Frederick M. Lawrence, Secretary of Phi Beta Kappa, had an interesting essay in the Winter 2016-17 issue of The Key Reporter (I read my wife’s copy – she is the smart one and the member). The brief essay was about the value of a liberal arts and sciences education, arguing that this can “prepare us for a meaningful life, a prosperous life, ad a productive life.” Good objectives. Another entry in the long line of essays and books about the value of such an education, Lawrence’s essay made me think another way about the importance of what archivists do (or aspire to do).

Lawrence states that there are “three sets of skills” equipping people to be effective citizens. “First, a private citizen must be able to turn raw information into knowledge.” This is something I have thought a lot about because I have been in a school of information sciences for a long time, a place where it is likely you will hear tributes about the importance of information, with claims that are often exaggerated. We recently changed our name to the School of Computing and Information, a name that has practical merit. But wouldn’t it be interesting if the name was School of Computing, Information, and Knowledge? Archives fit right into this, providing the raw materials of historical insight, waiting for researchers to mine their assets. It is hard, at the moment, to discern any sense of value for knowledge of the past in our society, but common sense ought to dictate that we need to have a long view of our present moment. We need to know where we came from, the factors that shaped the present. Reacting immediately to events with knee-jerk responses with no sense of the bigger picture or potential consequences is not a particularly smart way to live and work. Archives are the natural resources for having a broader, more nuanced view of our society and ourselves.

Lawrence then adds, “Second, a private citizen must be able to evaluate arguments.” There is a strong literature about how archival materials can be used in the classroom to aid in the development of critical thinking skills. Since these raw materials of history are often both complex and seemingly contradictory (often providing different versions of the same event), it is up to researchers to evaluate the merits of their veracity. This may prove to be more difficult as we progress into the new year. We live in a time when politicians, some claiming to be journalists, and others fabricate or exaggerate news reports or just basic facts, so the ability to discern real from fake evidence is more important than ever. Archivists ought to be in an ideal position to provide good advice about such evaluation, given their experience in appraisal, selection for preservation, and other similar functions. Yet, this will require our field to be more open and outspoken than ever before, and doing this will undoubtedly expose us to criticism. The days of just focusing on the memory and other merits of establishing and sustaining archives may be over. And this will be hard for many in the field.

Third, Lawrence states, “a private citizen must be able to engage in reasoned debate with others.” I don’t know about you but I haven’t witnessed much in the way of reasoned debate in our country in the past year or two. People yell at each and talk over each other, mostly demonstrating the inability to listen to each other. We can practice being more civil to each other at our own conferences, but this is by no means enough. For those among working in larger repositories with greater resources, perhaps we can sponsor real debates and other events about controversial historical and other issues. Some presidential libraries have done this, but I am not sanguine about this in the new political climate. University archives could sponsor lectures and conferences about the value of public and other forms of education. Museum archives could focus on the importance of the arts in our society. Military archives or archives with large war-related holdings could sponsor discussions about the follies of war and the importance of diplomatic solutions. Archives with a mission to document science and scientific knowledge could hold meetings about climate change and the importance of preserving the documentation related to this important matter (already there are efforts underway to do this). Just as many political cartoonists may be happy about the topics being handed to them by the incoming administration, so archivists might also be able to see an agenda being readily handed to them. Rebecca Solnit, a favorite author, in her recent essay in Harper’s, states, “In periods when progressives don’t hold federal power, the work of rights and racial justice is largely relegated to the state and local levels. In the Trump era, this change of focus becomes imperative – if we advance at all, it will be through actions taken in our own communities, on city councils and in neighborhood assemblies and on the streets” (“The Monument Wars,” Harper’s, 334 [January 2017], 13). Given the intricate interweaving of archival repositories and archivists into local communities, exemplified by the recent focus of many on community archives, it seems logical that we would be part of this.

Since the election, just a month ago, there have been a lot of expressions of fear concerning what the new president might or might not do. Some of these fears have been exaggerated and others have been wrapped in bigotry and hatred. Some seem well founded. Some seem paranoid or hysterical. The important thing in all this is to reflect on our own beliefs and convictions and to be prepared to defend those worth defending. This applies to our vocations as well. And since a considerable portion of our time is devoted to the work we do, it is an important task all of us must tackle. My reflection, as I near retirement, will be different from that of my students who are just starting out in their careers. Nevertheless, it is important for all of us to tackle this task.

