Selection and Appraisal Practices Position

By Shane Majors, 26 April 2024

Introduction

“…there is not one narrative in a series or collection of records, but many narratives, many stories, serving many purposes for many audiences, across time and space.” (Cook, 2001)

As archivists, it’s paramount to think spherically when collecting; how we collect is just as important as what we collect. The postmodern approach calls for transparency and accountability of the work of the archivist and archive. It also strives for inclusivity; collecting the whole story versus that of the privileged. This, the postmodern approach, aligns with my personal philosophy and is the practice I would follow in my professional career. Through finding myself I have understood from an early age the importance of being seen and having a visible place in society, and through this understanding I see myself working in a special collection or community archive so I can bring other’s stories and voices to light especially in this current climate of cavalier bigotry and overt suppression.

Motivation

“To be symbolically annihilated is to be an eternal outsider…In the wake of this absence, marginalized communities fail to see themselves or their places in the world.” (Caswell et al., 2016)

Since I was thirteen years old, I’ve been researching my family’s story, uncovering truths that had been lost and narratives my family had forgotten. I liked the feeling of giving a voice to my ancestors and revealing the life that existed in the dash mark between their birth and death dates. But there was another part of myself that I couldn’t find. Growing up gay in the 90’s wasn’t nearly as bad as say the 1950’s but there was still plenty of stigma, shame, and embarrassment around it. In high school when Will and Grace premiered, I remember feeling excited and seen; for the first time there was a reflection of me represented on tv, regardless of the stereotypes portrayed, and the following year I came out. However, I felt this ever-present void; I was able to find the genetic half of myself, but my contemporaneous other self lacked historical narrative kin to not knowing where you came from and who your people were, it was not knowing the history of those like me.

Like any marginalized group, extant documentation is fragmented, it’s kept in personal collections, crammed in a drawer or tossed haphazardly in a box – if it survived at all. Take for example the early 19th century diarist Anne Lister (1791-1840). Now known as the first modern Lesbian, her story was almost destroyed. A portion of her journals were written in code and in 1890, John Lister, a distant relative, and his fried Arthur Burrell attempted to decipher her secret writing. When they succeeded and began to understand its striking sexual content, John Lister was urged to burn the diaries (Shannon n.d.). An antiquarian, John secured them behind an oak panel which is ultimately how Anne’s story survived. Whatever his motivation was for saving her diaries, he prevented her from becoming just another footnote in the long history of Shibden Hall.

But how many other journals, letters and photographs ended up in the fireplace? This has led to a disjointed history, leaving us to collect whatever evidence can be found, stitching the pieces together like a crazy quilt to create some semblance of a composition or in this case something to resemble history. I’ve always been a collector, especially of photography, and in the years after high school I started to search for imagery of gay existence. I didn’t think a repository for gay culture existed, and if it did, I had no way of accessing it, and so I felt the same responsibility to give voice to the gay experience as I had done with my own family. There’s a power to discovering yourself, finding your existence and experiences documented – it’s validation (Caswell et al., 2016) and my collecting became a subversive way to find myself and at the same time preserve Gay history.

Postmodern Approach

“Postmodernism is an opening, not a closing, a chance to welcome a wider discussion about what archivists do and why…” (Cook, 2001).

The archaic notion of the archivist’s role as solely a “keeper” is an illusion. It’s naive to think that they play little to no role in the life of the records they oversee, but from the very beginning of the archivist’s work, that of selecting and appraising, they become the editors of history. The postmodern archivist would take ownership of the processes and recognize that they determine who and what is going to be remembered at same time be cognizant of who and what is going to be excluded, asking themselves why and then create strategies and criteria to help prevent or at least mitigate exclusions (Cook, 2001). An archivist should be transparent and self-reflective about what they do; it is their responsibility to assess their work and question their decisions and motivations and to document such decisions within the record descriptions so future researchers can better understand the context of the collections and why certain decisions were made. As the records live in the custody of the repository, description would be continually transformed, shaped, and improved by the users of the records therefore refining their context “which would in turn, open up a wealth of content information…” (Cook, 2001).

