The chapter I found the most intriguing was Kathryn J. Oberdeck’s “Archives of the Unbuilt Environment: Documents and Discourses of Imagined Space in Twentieth-Century Kohler, Wisconsin.” The tensions between the planned community that Kohler put together with urban planners in order to control the sprawling industrial village before it got too out of hand, and the actual community that emerged can only be seen by comparing the intent with the actual result. That would be comparing the plans (and there were many of them) to the actual built environment. Today, the community serves as a golf resort... quite a bit different from the original intent of housing industrial workers who built the expensive faucets for Kohler. Oberdeck lamented how archivists put the papers related to planned environments at a low priority due to the greater emphasis on papers that proved the existence of buildings that had actually been built. Understandably, archivists had assumed that papers on an imagined community would not be as applicable to history as documentation of what actually happened.
This book serves as a guide for anyone interested in visiting or using an archive. There is even a chapter that addresses digital archives, but the main focus is on physical, domestic archives and the experiences historians have had in both positive and negative ways. Oberdeck’s chapter was the most challenging to me, since I agreed with the archivists at first, until Oberdeck demonstrates that yes, documentation of planned communities, even if they physically manifest into something else, are important to historical research when coming from a more abstract methodology. Historians need these documents to get at how idealistic urban planning actually played out in a realistic economic, and social environment. So according to Oberdeck, do not throw anything out! Even if you think it is unimportant, future historians may find intriguing ways to reevaluate history through these seemingly “useless” documents. Now, this may cause a huge back up in document storage, but how can you make accurate and objective value judgments on history?
If you take the "Intro to Archives" class with Gerard Clark, during the first meeting, he will tell you that the best part of being an archivist is that you get to decide what makes it into history. As an archivist, you decide, following the collection policy, retention policies, and so forth, what the archive maintains and what it eventually deassessions, if it gets to that point. From experiences at the State Archives, the World War II Institute, and Heritage Protocol, archives seem to follow your idea to keep everything. I share in this sentiment to some extent as well. You never know when material may become of historical significance.
ReplyDeleteFor me, this is the biggest issue in archives. Professor Koslow mentioned multiple times in class that it is about maintaining records of enduring value. How does an archivist, a professional who lacks future hindsight, determine what has historical significance? For a majority of cases, the significance of a document is apparent, or not. To agree with you, if the significance is difficult to determine, save it especially if resources are not an issue.