Memory and Records

 Memory and Records 

Terry Cook’s essays discuss the relevance, importance and evolution of The Archivist throughout the last two centuries and stepping into the dawning of the 21^st century. While both essays raise important points and questions – from who creates history, who stores and catalogues history, and even brushing up on what history is (documents, catalogues, oral histories, etc.), as well as discussing the evolution of ethics for archivists – there is a growth in discussion between the different essays. 

Cook’s essays touch on the flexibility of Archivists and the meaning of the title through the last two centuries, discussing the theorists in the different fields in Western Archivist theory and giving readers examples of the theories put to use in the fields. The early rigidity of the supposed responsibilities gives way to a modern day flexibility which acknowledges that history is complicated and messy, what was once not considered record of ‘evidence’ (such as oral reports and even histories weaved into songs and languages), now is in demand as new information and light is cast on communities that were once marginalized, ignored and even the target for systemic erasure or destruction. This demand, nay fury, for voices from the groups arises from the modern conception of records and record keeping and Cook touches on this masterfully in “Evidence, Memory, Identity and Community: Four Shifting Archival Paradigms.” One especially important point that she touches on is the importance of community record keeping, of memory, especially in communities where there is little to no trust in established, federal or state governmental archive.

The combination of this lack of trust in Federal and state archives, as well as the influx in records now available, leads to two important points in record keeping: embracing community efforts in archiving and stepping into a technological age. To pen Cook, who borrowed the quote from archivist theorist Hugh Taylor, If we do not embrace new methods of the digital era, we become “fossils floating in stagnant backwaters of irreverence.”