This document discusses theories of collective memory and the role of archives in preserving memory. It examines how archives shape collective memory by selecting what materials to preserve from the past. The document calls for archives to make efforts to include underrepresented groups and topics to provide a more complete record of history. It also highlights challenges such as appraising materials related to tragic events and initiatives by organizations to locate endangered documentation from periods like the Holocaust.
4. The Memory Metaphor
Why do we have archives?
Metaphor of archives and collective memory
going hand in hand
Material objects and documents linked to
interaction and communication between humans
Tangible objects are valued higher than oral
histories
4
5. Two Modes of Memory
Primary or Functional
Mode
Secondary or Storage
Mode
Information we keep to
reflect upon or use
―Archiving the future.
again in is not about
history looking
backward, but about
storing and securing for
the future.‖
5
–Eric Ketelaar
6. Collective Memory
Emile Durkheim,
The Elementary
Forms of the
Religious Life
(1912).
Coined the
phrase ―collective
consciousness‖
6
7. Collective Memory
Maurice
Halbwachs, The
Social Frameworks of
Memory (1925). Pupil
of Durkheim.
―It is in society that
people normally
acquire their
memories. It is also in
society that they
recall, recognize, and
localize their
7
memories.‖
8. Ministry of Truth
George Orwell, 1984
Employees rewrite
history and falsify
records
Doublethink
"And if all others
accepted the lie which
the Party imposed-if all
records told the same
tale-then the lie passed
into history and became
truth. 'Who controls the
past' ran the Party
slogan, 'controls the
8
future: who controls the
9. Collective Memory
In the 1970s, historian
Howard Zinn publicly
spoke out about his
discontent with
archives
Believed there was an
incomplete
representation of
minority social groups
9
10. ―History is written by the victors‖
Since Roman and
medieval times, leaders
have asserted their
authority through
documentation
Only the upper classes
were educated, they were
the ones being recorded
In choosing to preserve
one memory, others are
not
10
11. Documentation Gap
Underdogs are still
not having their voices
heard
Women, ethnic
minorities, the poor,
LGBT community,
political extremists
Some groups have
begun to create own
historical record
―Archival activism‖-Ian
Johnston
11
12. Orwell on the Documentation
Gap
"It will never be "When I think of
possible to get a antiquity, the detail
completely accurate that frightens me is
and unbiased account that those hundreds
of the Barcelona of millions of slaves
fighting, because the on whose backs
necessary records do civilization rested
not exist. Future generation after
historians will have generation have left
nothing to go upon behind them no
except a mass of record whatever.―—
accusations and party Homage to Catalonia
12 propaganda.‖—A
13. ―Take the trouble to compile a
whole new world of documentary
material, about the lives, desires,
needs, of ordinary people." This
would help ensure "that the
condition, the grievances, the will of
the underclasses become a force in
the nation.‖
13 Howard Zinn, Secrecy, Archives,
14. Houses of Memory
Jean-Pierre Wallot,
former National
Archivist of Canada,
President of the Royal
Society of Canada
Coined the term
―houses of memory‖ in
1991 Presidential
address
Archivist‘s role to be
the ―keys to collective
memory‖
14
15. ―As for archivists, they carry a
heavy burden. They hold the keys
to the collective memory. In this
world of superficiality and ‗instant‘
everything, they must, more than
ever before, develop the treasures
of our ‗houses of memory.‘‖
Jean-Pierre Wallot, Building a
15
Living Memory for the History of
16. The Archival Temple
Control of archivists over Those that are kept are
social/collective memory given more value
Inside the temple there Lasting impact on society
are records about human ―We are what we collect,
civilization and we choose we collect what we are.‖—
which of those we want to Elizabeth Kaplan
keep
16
17. Appraising Difficult Topics
Easier to leave tragic events in the past than to
remember them
Reason‘s behind the tragedy and players in it dictate
what is remembered
Documentation destruction and revision to destroy
memories
Effacement of documentation occurs through a
variety of mediums, especially architectural
―Features recalled with pride are apt to be
safeguarded against erosion and vandalism; those
that reflect shame may be ignored or expunged from
the landscape.‖-David Lowenthal, Past
17
Time, Present Place: Landscape and Memory, 1975.
22. Virginia Tech Massacre Archive
Had over 87,000
items
Many items were not
good candidates for
preservation
Library of Congress
consultants assisted
in choosing only 5%
of total items for the
archive
Focus on appraising
objects that exhibited
the act of mourning
22
and bringing people
23. Virginia Tech Massacre Archive
23
A gift of 33,000 paper cranes were mailed to VT
days after the shooting.
