From the Latin arca, originally meaning a place to store things, a box or chest, ‘archives’ connotes a personal treasure chest of cherished artifacts and memories they store for us. Its current meaning is a little less sentimental, according to the most recent glossary of archival terms published by the Society of American Archivists:
Materials created or received by a person, family, or organization, public or private, in the conduct of their affairs and preserved because of the enduring value contained in the information they contain or as evidence of the functions and responsibilities of their creator, especially those materials maintained using the principles of provenance, original order, and collective control; permanent records.
A true archives, then, does not need to be interesting or informative. It doesn’t even need to be accurate. It’s purpose is evidence of action, not information for posterity. In common parlance, it has come to mean a collection of anything–movies, journal articles, or even blog posts–that is old and somewhat venerable. Yet, it is not supposed to be a artificial collection of miscellaneous information, but rather a a contextually based organic body of evidence.
As such, archives can be seen as a socially constructed and maintained:
We use an archives to remember things after they happen. But if we think of the records in archives as points of inscription, as sites of cultural production, we realize that they serve, if not to remember things before they happen, to remember things as they happen. Indeed, the process of ‘archivization’ makes things happen by allowing us to make sense of what is happening.
Of course, the digital age also turns this idea of records as evidence upside down. It will be interesting to see how archivists ensure authenticity of records in electronic form. Can they use traditional archival methods developed for analog records for digital records as well? Or will new methods be developed to ensure authenticity? And how will this affect how we make sense of what is a happening?
Recommended
- Hirtle, Peter B. (2000). Archival authenticity in a digital age. In Authenticity in a digital environment. http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub92/hirtle.html
- Pearce-Moses, Richard (no date). A glossary of archival and records terminology. http://www.archivists.org/glossary/index.asp
To Read
- Levy, David M. (2001). Scrolling forward: Making sense of documents in the digital age.
- Maher, William J. (1998). Archives, archivists, and society. American Archivist 61(2), 252-265.