What aspects of archival work and mission are worth defending, in proactive and visible ways? In totalitarian societies there are many archivists as well, and we in a democratic society often have wondered how they function. This is because we have associated our archival work with broad access, accountability, transparency, and other such values. Yet in Nazi Germany the vast majority of archivists were Party members, often involved in managing records associated with atrocities against Jews and other groups. Throughout the world truth commissions have been established, often with a mandate to create and maintain archives separate from national archives, the latter sometimes seen as complicit with political movements jeopardizing the rights of citizens. While there has developed a stronger archival literature about social justice and human rights, debates still rage about how such matters connect to our professional mission. While I do not believe we are moving toward a totalitarian form of government, I am concerned that the new president does not understand the difference between running a corporation and leading a democratic government.

For many archivists, having a code of ethics or professional values seems satisfactory. Yet, we know that these statements are not enforceable and for many only represent targets to aspire to – ideals, not practical attributes. However, as we enter into this new post-truth era where fake news not facts reign and where Twitter is used to bully individuals who express different views than the President-elect, we need to ask whether such mushy views of ethical conduct are sufficient. It is one thing to battle over academic issues on the inside of professions and disciplines; it is quite something else when careers and lives may be threatened for speaking one’s mind. The specter of television news transformed into reality shows with journalists, if there are any left, simply there to try to manage various “experts” or “surrogates” talking over each other is disconcerting, but it seems possible, even likely, that this may spill out to mangle old traditional archival values. Archivists, as do other professionals, need to know precisely what they believe and to commit to protecting and speaking up for these beliefs. Simply pointing to a framed code of ethics hanging on an office wall is no longer sufficient (if it ever was). New pressures, public scrutiny, and even new laws may challenge them in the future in unprecedented ways.

I have taught and written about archival ethics for many years. One of my common themes is urging individuals to investigate their own ethical sensibilities, in order to be prepared for the workplace and societal challenges they might face. Archivists, and other professionals, often take for granted the idea that they will not face any serious matters that might involve ethical challenges. We should be able to dispel such a notion by just imagining our basic principles against those not only of the incoming administration but also from politicians, business leaders, and others from around the world. While the most we used to worry about was the occasional restriction placed on certain records by donors or a thorny intellectual property issue, now archival challenges include deliberate destruction of records to conceal criminal and other nefarious activity, hatred aimed by extreme groups because of providing access to documents about past events, and the creation of false facts distorting history.

Just like we can never know beforehand whether a thief is going to walk into an archives, now archivists must be prepared to contend with a more extreme form of security, the possibility of terrorist attacks on them, their holdings, and researchers using the documentary materials. Already we have heard about the Trump transition team wanting to know the names of individuals at the Environmental Protection Agency who have worked on the global warming reports and regulations. I would not be surprised if the new administration targets federal funding programs providing support for the arts and other cultural programs presenting views that it does not agree with. The President-elect has called the television show Saturday Night Live biased and bad because of the way it parodies him. So, make sure you do not go our of your way to be critical or to collect materials that might be construed to be critical.

We can look at this in another way. The next few years could present the archival community with many golden opportunities to speak out about its mission. No one knows if Mr. Trump will keep using Twitter the way he has this past year or two, but if he does he will daily give archivists, librarians, historians, scientists and others interested in honest and truthful visions of our society and its past opportunities to present documents and other materials providing a counterpoint. Archivists, in particular, will be able to explain themselves and their mission on a regular basis and in ways that will likely gain public and media attention. Just think of the possibilities, reflecting back on some of the topics that have emerged in the past year – refusing to disclose tax records, denying various rumors and false stories, leaked classified records, and hacking into emails. All we need to do is to start practicing composing Twitter-length responses. But, first, you must determine if you are willing to lose your job or even go to jail for what you believe and practice.

Digital devices, so the story goes, are transforming everything. The assessments are divided, of course, about whether the changes are for the better or the worse. We are also increasingly reminded that there are pushbacks. Anne Trubek, The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016) provides, as the title suggests, both a history and assessment of the nature of handwriting, joining the growing number of volumes on topics like paper and other analog mechanisms. Trubek, a writer and publisher, writes candidly about her topic, one she obviously believes is important.