27. United States Holocaust Museum
International Archival Programs
Goal is to locate Division
Holocaust-related
unpublished archival
collections
World-wide effort
Believed that only 20%
of Holocaust
documentation has
been discovered
Museum‘s Archives has
almost 42 million pages
of documentation so far
Items considered
endangered because of
27
the subject matter
28. United States Holocaust Museum
International Archival Programs
Division
28
Many times documents are in a horrible condition when
recovered because of their age and improper storage
29. Selection Criteria
1.Time
2.Place
3.People
4.Subject and theme
5.Form and style
29
30. Conclusion
Identifying the value of a record based upon
cultural memory is an important part of appraisal
Opportunities to improve in digital age?
―Those who tell the stories rule society.‖-Plato
30
Notes de l'éditeur
MnemosyneMnemosyne is the Greek goddess of memory, but tends to only be known as the Mother of the Muses. Memory was incredibly important to the Greeks until the written word was invented. Interestingly enough, Mnemosyne became relatively obsolete in light of this and there are not many known myths about her except for this one. After the Greek god Zeus waged war against the Titans and became the leader of the Olympians, he feared that the stories of his success would eventually be forgotten despite his immortality. He sought out Mnemosyne, slept with her, and months later she gave birth for nine daughters on nine consecutive days. These daughters were called the Muses. Sharon Turnbull, “Memory and the Goddess,” The Goddess Path, June 2004, 18 edition, http://www.goddess-gift.com/goddess_gift_book/goddess-Jun04.htm.
Why do we have archives? One of the reasons we maintain archives is because they tend to go hand in hand with a society’s collective memory. This reason tends to be used metaphorically, opposed to an archive’s other uses, such as for research, education, and documentation. It is generally agreed upon that material objects and documents are directly linked to the interaction between humans. These objects are more valuable than oral history to most people and can be passed down through generations, such as a citizenship certificate or wedding ring.
When it comes to external memory, there are two modes: primary and secondary memory also known as functional and storage memory, respectively. Storage memory refers to the information we keep in order to be able to reflect upon or use again in the future. “Archiving is not about history looking backward, but about storing and securing for the future,” says archivist Eric Ketelaar, “Archiving has always been directed towards transmitting human activity and experience through time…and space.” As human beings bring together all of their stored memories, we end up with something called collective memory.Eric Ketelaar, “Archival Temples, Archival Prisons: Modes of Power and Protection,” Archival Science 2 (2002): 232–233.
When tracing the history behind the idea of collective memory, it is likely that Emile Durkheim was the man who set the concept into motion, as he is credited with the term ‘collective consciousness.’ Durkheim was a French sociologist and is largely regarded as the father of modern sociology. His popular book, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, explored the social impact on a community unified by a system of beliefs.Jeffrey K. Olick, “Collective Memory,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (Macmillan Reference USA, November 2007), 7–8, http://www.virginia.edu/sociology/publications/faculty%20articles/OlickArticles/galecm.pdf.
Maurice Halbwachs was a student of Emile Durkheim. He believed that memory comes from how the minds of society work together. Memories are best kept as a group, he said. Since it is impossible for every person to remember everything that has happened to them, group involvements help to keep memories alive or forgotten. It is even possible that through these group memberships you might collect memories of events that you were not even a part of, just merely listening to others recount them is enough to believe you did actually experience them yourself. Additionally, he discerns between historical memory and collective memory, saying that history is the “remembered past to which we no longer have an “organic” relation—the past that is no longer an important part of our lives—while collective memory is the active past that forms our identities.”Jeffrey K. Olick, “Collective Memory,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (Macmillan Reference USA, November 2007), 7–8, http://www.virginia.edu/sociology/publications/faculty%20articles/OlickArticles/galecm.pdf.
In 1948, George Orwell wrote his chilling prediction of the world’s future in his novel 1984. Here, Orwell’s character Winston is an employee of the Ministry of Truth. It is here where history if being rewritten and events revised so that the idea of doublethink is instilled for control. Doublethink is when you can believe and disbelieve in one idea at the same time, making Winston believe in the falsified content of records that he wrote himself. It is impossible for the workers to trust their own memory and the records become true because the workers believe in them. "And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed-if all records told the same tale-then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"George Orwell, Chapter 3, 1984 (Signet Classics, 1950).
