Archives, What are they and How do we use them?

“All acts of societal remembering, in short, are culturally bound and

have momentous implications.” – each type of archive highlight issues of power dynamics depending on their origin or use.

Terry Cook, “What is Past is Prologue: A History of Archival Ideas Since 1898, and the Future

Paradigm Shift”, p.17, 1997.

The function of an archive is to hold a collective memory of people, nations or organizations

• To further knowledge
• For a functioning democracy
• To enable the organization to function
• To protect rights and privileges - to prove citizenship
• To hold identity and community

Types of Archives

Cultural Institutions – special collections, museums, community archives and historical societies, archives of artists and galleries, university and college archives. In these spaces, historians, cultural theorists, and archivist in a postmodernist milieu, critique what is worth remembering, as important, what was forgotten, deliberately or accidentally. Specifically, because, “collective "remembering'- and "forgetting"--occurs in these sites - galleries, museums, libraries, historic, historic monuments, public commemorations, and archives.

Added to this this many of these sites have historically been the worst offenders in benefiting from and perpetuating’s colonialism, racism, sexism and capitalist exploitation, thus driving organizational culture-reevaluation, at best - or more often, drawing external institutional critique.

Corporate Archives – are responsible for the litigious accountability of the organization to prove compliance with industry and tax legislation and for to document the history of the brand.  

Government Archives – are responsible for the running of democracy. All records created in the running of the government must be kept in the National Archives to hold all political parties accountable for their actions. They uphold individuals’ constitutional rights and citizenship.