Trubek gracefully moves through the various historical methods of writing and recording (this is not a scholarly work, but it is one worth reading on a cold day while seated away from computers and other distractions). She characterizes early writing, connecting them to contemporary issues, such as follows: “We may, in fact, be becoming more like the Sumerians with every passing year. Most of us carry small, palm-sized writing tablets made of a durable material. And cuneiform feels – materially – more similar to my daily experience of writing than do the sheets of paper in elementary school classrooms” (p. 12). This is the kind of expansive perspective that is the most useful to have, one seeing the connections between earlier communication approaches rather than dysfunctional or revolutionary breakthroughs wrought by the latest gee-whiz technology.

Skepticism about new writing and publishing technologies are nothing new, and Trubek cites diatribes against the printing press and even new handwritten scripts. We need to be reminded about our general tendency both to embrace and reject innovations, especially as doing this can remind us of our sometimes dramatic predictions about technology in our lives. The author reminds us that learning something as seemingly mundane as handwriting is intertwined with lots of other stuff: “Students who learned to write in America, from its earliest days through the first half of the twentieth century, were learning a lot more than just their letters. They were learning Christian and national values” (p. 82).

When we think of handwriting today we tend to reflect about those who contend that they can discern personality types or who claim to be able to detect forged handwriting and signatures. These are relatively recent notions: “Only once typing became the de facto method to conduct business correspondence and keep records, did handwriting assume the association we have with it today: a way to express one’s uniqueness and personality. It is only in the twentieth century that handwriting becomes evidence of – and a way to analyze – the individual psyche” (p. 97). Archivists know, however, that the interest in detecting forgeries, altered documents, and other documentary problems date back hundreds of years ago. Trubek does discuss the rise of digital forensics for authenticating documents, something we are beginning to see in information and other schools as courses.

This is an interesting read, one that will make to think about some of your own assumptions about writing. It is also a fun read. Did you know that we have a National Handwriting Day? It is on January 23^rd, John Hancock’s birthday – a logical choice. Now you know and can plan your own way to celebrate.

 

A few days ago I happily received an order of seven recently published books on the topic of archives, privacy and transparency, and memory. Given my recent struggles with my vision, cataracts and related issues, this represents a daunting reading task. As I am between eye surgeries, I am reading far more slowly than ever before, although the process of reading more slowly may have increased my pleasure and value in the process. Given these relatively recent physical challenges, what accounts for the pleasure in receiving this box of print books? Would it not make sense for me to read on a laptop or a tablet where I can enlarge the words and reduce the eyestrain? Obviously, much of the joy comes in the physicality of the book, each representing a distinct, if closely related, topic, providing a text I can mark up with my comments and whose arguments I am just as likely to remember from the size, design, and color of the physical object. Yes, I am a traditionalist, if not a curmudgeon, providing a stark contrast to many of my colleagues in my school.

Like many others who like books, I find that I dream about them as well. They come to be time capsules for charting and remembering events in my life. I thought about this recently as I buried my father. Although he was not an avid reader, he kept me supplied in my early years with books, and he focused these gifts on historical themes, fostering my developing interest in the past. Each book brings memories with it, and reexaminations of them for teaching or research bring such memories back to life. When I sit back and scan the bookshelves at home or in my university office, it is nearly equivalent to reading a diary or personal letters. My acquiring, reading, and rereading such texts are the substance of my own personal documents or archives. I seek ideas, insights, and evidence about particular interests. More importantly, I do not manage these as if I am doing Google searches; rather, I read and explore volumes that connect with my interests and from this broad and deep reading emerge ideas for my own research and writing projects. Call me old-fashioned.

Reflecting on this also prompts me to think about some personal challenges stretching before me over the next year as I approach retirement and how these may also reflect the ongoing transformation of higher education. The first of these is whether I will be writing any more books. I have generally measured my academic career by the completion of books. But books seem not to be as valued as much as they once were in the university. Now, and admittedly this is just an impression, the emphasis is on the speedy accumulation of essays and conference papers and, better yet, grants. The idea of spending a lengthy period of time, sometimes years, researching for a major study advancing knowledge in one’s field seems to be likely to be discouraged in many parts of the university. Now entering into my final full year as a university professor has me shifting my attention to pulling together a variety of partly finished projects to determine if any of them form a core for a new book or books, efforts that will take me well into retirement. That I am doing this is also testimony to the fact that I too was distracted by short-term demands. One of the factors in my decision to retire was my interest in redefining my own scholarly writing projects back to my own timetable and away from an assembly-line kind of production targeted at publishing in the right journals with the highest impact factor. As I am a humanist focusing on historical and archival topics, it is not a game I can play very well.

