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- Description
- Table of Contents
- About the author
- Reviews
This book draws on the contributions of a range of international experts to consider the current archival landscape and imagine the archive of the future. Firmly rooted in current professional debate and scholarship, Archival Futures offers thought provoking and accessible chapters that aim to challenge and inspire archivists globally and to encourage debate about their futures.
It is widely acknowledged that the archive profession/discipline is facing a time of change. The digital world has presented changes in how records are created, used, stored and communicated. At the same time, there is increased public debate over issues such as ownership of and access to information and its authenticity and reliability in a networked and interconnected world. On a practical level archivists are being asked to do more, to have a greater range of skills, often with increasingly restricted resources while competing with others to maintain their role as experts in ever changing environments.
Exploring the potential impact of these changes is timely. Such reflections will provide the opportunity to consider the archivists’ purpose and role, discuss the practical impact of change on skills and functions and to articulate what can be contributed to a mid-21st Century world.
The contributors, Kate Theimer, Luciana Duranti, Victoria Lemieux, Geoffrey Yeo, Jenny Bunn, Sonia Ranade, Barbara Reed, Gillian Oliver, Frank Upward, Joanne Evans, Michael Moss, David Thomas and Craig Gauld cover
- the role of archives in relation to individuals, organizations, communities and society;
- how appraisal, arrangement, description and access might be affected in the future;
- the impact of changing societal expectations in terms of access to information, how information is exchanged, and how things are recorded and remembered;
- the place of traditional archives and what "the archive" is or might become;
- competition or opportunity offered by other information, cultural or IT related professions and the future role of the archive profession; and
- truth and post-truth: archives as authentic and reliable evidence.
1. It's the end of the archival profession as we know it, and I feel fine - Kate Theimer 2. Whose truth? Records and archives as evidence in the era of post-truth and disinformation - Luciana Duranti 3. The future of archives as networked, decentralized, autonomous and global - Victoria Lemieux 4. Can we keep everything? The future of appraisal in a world of digital profusion - Geoffrey Yeo 5. Frames and the future of archival processing - Jenny Bunn 6. Access technologies for the disruptive digital archive - Sonia Ranade 7. Multiple rights in records: the role of recordkeeping informatics - Barbara Reed, Gillian Oliver, Frank Upward and Joanne Evans 8. The accidental archive - Michael Moss and David Thomas 9. The end of archival ideas? - Craig Gauld
Praise for Archival Futures
"Archives play a unique and powerful role in making the past available for an extraordinary array of current purposes. But do archives have a future, particularly given disruptive changes in communication technologies? Archival Futures addresses this and other challenges to find ways forward for the now pivotal role of archives in society."
— Tom Nesmith, (Professor, retired), University of Manitoba
"In Archival Futures Professor Brown draws upon her years of experience and expertise as well as the contributions of a range of international experts to consider the current archival landscape and imagine the archive of the future. Firmly rooted in current professional debate and scholarship, Archival Futures offers thought provoking and accessible chapters that aim to challenge and inspire archivists globally and to encourage debate about their futures."
— Midwest Book Review