Monday, September 13, 2010

Archive Fever: Response to "Traces: Document, record, archive, archives."

"The recordkeeping processes of selection, classification and description as described above are based on the records creators' view of their mission and the nature of the activities they engage in..." 17



The 'above' in the context of chapter 1 in Archives : Record Keeping in Society by Sue McKemmish highlights a discord amongst those who are in the profession of preserving, cataloging, and collecting information. Whether in the archival setting or a records management facility, the basic foundation of information integrity remains the same. Although it has become increasingly more popular for professionals in these fields to publicly state a code of ethics, this code has not always been in the spotlight. Instead, images such as the one from the 'Children Overboard' story take up a majority of the focus through mass media frenzy and misrepresentation. Working with these materials either during their currency or after their social expiration presents many challenges, specifically in maintaining the 'true' story and information they have to share. Within this process, those working with these materials find themselves balancing between the attempt to 'memorialize' and the action of 'killing the memory' 2. The individuals who argued that the 'Children Overboard' photo was evidence towards the theory of children being thrown into water worked towards 'memorializing' an account of an injustice, but they were working dangerously close to 'killing the memory' by the action of overriding the truth with a more powerful image of inaccuracy. However, this kind of response is frequent and eventually becomes just as important to the story and the historical event as the original meaning behind the item before any alterations or misrepresentations took place. Although doctored, the 'falsified' view needs to be accounted for in records to tell the full story because now it has become a part of the memory.

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