Something else I am mulling over is how and what I read. Apart from reading essays, conference papers, and magazine articles, my focus has been on reading books. But the challenge is on how I read books. I acquire books, building my own personal library and making the books my own by marking them up. I constantly refer to them in preparation for teaching, my work with doctoral students, and my own research and writing projects. As I move toward retirement and think about downsizing with my wife, I realize that the amount of space taken up by my physical library (and hers too) will have to change. I will need to be more selective in what I choose to acquire in terms of printed books. The greater challenge is in determining what of the present array of thousands of books I will need to weed out. I started this process, but it is slow moving. I am presently thinking that I will identify critical texts in certain areas of my interests that I might find useful for finishing some of my future publication efforts.

What is enjoyable to think about, of course, is reading just because of my own personal interests, ones that have nothing to do with what I have taught or on what I consider my specialized areas of expertise. I intend to read more broadly and deeply into art history, supporting my own interests in painting. Over the past decade I have found some peace in pursuing these creative activities, connecting these creative impulses to my own scholarly and professional activities such as writing and teaching. I sometimes think that creativity is discouraged in the university, that we are pushed and prodded to do work that is measurable and repetitive. I know that not everyone feels this way, but I am concerned about how the next generation or two of academics will grapple with such issues. Will they push back, or settle for safer routes to tenure and promotion, job security above all else? Only time will tell about what happens, but I think we ought to be concerned about the future role and mission of the university.

I have always been a book-centric individual and for much of my time in the university this served me well. However, the university is changing and not always in ways that will foster such interests. While we have seen a resurgence of interest in public scholarship, much of the corporate-tinged university provides anything but a space for such scholarship. By retiring, I hope, I can return to such interests and pursuits. Only time will tell, but I look forward to the possibilities.

Jay D. Aronson, in his Who Owns the Dead? The Science and Politics of Death at Ground Zero (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016), writes, “Human remains have political, cultural, and emotional power” (p. 3). His study of the efforts to recover the remains of the dead at the World Trade Center after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 while trying to determine how to memorialize the victims and re-develop the site explore this power in detail. He also notes that the “recovery, identification, and memorialization of the victims of the September 11 World Trade Center attacks brought science to bear on the questions of identity, politics, and memory” (p. 19). This is an important, insightful study of the politics of memory and memorials, one demonstrating how complex remembering and celebrating can become. Archivists have long recognized the connection of power to record making and keeping, and they will discern in this study many aspects that are familiar to their own work and the obstacles they sometime encounter in doing this work. We learn about advocacy, competition among architects, the sometimes-convoluted relationship between government agencies, private citizens, and for-profit businesses, and the role of the media.

However, the focus of the book is on the human remains. Here is an example of the author’s sense of how we have transformed the manner in which we deal with such materials: “What is clear is that DNA technology has irrevocably altered the way we memorialize the dead, whether their remains have been identified or not. Whereas a tomb of the unknown, in a war memorial, or a common burial ground valorizes collective sacrifice to the nation, the repository in the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum is the physical embodiment of the technological dream that unidentified remains may one day be made personal again, and returned to their families. The repository is not a final resting place, even though many of the remains will never be claimed. Rather, it is a storage facility, albeit a dignified one, supporting an ongoing forensic investigation by a government scientific laboratory” (p. 255). Archivists might pause over this assessment. Technology has changed and is transforming the way we think of archives and the places, real and virtual, they reside in. The notion of digital forensics is also affecting how we perceive archival permanence. And the notion of permanence, as in archival value, has been questioned for a long time.

I recently buried my father and this caused me to reflect on the notion of our documentary remains and the idea of memory. It is difficult, at times, to deal with how transitory memory is and how easily distorted it can become. Thinking about this, makes one realize why the families of the 9/11 dead fought so hard for having a voice in how we memorialized the attacks. We also must recognize the emotions and concerns moving documentary sources to an archives can cause for the surviving family members and acquaintances. Developing empathy for such aspects of our work can only make us better archivists.

