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Re: Where's the Archives content?



Title: Where's the Archives content?
Here's some archival related questions / points to ponder related to the responses to the 9/11 incident. Please don't all come down on me for these ponderings. Think of them mostly as rhetorical, but if anyone has had experience with it, maybe some light could be shed as to the impact of this on archives. :)
 
Let me start off by saying that I got frustrated with the news & only now catch drips & drabs of the latest developments.
 
That said, I think I'll start with the news. Lately the trend has been to have 24hr coverage of a breaking event whether there is anything new to say or not. We've seen it before, and we saw it with this event. It got to the point where falsities were coming out in the news simply because the reporters ran with a tidbit & it grew out of control. Archives link: when we as archivists get this in, how should we handle it? Do we preserve the stories (incorrect as well as truth) to document society at the time or do we weed out the falsities that the media later corrected? If we keep it in, do we make a note somewhere as to the phenomenon of the media making news when there is nothing new to report? Do we clarify how they got the false information? Or do we just save it & hope for the future historians to sort it all out? (said as a history major)
 
What I've heard is talk about the possibility of making it easier for the government to monitor people in the hopes of catching terrorists & trying to stop attacks before they happen. While I'm sure this may sound good to some & like the loss of freedom to others, what would happen to this information that is gathered? I'm still a newbie to records management and gov't documents, but don't most gov't documents have to see the light of day at some point (even if it's 150 yrs from now)?
 
There's also talk of restricting what gets talked / written about (not necessarily from govt). If this happens, who makes sure the other side is told? What do we as archivists end up with in our collections as documenting this time in history?
 
Another possible impact is the information we give out. Say someone wants to look at the blueprint of xyz building & very convincingly makes the case that they are doing research for something or other. Do they still get to see the blueprint? What if they end up using that information to do harm rather than the research they said they were doing. We can only do so much, but the call seems to be leaning towards treating everyone as a suspect until you or they can prove otherwise.
 
If we do get involved in a military war, and fighting does occur on US soil, what can we as archivists do to protect our collection? Just as WWI marked a huge change in the way wars were fought, I believe a war with terrorists will have a similar huge change in the way it is fought. We all know how slow it is to get funding to do projects. If we do need to take action to protect our collections, how do we raise the money to do that without adding to the fear that is making people hold tightly to their money? How would we convince them that this is something to spend their money on? What types of actions would we take? Store things underground? This would add a new dimension to the disaster plans we all have - what to do if under attack. Like one archivist from NY mentioned about dealing with all the dust & debris. Everyone thinks of water & fire, but who thinks of inches of dust or high winds or explosions?
 
Granted, this is just stream of conscious pondering. Has anyone else thought of these types of things? Or do we still suffer from the "It won't happen here" syndrome. I know I'm battling that now. Having grown up in Ohio, I know I still think of tragedies like what happened on 9/11/01 only happen in coastal, major cities. Let's face it, while Ohio is so much more than cornfields, what would be accomplished by a similar attack here? Yet, if a full-fledged war breaks out, who's to say that attacks wouldn't come at the heart of our country? Wouldn't it become the logical place to strike terror? At the 'under-belly'?
 
Honestly, I am not paranoid. People around me may actually think I'm too laid-back about the whole thing because that is the only way I can deal with it all. But these questions have passed through my mind, and if the old adage is true, if they passed through one mind, they probably passed through someone else's.
 
Is there anyone from another country that would have something to contribute about how their archives (small or large) deals with some of these issues?
 
Thanks for the space. Feel free to delete. :)
Bridgette Kelly
(on her own on this one.)