In the 1970s the historian Howard Zinn accused archivists of not collecting a diverse selection of documents. Zinn said that archivists tended to preserve records created by dominant social groups instead of those created by less powerful groups. This has resulted in an incomplete representation of minority groups.“What is at stake in struggles for control over objects and the modes of exhibitingthem, finally, is the articulation of identity. Exhibitions represent identity, eitherdirectly, through assertion, or indirectly, by implication. When cultural ‘others’are implicated, exhibitions tell us who we are and, perhaps most significant, whowe are not.”-Ivan Karp Zinn’s argument illustrates the notion of a documentation gap. “If archivists choose to preserve one memory, they forfeit the resources—human, physical, and financial—to preserve another,” says Katie Shilton and Ramesh Srinivasan in their essay Participatory Appraisal and Arrangement for Multicultural Archival Collections. Its highly regarded among archivists that one of their responsibilities is to preserve a wide variety of cultural materials. Still, not much has changed since the 1970s and the history of particular communities is being lost along the way. Archivists may also get faulted for not seeing the importance of those ethnic collections because they may not recognize a localized record or understand the importance of a cultural narrative. Ever since the ancient civilizations began to document their own history, there has been a trend of overlooking marginalized groups in society. This began as an inherent belief that only the history of powerful elite should be preserved, and even though today we see how unethical that approach is, we have still done little in the way of giving a voice to the underdogs. Some members of poorly documented groups have decided to just go about preserving their own materials themselves. They have built archives and museums dedicated to their community’s history. Others have gone back and tried to document communities that are missing a historical record. Ian Johnston’s theory of “archival activism” calls for archival leaders to work alongside those minority groups in order to understand their culture and the best way to represent them in the archive.Ivan Karp, “Culture and Representation,” in Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, ed. Samuel D. Lavine (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), 15.Katie Shilton and Ramesh Srinivasan, “Participatory Appraisal and Arrangement for Multicultural Archival Collections,” Archivaria 63 (Spring 2007): 92–93.Foote, “To Remember and Forget: Archives, Memory, and Culture,” 391.
In 1991, the former National Archivist of Canada and President of the Royal Society of Canada, Jean-Pierre Wallot, coined the term “houses of memory” during an address to the ICA. This term referred to archives as a place where treasures of our past are resting and that it was the archivist’s role to be the “keys to [that] collective memory.”“As for archivists, they carry a heavy burden. They hold the keys to the collective memory. In this world of superficiality and ‘instant’ everything, they must, more than ever before, develop the treasures of our ‘houses of memory.’”Allis Bastian Jeannette, “In a ‘House of Memory’: Discovering the Provenance of Place,” Archival Issues 28, no. 1 (2003): 10.Jean-Pierre Wallot, “Building a Living Memory for the History of Our Present: New Perspectives on Archival Appraisal,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 2, no. 1 (1991): 282.
The Archival Temple is a term which refers to the control archivists have over social/collective memory. Inside the temple there are records about human civilization and as we choose which records of those to keep, we are also choosing which ones have more value. “Archivists need to realize that appraisal is part of a larger process of building memory and a process of connecting to other societal events related to the past,” says Richard Cox. Additionally, Cox writes that archivist’s role in preserving societal memory should affect “the identification of what records should reside within the archives or be designated as archival in value.” The choice of what we keep and what we do not forever has an impact on society. “We are what we collect,” says Elizabeth Kaplan, “[and] we collect what we are.”Jean-Pierre Wallot, “Building a Living Memory for the History of Our Present: New Perspectives on Archival Appraisal,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 2, no. 1 (1991): 282.
Dark events in history have a tendency to be eradicated from our memory. Kenneth Foote says that it is easier for humans to leave tragic events in the past instead of preserving their memory. Depending on the value of the event, it might be more appropriate to build a memorial in an attempt to warn future generations from repeating the past, such as the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. If the violence of the event was warranted without reason, the chances of preserving documents and artifacts from it are rare. There are many examples of this situation occurring. In Salem, Massachusetts there is no factual evidence of where the accused witches were executed. After 1692 many witnesses of the trials withdrew their statements against the victims, shameful of their past. If you go to Salem today you can visit alleged locations of the trials and executions, but all oral and written history is lost. Another example of effacement is in Berlin, Germany. After the fall of the Nazi regime, many buildings related to the Nazi’s power, such as Spandau prison, libraries, and galleries were destroyed. Kenneth E. Foote, “To Remember and Forget: Archives, Memory, and Culture,” American Archivist 53 (Summer 1990): 384–387.
