Archives: Clarity and Construction

The archive can be a site of profound knowledge production, leading one through a maze of the past in hopes of configuring a narrative of clarity. But as one falls into this information rabbit hole, one may realize this monument of “historically just knowledge” is built upon reconstructions through perspectives of subjective interpreters. But what constitutes one importance from another? It’s like the old idiom, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and in the case of the archive, archival holdings begin to unravel through this distinction. I’ve seen this subjective organization first hand in the Special Collections Library at AMNH, sifting through decades of interpreter’s perceptions of hierarchical importance’s. But I am yet another interpreter in the course of blurred histories. Will there ever be a light at the end of this tunnel? And is it the archivist’s contemporary responsibility to bring clarity to these histories?

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  • Thanks for highlighting the multiple determinations of archival *value*, James! I hope we’ll have more opportunities in our class discussions to address your experiences at the AMNH!

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