Meeting #11: Remembering the Future

When: Wednesday, December 3, 2008, 4-5 PM.

Where: Sterling Memorial Library room 409

Text under discussion:

Terry Cook, "Remembering the Future: Appraisal of Records and the Role of Archives in Constructing Social Memory," in Frances X. Blouin, Jr. and William G. Rosenberg, editors, Archives, Documentation and Institutions of Social Memory: Essays from the Sawyer Seminar, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006, pages 169-181. wk9_cook_remembering.pdf

Discussion leader:

Bill Landis 

Terry Cook offers some very chewy food for thought on the role that archivists--and other custodians of source materials in cultural heritage  institutions/collections such as archives, libraries, and museums--play in shaping, whether tacitly or explicitly, the fodder available to scholars and other researchers engaged in social memory projects. He looks specifically at the impact of archival appraisal, the process by which archivists select materials of enduring value for retention in archival collections. He considers, as examples, macroappraisal and the notion of 'total archives' as they have played out in a specifically Canadian context, which opens a space for fruitful discussion of this topic even for those of us who work in instutions where these concepts may not be overtly useful in thinking about what we do. Hope you can join us for the discussion!