Watching the election results was interesting, even illuminating. The reporters, commentators, and “surrogates” – all arguing with each other in often less than civil terms, certainly, from my perspective, dispelled any notion that living in the “information age” means that our citizenry is better informed. Indeed, there seems to be a stubbornness not to accept what one does not believe or want to believe no matter how much evidence contrary to such positions is presented, including even the candidates themselves. The idea of listening to or reading about various opinions and seeking common ground seems old-fashioned or, more problematic, impossible. Given the misreading and misinterpretation of polls and other data also ought to call into question the enthusiasm we have for Big Data and its uses. Many of us have discussed the nature of and use of data as transformative elements, often embracing them with a kind of religious fervor, but what we witnessed on November 8^th should cause us to rethink such ideas. It may be just another example of the unintended consequences of technology commented on by many observers over the past few decades (and even longer ago).

There are, of course, other such consequences at play. As I have written about in my last couple of blog postings, archivists and others need to re-evaluate how they articulate their mission and the ways in which they advocate on its behalf. Speaking up on behalf of the importance of evidence and the need for records to be preserved so that we may understand the nature of the past seems like a much more difficult argument to make. Many of us wondered about how hard it must have been for the President to meet with the President-elect, given the vitriolic exchanges during the extended campaign. Imagine, however, the difficulties the Archivist of the United States or the Librarian of Congress might have if they met with the President-elect. Mr. Trump is not, by all accounts, a reader, so what would he and the Librarian of Congress discuss? And given the President-elect’s disdain for transparency, what would be the topic for a meeting with the Archivist? It is doubtful he has read, at least closely, the founding documents the National Archives houses and displays. Of course, it would not have been any easier if Clinton had won. Jeffrey Toobin in his statement, “Another Round,” in the November 14^th “Talk of the Town” in the New Yorker gets to the heart of the challenge with both candidates: “Trump is a serial liar, a shady businessman, a bigot, and a sell-proclaimed abuser of women. Clinton has a sometimes unsteady relationship with the truth and a faulty devotion to information security” (p. 31). This is not a solid foundation to build information and records policy.

The information professions’ compulsion for all things Big Data must also be called into question. This recent election demonstrated how data can be misinterpreted and how it cannot be relied on above all other aspects of our digital age. On the other hand, as archivists, we must commit to preserving the data generated by the election as a means of understanding just what happened. Admittedly, one thing we learned is that all the evidence at hand, no matter what it indicates, will not persuade true believers to change their minds, including our incoming president who manages by his guts, shoots from the hip, and does not weigh facts. We must remember that the mission of the archivist is to select, preserve, and make accessible evidence for the long haul. Managing our documentary heritage for future historians and other researchers is very different than being blown about by the political pundits and other often biased observers and commentators, Our role is to document their activities so as to hold them accountable to future generations.

There are other things archivists might re-evaluate in the aftermath of this election. First, they should reaffirm to working with communities, indigenous groups, people of color and different sexual orientations, and other groups seemingly marginalized in this election. Our commitment is to all of society, not just elites and those in power, This past generation has seen archivists broaden their mission, and we need to reaffirm its importance. Archivists, at least many of them, have come to value accountability, evidence, memory, social justice, and the notion of a multi-verse – all elements they must hold onto and argue for in this new contentious era of nativism, racism, and injustice. While some archivists disdain any form of political agendas in their work, they must, nevertheless, acknowledge that they labor in a political world. Archivists have long understood that records and the archival repositories they reside in are shaped by power, and they must develop new ways of contending with this reality. Studying and understanding the nature of our documentary universe requires archivists to comprehend the political, social, and economic context leading to their creation and maintenance.

We can understand this better by recognizing the new role of social media and cyberattacks in our recent political campaigns. Just a few years ago, in the so-called Arab Spring, social media was heralded as the primary tool for a new democratic resurgence. Now we know that there were few lasting positive effects of its use, at least in terms of fostering democratic governance. Again, archivists need to focus on preserving, to the best of their abilities, the role of social media in political events and movements, but they also need to understand the limitations of the use of this media and what other traditional documentary forms can tell us about the recent political events. The archival community has always been a bit wobbly in how it sees itself working with new and emerging digital technologies. But this is only part of the challenge archivists face. They need to recommit to a stronger and clearer social mission, even if it is one that places them on a collision course with government leaders and others. Preserving the documentary materials is a task that is not about making us or anyone feel good. It is about holding each other accountable for their actions and empowering all portions of society, not just those in charge. This represents an intriguing challenge. I wonder if we are up to it.

