Kim,
I'm not sure how rhetorical your question was, but it's the kind of query that gets my compulsive juices flowing (one graduate course in historiography just adds fuel to the fire). To my mind, humans - or at least a subspecies - are driven to understand
as much about the human condition as possible. It seems to be related to
our fear of the unknown. Since we cannot know the future (at least our
subspecies doubts this possible with any certainty), and are usually doomed/fortunate
to live in the present
Those of us who attended the RBMS Preconference in Washington two years ago spent an interesting morning at the Library of Congress examining the question, "If we are unable to preserve all materials with historical value, then how do we identify what will be of interest to researchers in the future?" The answer to this question would presumably allow us to better serve researchers, our archives, and our civilization. This is a curious mixture of the past, present, and future. Perhaps the real reason we had that provocative and exhilarating discussion had more to do with our own desires for a (false) sense of security than any lofty, service-oriented goal. Oops, I guess my own wind filled my sails. Thanks for the chance to
divert and delude my mind with a little episode of 'knowing' the
unknown. Starts Friday off on an upbeat note.
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