Abstract

How do archives and other cultural institutions such as museums determine the boundaries of a particular community, and of their own institutional reach, in constructing effective strategies and methodologies for selecting and maintaining appropriate material evidence? This book offers guidance for archivists, record managers and museums professionals faced with such issues in their daily work. This edited collection explores the relationships between communities and the records they create at both practical and scholarly levels. It focuses on the ways in which records reflect community identity and collective memory, and the implications of capturing, appraising and documenting these core societal elements - with particular focus on the ways in which recent advances in technology can overcome traditional obstacles, as well as how technologies themselves offer possibilities of creating new virtual communities. It is divided into five themes: a community archives model; communities and non-traditional record keeping; records loss, destruction and recovery; online communities: how technology brings communities and their records together; and, building a community archive. This book will appeal to practitioners, researchers, and academics in the archives and records community as well as to historians and other scholars concerned with community building and social issues.
"..required reading for anyone responsible for the shaping of memory" - Business Archives
"An inspirational practical guide to defining community identity with records and archives…The gripping narrative, the chronology, the citations and the data in every single essay demonstrate admirable passion and valuable experience…This mega-resource pools information and experience from every corner of the information and physical world. It is a must-read for professionals who wish to enhance their understanding of how records and archives shape human memory or who want to develop a deeper understanding of their roles and responsibilities as info pros in archives, museums or records institutions." - Information World Review
Jeannette A. Bastian is Associate Professor and Director of the Archives Program Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College, Boston. Ben Alexander is Assistant Professor, Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, The City University of New York.
"...an important addition to the recent discourse about the meaning and purposes of archives." - The American Archivist