Different professionals possess different ways of looking at the world and its problems and challenges. Examined closely, they often show differences and nuances, but looked at globally and we see the common features binding together members of a profession. Attendance at conferences and reading the professional literature often suggest more of the internal differences than the common assumptions, all part of the process of self-evaluation that goes on as necessary for disciplinary evolution and progress. If there was a common mission for the archival profession in the past, it certainly seems to have become more difficult to see. In the early 1970s, there did not seem to be so many questions and options as there are today. Nevertheless, I believe there are some essential elements that most archivists adhere to and that set them apart from other professionals, especially those in the information business. Risking confusion, it is useful to revisit these.

At first glance, most would likely argue that there are fewer aspects bringing archivists together than we seemed to have in the past. A half-century ago, most archivists assumed, quietly and without much discussion, that they worked to acquire, preserve, and make available records possessing historical value for researchers, generally historians, as they needed them. Now, however, there are many other competing missions, some competing with each other. Anne Gilliland, archival studies professor at UCLA, in a recent conference keynote states, that archivists must “be engaging with the compelling and very intractable issues of massive and growing forced displacement and transnational migration resulting from regional conflicts of unprecedented scale, ecological disruption and environmental disorder, and increasing global economic inequities. Such human crises can evoke emotions and provoke highly charged debates that can make some in our field, with its historically dispassionate and distanced approach based on reasoning about the need for professional neutrality uncomfortable when called upon to engage.” In other words, the world is more complex or, at least, we are more aware of its complexities. While Gilliland argues that there is stronger support for such an expanded mission or vision, I am not at all certain that most rank and file working archivists buy into this or, at least, think much about such issues. Personally, I think such ideas are extremely important but I am not convinced that they connect to what most archivists are concerned about on a daily basis. Some, myself included, work to change this, but it is always a slow and laborious, if not frustrating, process.

I do not think that we need to fuss about such matters, but that, instead, we can reaffirm our commitment to be the driving force in documenting our society and its institutions, grasping onto a wide array of reasons and values for why and how this is done. Social justice, accountability, community, and other such perspectives are part of the features that guide archivists in their work today. What is unique to our collective perspective is our focus on the long-term issues of documentation, seeking stability of the archival record in ways that we can clearly articulate. This is also what sets us apart from so many other disciplines, especially the constellation of information professions. Everything now seems to be based on speed, money, and change – with little concern for veracity (in this sense, the rise of journalistic fact-checking may not be an anomaly but a fundamental characteristic of our modern era). We are urged to buy the next computer with more power and greater dazzling features. What we have is never good enough, and the facts, however defined, never acceptable. Archivists look deep into the past and far into the future, as well as the present, the reason why Roman god Janus is a symbol of archives. We are searching for stability of the past, not that our understanding of it never changes, but that the raw materials allowing us to understand it can be maintained in a way that can read and interpreted when needed.

Arguing for this form of historical perspective may seem to be quite traditional, a throw back to an earlier time and different mindsets. This is not my intention. What I am suggesting us that in the midst of so many ideas, or what some have termed grand challenges, there is a common consensus floating about, one that we should be able to articulate clearly and forcibly. Whether we believe that our mission is supporting social justice or keeping public officials accountable, our main task is to identify and stabilize the core historical documentation. This does not mean we ignore the present. Indeed, crises and challenges that appear provide opportunities to discuss the archival mission. The flap about the Hillary Clinton emails and the leaking of classified government information is but one high profile example. Despite the manner in which the media tends to portray it, the classification of government records is not a science, but one that is marked by numerous variables, political issues, and other complex rationales. What is missing in all the discussion is a straightforward, rational explanation of how classification works (or doesn’t work). Archivists have the knowledge to do this, but they have been generally silent about the current political campaign issues. And we lose the opportunity to assert, in a practical way, the archival mission. How many opportunities will we get?

Archivists have discussed for decades how society values or should value them, their mission, and the materials they manage and preserve. For a long time this conversation focused on how knowledge of the past was perceived and, more practically, how historians, usually meaning academics, used archival sources and understood the work of archivists. This remains part of the continuing dialogue about the role of archives in society, but we see signs that historians and other scholars are working to understand better the nature of the archival record, what it represents, and how it survives. Some of this conversation is part of the whiny insecurity that plagues lots of professions, but it is never something that should be ignored. Self-reflection of this sort assists us to challenge ourselves to be better, more articulate advocates for what we do and even what we believe.