In his book, A Manual for Archive Administration, Sir Hillary Jenkinson states, “It is not his business to deal with questions of policy…he will doubtless take an intelligent interest in such subjects, but as an archivist he is not concerned with them, they are questions for Historians, Politicians, Administrators; whom, at most, he may advise.” His unsettling advice of encouraging passivity and asking the archivist to become detached discredits the legitimacy of both the archivist and archives and example upon example can be found where policy was written and rewritten to the benefit of the governing, where records were purposely excluded or simply destroyed, where voices were silenced, and peoples erased. But beyond the irreputable reputation of the repository, is the damage done to society, to the people – with no documentation, you can lay no claims because you never existed. Verne Harris explains, “the archive is politics – not that it’s political but that it is politics.” He continues by saying that being
impartial is playing the role of the pawn by those in power. The postmodern archivist must become an advocate for change in the biased and exclusionary practices of their predecessors and defend access to records and promote inclusivity or, Harris concludes, “then [archivists] turn their backs on higher callings and condemn themselves to being merely bureaucrats and functionaries.” (Harris).

Examples of governments trying to control access to records is neither new nor foreign – it’s not something that happened in the past, but it’s right in our present. During the George W. Bush administration, access to government records was severely reduced when Attorney General John Ashcroft released a memorandum “authorizing federal agencies to deny Freedom of Information Act requests and the removal of certain information from agency websites on the claim of national security” (Jimerson, 2007). In 2001 George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13233 limiting access to the papers of former presidents which was met with harsh criticism from the Society of American Archivists and other organizations who believed in an open government (that executive order was struck down by Barack Obama in 2009). Archives and archivists should speak out in defense of an open government and access to records. The Society of American Archivists actively monitors proposed legislation concerning records management and advocates for change and updates to current legislation.

The term activist archivist was coined by Howard Zinn in 1970 during the Society of American Archivists annual meeting and is defined as “an archivist who strives to document the undocumented aspects of society and to support political and social causes through that work.” During World War II, curator Rose Valland worked as an overseer at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris while the city was occupied by the Nazis. The museum was commandeered to be a store house and transfer station for looted works of art from Jewish collectors and other museums. She kept secret the fact that she could speak German so while the Nazis plundered, Rose secretly recorded as much information as she could find about where the works were from and where they were going. In a 2013 report to the French senate, it’s estimated that because of her efforts approximately 60,000 works of art were able to be located and returned. In Somalia, former police officer Abshir Hashi Ali has made it his mission to “protect the nations property”. For almost 20 years he has protected what was left of the Radio Mogadishu archives after the civil war and warring factions had almost destroyed everything. He said his aim was to protect the Somali heritage and he has been painstakingly trying to preserve what he can through very limited funds. The postmodern archivist should be an activist archivist, not, as Jenkinson suggested, a passive one.

In Practice

“So, for me personally, the value of the archive is profound. And I think that that may be true for a lot of people who suddenly are able to discover themselves, existing, being documented.” (Caswell et al., 2016)

I think we all have this aspirational goal of somehow changing the world in whatever small way we can, and with that in mind, I see myself working in a special collection or a community archive as the philosophies of those repositories align with mine. In their article, Caswell, Cifor, and Ramirez show clearly how profound the impact of community archives can be and how they influence the development of identity, preserve culture and reinforce positive representation of communities (Caswell et al, 2016). They also preserve narratives that mainstream institutions don’t, narratives of individuals not found in school textbooks, of events that are overshadowed by the global American experience, and oral histories of personal experiences that would otherwise be lost. Their study focused on the South Asian American Digital Archive and the effects it had not just on the South Asian community but how “transformational” and “profound” it was to individuals. “Learning about South Asian American history was transformational for me…it was through learning about these stories and the many others like them that finally helped me see myself reflected in the American experience. For me knowing there is a long, rich, and diverse history of South Asians in the United States counteracts that feeling of displacement.” (Caswell et al, 2016).

The power of the place, the community archives, exists so how can archivists maintain the integrity of the place and not fall back on old, ingrained habits? What techniques can they incorporate into their methodologies to maintain a sort of checks and balances of their work? A few areas that a postmodern approach can be taken are through an inclusive collecting policy, mindful selecting and appraising, and transparent and accountable descriptions. A fundamental tool in the pouch of the archivist is a clear collecting policy. When I first began collecting, my policy, if you could call it that, was to collect anything old. I amassed quite the trove but as I got older and began to curate my collecting habits, I was left with pieces that no longer fit. I couldn’t just throw them out, these were images of people who once existed, and this may be the only visual record of their existence – I couldn’t be responsible for their erasure. I eventually donated pieces to archives, historical societies and sold the rest. As basic as it sounds, I learned an important lesson, that creating a clear collecting policy and adhering to it can help prevent future moral dilemmas. This is also where the archivist should incorporate the postmodern principle of inclusivity – the story of the whole, not of the part. For too long the story has been told from the privileged and powerful male perspective giving us an edited picture of events, a photoshopped version of the past where the unsightly things were removed – indigenous groups, slaves, people of color, women. The collecting policy should create a way to collect an unfiltered story, something reflecting a truer picture.

