Keeping (and Telling) the Past

For article see here.

Comments from Images of Archives contributors:

This is one of those pieces on archives that reminds one of how we, professional archivists, learn from researchers. This is especially the case when these researchers write about their experiences. It used to be that such research of writing was mainly in acknowledgments, in between the lines of gratitude, implied rather than given description. Now, as the archives gained ascendancy as a subject, we have something different, at once endearing, expansive, enlightening. How do they (the researcher) know now what we have long known? Other times, when reading of archives as pictured by non-archivists, I am even offended. 

Here with Hannah Gold, though, I remain delighted. Her subject, her musings (for one: will her correspondence be in this accumulation of emails one day, those yet to come?), her turn of phrases about what is saved and how, and even her description of the archivist overseeing the collections she studies—these all made me think, ah, yes the archives are one of the hallmarks of the information revolution we remain within. How wonderful that we can yet learn more from this time.