Does this mean that the value of archives in our society is improving or making it easier to make the case on their behalf? Quite the contrary. It seems that the recent political campaigns, both national and local, have demonstrated that the present cultural context of archives makes it harder than ever to articulate a coherent, rational argument for supporting archivists and archives. Records, and the evidence and information they contain, seem to be something they want to ignore, if at all possible. It is hard to discover any interest by any party or candidate in the veracity of their statements. Moreover, it is rare to hear or read about what candidates actually support; instead, we hear or read about the supposed flaws of their opponents and even their spouses in ways that are often distorted. Most outrageously we hear candidates and their supporters deny their own comments, even when presented with irrefutable evidence of what they have said or done. There has always been some aspect of such fantasy in our society. The recent film about the Deborah Lipstadt Holocaust denier libel case, Denial, ought to remind us of this. In an interview the historian candidly states, “There are not two sides to every story. Certain things happened. It goes against deconstructionism taken to its ridiculous end. There are those people who will say everything is changeable, interpretable. There is something for interpretation of documents. But if you carry that to its illogical conclusion, and then you add an overlay of prejudice, you end up in the world of denial. You open the doors to 9/11 conspiracy theories, to vaccines cause autism, to the claim that Sandy Hook was made up by the anti-gun people to get more anti-gun legislation. Sometimes, if your mind is too open – someone said this – your brains fall out” (Marc Parry, “A Holocaust Historian’s Trial Hits the Big Screen,” The Chronicle Review, October 14, 2016, p. B10.

How can we promote the role of archives in what seems to be an age of misinformation (not the Information Age we often lay claim to), when our brains have fallen out? Archives are strongly connected to evidence and truth, even if the meanings of such terms have shifted in seismic ways, both within and outside the profession. For an extended period, most archival scholars and commentators wrote from a perspective heavily influenced by postmodernism, enriching our perception of the nature and purposes of records, but also eroding how we viewed the evidence they contained. It seems impossible to seek support for archives and archivists when we don’t seem to believe that truth or even the perception of truth are particularly relevant. While squabbles about access to tax returns, demands to see emails, and other such issues draw attention to records, does any of it really matter? Of course the problem goes much deeper than debates about esoteric philosophical or theoretical perspectives. Records and their managers have long been associated with red tape, bureaucratic inertia, and obstacles to efficiency and economy. It is hard to mount an effective argument about anything if our work and profession is seen as an obstacle. It is also difficult to try to be an informed citizen while listening to the media argue with the political pundits, with hardly anyone ever answering a question, confirming a fact, or listening to each other.

The current political climate brings more substantial challenges to the work of archivists.as it turns out both presidential candidates are records (and ethically) challenged. Trump refuses to release his tax returns, long a custom for candidates for this office. He also will not allow access to outtakes and other materials from his reality television show “The Apprentice.” He blithely refutes every criticism, denying everything he has said or done even if presented proof about such matters. Should he win the election one wonders just what he would plan for his presidential library, already, in my opinion a troubled institution. Trump is the easy target given his thin-skinned personality that leads him to reverse regularly his comments or to characterize some as humor or locker room banter (which they are not). But we should not be any more assured with Hillary Clinton. Clinton, an experienced politician and statesperson, has long established the fact that she is no ally of archivists. Her well-publicized troubles with the State Department emails are not an aberration, nor the slippage of someone unfamiliar with the technology. In a 1992 New Yorker essay, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh quoted Clinton referring to the National Archives as a backwater, no consequence federal agency. Who needs to be concerned with it? Her continuing behavior suggests that she has not changed her mind about the value of records. Of course, she does not represent anything particularly new from the ranks of politicians. President Obama promised transparency in government, but his administration has been more secretive than most, including that of his Republican predecessor. None of this adheres to the kind of democracy envisioned by the Founders or captured in documents such as the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.

A natural response would be for archivists to throw up their hands in despair and except their lot in life, to be engaged in interesting but less than crucial work. I don’t think any of us want us to accept such a posture. We need to commit to a professional mission that challenges our society to recognize that government and other records are essential to holding individuals and institutions accountable to the citizens and that encompasses the capturing and preserving of every form of document, digital and analog, revealing miscreant politicians, business people, and others who we have entrusted ourselves. In the past couple of decades archivists have made great strides in expanding their mission – adding accountability, transparency, community, indigenous peoples’ concepts of evidence, memory, and ethics (and we can add many other concepts) to the mix of purposes. But we need to be more committed to this more complex mission and more vocal and articulate about it. As I begin to contemplate leaving my professional community of nearly forty-five years, I personally feel like it took me too long to arrive at this point of understanding my own vocation. But it is by no means too late for my students and many others to be better archival citizens. We just need to reject the soft, warm feel of being intimate with history through our records and embrace the more complicated role of documenting our present society, warts and all, risking ourselves and our programs to be more relevant.