The most crucial activity that the archivist performs is selecting and appraising – that pivotal act of shaping social memory. If one thinks about what that truly means, it’s really an exercise in morality. Creating a set of criteria or a list of questions that the archivist can ask themselves could help deter biases. Appraisal practices should be mindful of the marginalized and silenced voices as much as the powerful voices found in official institutional records and should reflect society’s values. Terry Cook offers another option through macro-appraisal which “focuses on governance rather than the structures and functions of government,” emphasizing dialogue and interaction of citizens with the state (Cook, 2001). A third example would be through transparent and accountable descriptions. The staple of archival description, the finding aid, presents a singular perspective on the collections they describe thus skewing possible interpretations. (Light and Hyry, 2002). Michelle Light and Tom Hyry propose two additions to the finding aid to provide clearer insight to the thought and processes of the archivist(s) with a colophon and annotations.

A colophon by definition is a statement at the end of a book giving information about its authorship and printing. In this instance it describes the creation of the book both intellectually and physically. Light and Hyry suggest this could exist in the finding aid as a place to explain the how’s and the why’s; “archivists could use a colophon to record what they know about the history and provenance of a collection and to reveal appraisal, arrangement, description, preservation, and other decisions they made while working on a collection.” It could also contain biographical information about the processor. Recording decisions made during the appraisal process also gives the researchers direction to find research materials in related sources (Light and Hyry, 2002). This is especially important when decisions are made to destroy elements of a collection that were already in existence in other collections. The colophon, therefore, provides accountability and transparency by the archivist acknowledging their decisions.

As Terry Cook and many other postmodern archivists have stated, records are not static, but dynamic and offer many narratives to many people across space and time. Annotations, Light and Hyry argue, allow documents to grow, respond and increase in value for users. Contrary to the static finding aid, the annotation portion would be constantly updated with different interpretations, perspectives and discoveries allowing researchers and archivists to gain new insights into the content and context of the records that the initial first reading failed to see. Through this, the record would become a living object – the more it’s used the more it grows and the more we discover.

Conclusion

Through finding myself, I have understood from an early age the importance of being seen and having a visible place in society. It has been my motivation in what I do in uncovering and bringing to light other’s stories and voices which is why I see myself working in a special collection or community archive so I can continue reveal the stories that were overshadowed or silenced. Inspired by the postmodern philosophy of inclusivity and accountability, future archivists like me can incorporate tangible techniques into the craft by creating clear and inclusive collecting policies, by documenting the selecting and appraising processes, explain what was and was not included in the collection and the why’s behind those decisions, and by understanding that a document is a dynamic object that will continue to have multiple interpretations, multiple narratives and the importance of documenting the multiplicity of meanings through a growing annotation in the finding aid.

References

Caswell, M., Cifor, M., & Ramirez, M.H. (2016). “To Suddenly Discover Yourself Existing”: Uncovering the Impact of Community Archives.” The American Archivist 79(1), 56–81. HTTP://WWW.JSTOR.ORG/STABLE/26356700.

Cook, T. (2001). Fashionable Nonsense or Professional Rebirth: Postmodernism and the Practice of Archives. Archivia 51, 14-35. Fashionable Nonsense or Professional Rebirth: Postmodernism and the Practice of Archives | Semantic Scholar.

Harris, V. (2005). Archives, Politics, and Justice. In M. Proctor, M. Cook, & C. Williams (Eds.) Political Pressure and the Archival Record. (175). Society of American Archivists.

Jimerson, R. C. (2007). Archives for All: Professional Responsibility and Social Justice. The American Archivist 70 (2), 252–81. HTTP://WWW.JSTOR.ORG/STABLE/40294571.
Jimerson, R. C. (2006). Embracing the Power of Archives. The American Archivist 69 (1), 19–32. HTTP://WWW.JSTOR.ORG/STABLE/40294309.

Jenkinson, H. Sir. (1922). A Manual of Archive Administration: Including the Problems of War Archives and Archive Making. Clarendon Press.

Light, M., & Hyry, T. (2001). Colophons and Annotations: New Directions for the Finding Aid. The American Archivist, 65(2), 216–230. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40294207

Shannon, L. (n.d.). The Ann Lister Society, Northwestern University, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Anne Lister’s Story: Department of English – Northwestern University