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archives, history, and fondling the wrong things



This thread on history and archives concerns me, with statements such as
"But that's the thrill of it all. Preserving these important documents for
centuries so that future people like us can fondle 'em!" and "handling the
collections, one can get the most profound sense of connection to our
amazing past and political history."  While history is critical as part of
archival knowledge, these kind of statements throw us back into the
antiquarian swamps.  Certainly, handling an original document, especially
one of some importance, may bring a certain thrill, but it is the
responsibility of administering archives for accountability and evidence
that are the far more important issues.  Besides, our biggest challenges
reside with digital media, something a bit harder to fondle (at least, I
hope so).  For more of my thoughts on this, you can read my "Declarations,
Independence, and Text in the Information Age" at
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_6/rjcox/index.html.

My initial interest in archives generated from my own interest in history
(as can be seen in the preface to my 1990 book AMERICAN ARCHIVAL ANAYLSIS
and in my forthcoming book from Greenwood CLOSING AN ERA: HISTORICAL
ESSAYS ON ARCHIVES AND RECORDS MANAGEMENT), but I expanded my interests
because of the much greater value of archives as evidence than as
historical relics or artifacts.

Richard J. Cox
Professor
Department of Library and Information Sciences
School of Information Sciences
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Voice:  412-624-3245
FAX:    412-648-7001
e-mail: rcox@mail.sis.pitt.edu
homepage: http://www.lis.pitt.edu/~rjc

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