More in the future on this topic. . . .

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone knows about the Zapruder film of President Kennedy’s assassination, and the controversy surrounding it and its ownership. Ine Gayle Nix Jackson, The Missing JFK Assassination Film: The Mystery Surrounding the Orville Nix Movie of November 22, 1963 (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2014) describes another, lesser-known film of the event. This chatty memoir, the author is Nix’s granddaughter, describes the nature of a film that has been missing for forty years (there are copies available) and raises questions about how federal agencies handled evidence about this murder. The book avoids wallowing in conspiracy theories, and it will be of interest to archivists and others interested in home movies and other film.

It used to be the case that keeping current with the professional and scholarly literature on archives, records, and related issues meant keeping track of a few journals, the publishing programs of professional associations, and a modest array of professional and scholarly publishers. That is no longer the case, as can be seen by book advertisements in the recent issue (September/October/November 2016) of BookForum. Below is a brief assessment of some interesting publications featured in this issue, mindful of the fact that I have not actually read any of these books.

English publisher Prestel is releasing in October (in the United States, November) John Z. Komurki, ed., Stationery Fever: From Paperclips to Pencils and Everything in Between, another homage to our love with paper and our increasing interest in collecting the artifacts from earlier information ages. The publisher’s website states, “Stationery Fever showcases the plethora of retro and fine office goods being produced and sold around the world. Organized like your favorite stationery store—pencils, pens, notebooks, erasers, greeting cards, school supplies, etc.—it features exquisitely photographed objects that transcend the decades since laptops took over most of our office needs. Each chapter highlights distinct objects and features a store that specializes in that category. Along the way, readers will learn the history of the lined notebook, the proper way to sharpen a pencil, and the story of how postcards came to be.”

Book burning, the deliberate destruction of texts, has had a long and infamous history. The University of Chicago Press recently published Kenneth Baker’s On the Burning of Books: How Flames Fail to Destroy the Written Word. It is a testament to the resilience of texts, even in an age when we persistently predict the end of the print book. The publisher’s description provides a glimpse into the rich history of such activities: “In On the Burning of Books, Baker explores famous moments throughout history when books have been burnt for political, religious, or personal reasons. Included among his investigations are stories from ancient China to the Nazis, from George Orwell’s Animal Farm to Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, from Chairman Mao to the Spanish destruction of the Aztec civilization. Baker describes Samuel Pepys burning an erotic novel, and the personal fires of Lord Byron’s memoirs, Dickens’s letters, Hardy’s poems, and Philip Larkin’s diaries. Alongside these many examples are chapters on accidental book burning—and even lucky escapes.”

MIT Press, long a publisher of important books on information science and technology, recently released a volume on the symbolism of libraries edited by Anna-Sophie Springer and Etienne Turpin. According to the publisher, “Fantasies of the Library lets readers experience the library anew. The book imagines, and enacts, the library as both keeper of books and curator of ideas–as a platform of the future.” “The book includes an essay on the institutional ordering principles of book collections; a conversation with the proprietors of the Prelinger Library in San Francisco; reflections on the role of cultural memory and the archive; and a dialogue with a new media theorist about experiments at the intersection of curatorial practice and open source ebooks. The reader emerges from this book-as-exhibition with the growing conviction that the library is not only a curatorial space but a bibliological imaginary, ripe for the exploration of consequential paginated affairs.” This is a reminder that the library, along with the printed book, is not dead or useless even in the digital era.

The pervasiveness and significance of writing is the subject of a new book from the University of Toronto Press. Laurence de Looze, The Letter and the Cosmos: How the Alphabet Has Shaped the Western View of the World examines “how the alphabet has served as a lens through which we conceptualize the world and how the world, and sometimes the whole cosmos, has been perceived as a kind of alphabet itself. Beginning with the ancient Greeks, he traces the use of alphabetic letters and their significance from Plato to postmodernism, offering a fascinating tour through Western history.”

So, the historical perspective and the sense of the value of texts and documents remains vibrant, at least in terms of scholarship, even if in many iSchools and library and information science programs it seems otherwise.