Kenneth E. Foote, “To Remember and Forget: Archives, Memory, and Culture,” American Archivist 53 (Summer 1990)
Kenneth E. Foote, “To Remember and Forget: Archives, Memory, and Culture,” American Archivist 53 (Summer 1990)
Kenneth E. Foote, “To Remember and Forget: Archives, Memory, and Culture,” American Archivist 53 (Summer 1990)
Kenneth E. Foote, “To Remember and Forget: Archives, Memory, and Culture,” American Archivist 53 (Summer 1990)
Virginia Tech assembled an archive detailing the April 16, 2007 shooting on their campus in which 32 people were left dead. This archive of over 87,000 items was developed with the help of consultants from the Library of Congress and was put into the works only days after the shootings. People from all over the world sent gifts and tokens of their condolences to Tech, most notably a gift of 33,000 paper cranes. However, many of the items were not chosen to be preserved due to their medium, like the 32 cakes that were sent, one to honor each victim. With such a tragic subject to address, having to throw away any item of support at all was heartbreaking, but the Library of Congress recommended that only 5 percent of the physical objects that were received be kept. Brent Jesiek, manager of the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture at Tech, has cited many challenges in assembling an archive of this nature and choosing the items to be preserved. “One of the challenges we’ve had with the archive, especially in the immediate aftermath, is a lot of people wanted to view it as a memorial, as a tribute site,” he said. “And in a way it is. But it is not just that. We’ve tried to be very agnostic in the type of material we collect,” such as a comic strip series chronicling SeungHui Cho’s struggles. In all, the team decided to put their focus on the archive as a research project, as a repository for exhibiting the act of mourning and bring people together.Theresa Vargas, “Preserving the Outpouring of Grief,” Washington Post (Washington, DC, August 19, 2007), sec. Metro, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/18/AR2007081800588.html.“Virginia Tech April 16, 2007 Archives of the University Libraries,” Virginia Tech Digital Library and Archives, n.d., http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/prevail/index.html.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.’s International Archival Programs Division (IAPD) work to locate unpublished archival collections from around the world that are evidential of the Holocaust and its impact. This evidence is considered endangered due to the subject matter. The IAPD team travels the world acquiring these materials, no easy task because many of it is hidden within government repositories, private corporations, Jewish communities, and individual personal collections. Professor Raul Hilberg, an accomplished Holocaust researcher, asserts that only 20 percent of Holocaust documentation has been discovered so far. As the IAPD has progressed, they have become an agency of the U.S. Government and have gained access to previously restricted areas. Many times when documents are discovered they are in terrible condition due to their age and improper storage. Currently the Museum’s Archives have almost 42 million pages of documentation and all are available to researchers. According to their website they state that part of the importance of this project is because “archival evidence is a fundamental resource for confronting Holocaust denial, contemporary anti-Semitism, and racist ideology, as well as for challenging national myths about the Holocaust.RaduIoanid, “International Archival Acquisitions,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d., http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/acquisitions/.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Memory of the World Programme was created to preserve, create access, and increase awareness of the world’s documentary heritage. The program began in 1992 and is overseen by the International Advisory Committee (IAC). When an item is selected to be part of the Memory of the World Register it has to go up against a series of guidelines. It is prefaced in the guidelines that there is “no absolute measure of cultural significance.” Its first test is that of authenticity. Next the IAC has to be sure that the item is of world significance through how unique or irreplaceable the item is and the level of impact the item created on the world, whether that is positive or negative. Third, it must satisfy at least one or more of the following five criterions: accurately reflects the time it was created, the place of its creation, document a major development in human history, representative of a historical or intellectual subject or theme, and/or an aesthetic appeal. Additionally, the item will be evaluated on its rarity, integrity, threat of extinction, and management plan.“Programme Objectives,” UNESCO Memory of the World, 2011 1995, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/flagship-project-activities/memory-of-the-world/homepage/.Ray Edmondson, ed., “Memory of the World General Guidelines to Safeguard Documentary Heritage” (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s Information Society Division, Revised edition 2002), 21–23, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001256/125637e.pdf.
I have argued here that there is a need for archivists to appraise documents that cover a wide range of civilizations, movements, and people. I have also said that I think we have a long way to go before we see any sort of improvement in the area. However, there are little embers of progress out there that will hopefully catch fire before it is too late. More archivists these days are deciding to preserve documents that touch on such areas as women and ethnic minorities, the impoverished, the LGBT community, or political extremists. Documenting these groups is not an easy process and a lot of times it will end up to be subjective upon the archivist. We might not know who owns a group’s history. For example, many objects and materials belonging to Native Americans are for their use only, so we must respect those cultural artifacts and be open-minded about how to best preserve them. Minority groups have started to set about creating their own historical record that has been denied to them for so long, but if they are focusing on their past, who is focusing on their future? If we do not make changes here, there will never truly be justice or an understanding of where human beings have been.Jimerson, “Embracing the Power of Archives.”