respect des fonds, and original order. By evaluating the narratives of these theories, I explore the discourses of naturalness and authenticity that shape and bolster longstanding archival practices of arrangement and description—the lenses through which users of the archive view its contents.

Archives today—as agents, sites, and contents—are the protectors and revealers of history and the prime locations from where history is written. My critique demands transparency in archival practice. It evaluates the power of the archivist and advocates for the illumination, recognition, and responsible use of that power. Archives, as institutions and collections, are also sites of power, where users see the contents as the ultimate, authentic evidence of the past. Recognition of the incompleteness of the archive and of the always already mediated quality of archival contents lessens the imperialistic power of the archive and simultaneously enriches the evidential and interpretive power of archival contents. Electronic communication revolutionizes the contents of the archive. This new information paradigm undermines many assumptions on which archival practice is built. My critique loosens the hold of longstanding principles, allowing archives the flexibility to adapt and respond to the advancing reality of digital creation and communication.

Collaboration: Paradigm of the Digital Cultural Content Environment

by Anne Cuyler Salsich

Journal of Archival Organization, Vol. 4 (3/4), 2006

Government grant-funding agencies have spawned an explosion of images from historical collections on the Internet.... more Government grant-funding agencies have spawned an explosion of images from historical collections on the Internet. They have encouraged collaborative projects in which institutions share resources for capital-intensive digitization projects. These Web “exhibits” are neither publications nor exhibits in the traditional sense, most often without identified authors, curators, designers, or sources. Reviews in journal literature are one mechanism for accountability, but not all humanities journals offer exhibit reviews. In those that do, the space allocated in history and archival studies journals reveals the relative importance they place on peer review of these exhibits, compared with that for book reviews. The type of analysis in these reviews is nearly always strictly textual and does not address the interplay of text, image, and design in Web exhibits. The lack of historical context for visual sources in digital media is of concern for those in the archival, art history, and other cultural studies disciplines and professions. Sheer numbers of digitized items may be a worthy goal for textual materials; visual sources require interpretation and context to render the complexities of their meaning. Collaboration on digitization projects must go beyond financial resource sharing to include involvement of experts in content areas for visual resources. doi:10.1300/J201v04n03_07 [ E-mail address: <docdelivery@haworthpress.com> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com>;
© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

Teaching About Records, Ethics, and Accountability: Three Cases

by Anne Cuyler Salsich

Co-authored with Richard J. Cox, et al. Published in Records and Information Management Report, Vol. 21, no. 9, November 2005.