Words as a Barrier to Understanding. Is It Time to Evolve Beyond Library and Archives?

You say library. They say books...They say books are dead.

You say archives. They say paper...They say everything is digital these days.

I rolled words through my head when I suggested this week that a student should consider a job in the library field and it got back to me that her mother said this is a bad idea. "'Libraries' probably won't exist in a few years, " she apparently told her daughter. I thought back to when I started in this job.

"Do you want to be called the 'Librarian' or 'Information Specialist,' Melissa?" they asked when I began. They were getting ready to put my title on my office window.

"I don't care what you call me because I am confident in what I am and I can explain it to others," I said. I thought the term "Information Specialist" was hoity-toity. I told myself that I've always been a librarian and an archivist.

A few months later I remembered that I coined "cultural heritage consultant" for my work with ArchivesInfo because the words DID matter. No one knows what any of it means, but cultural heritage consultant showed that I did something outside of JUST archives and libraries, whatever the audience thought JUST archives and libraries were. Once I grab someone's attention, the door is then open for me to explain more about what I do.

When I said to my student, "you may want to work in a library," it served as a brick wall. People have preconceived notions of what a library is. Yet, the cultural heritage professions have anything but preconceived notions these days. Libraries, archives and museums are community centers, storage facilities, places for research, knowledge centers, places for networking, educational facilities, creative hubs...We are striving to open doors and our traditional words can be limiting. Indeed, we have also had concerns about our words being hijacked and re-purposed. For example, "archive" as a verb has been discussed at length. Maybe we do need to find new words and phrases that better explain who we are and what we do?

"Information Specialist" connotes knowledge of a wide-range of information beyond the book. I've come to like the holistic feel of it.  It can mean anything - an understanding of where to find any information at all is how I like to think of it. The term applied to me and to what I do also takes into account my archives background and the school archives I am beginning. It acknowledges the crafting we do in our library, the makerspace we are beginning, the music we introduce to our students, the exhibits we set up... So, I now go by Librarian / Information Specialist. I want the idea of books in my students' heads, but I want the idea of libraries and librarians as evolving beyond the book in there too.

So who are we and what do we want to be as professionals? Do we need to take a fresh look at our job titles to better explain what we do now and where our professions are going?

The Heart of the Community. The Library.

The library has always been the heart of my community and the grounding place for my sense of self. This is its past and its potential for the future.

As a child, my mother brought me to the library once or twice a week. We did not have a large free library in our "hamlet" and were required to pay for membership at the larger town libraries, which were free to residents of areas outlying my own. (I never quite understood the geographical and legal limitations of  the hamlet, but I don't think that matters. All I know is that our taxes did not go toward library services and we paid at the library for our cards.)  Mom taught me that a library was something worth paying for, directly if necessary. We were lucky that we could afford the fee and that we didn't have to travel too far get there. The library was a destination. It was a building filled with knowledge and a place where my imagination could run wild. I could borrow books, and posters, and records and think of them as my own for a short while because I was part of a special community of library patrons.

The right to be part of a "special" community that provides a physical space where one can have a figurative key to a bigger world heightens empathy. The library allowed me to see and explore commonalities among diverse peoples all over the world, so I could better understand my own place and those of others. I believe everyone should have free access to such a place.

I have a memory of sitting in my elementary school library. Mom was meeting with my teacher and I was lovingly parked in front of a display of Dr. Seuss books. The round carousel in the middle of the room held "Green Eggs and Ham," "The Cat in the Hat," "One Fish Two Fish..." Mom was away  long enough for me to read every single book on exhibit. I had such a feeling of accomplishment. I felt warm and cozy inside and always identified that space as a piece of me; it was a place from which I took a memory that was partly responsible for making me an enthusiastic reader.

Reading library books gave me a safe way to explore who I am. It gave me confidence to define my personal identity and acknowledge my uniqueness.

In college, I spent a lot of time at the library.  The building was old. The spaces with my favorite collections were dark. The seating was not comfortable. It didn't matter to me at the time. The library was an old friend - a relative of my home town library. I went there not only for the books that I needed, but also for its welcoming arms that allowed me to feel the pulse of my education and to feel "home." (Some people seek familiar food when in a foreign place. I seek the familiarity of a library.) Computers at the library became a new key to my community. The computers allowed me easier access to the knowledge and creativity embodied in my favorite building on campus.

The realization that I could develop my brain as others had done in that building helped me better understand what education could do for me.

Libraries are changing. They began their biggest change in 100 years during my time in college. Computers brought into libraries were yet to reach very far out when I was an undergraduate student. Few people had them in their homes. There was little information available on them.  Things are so different today, two decades later, that many people feel we don't need libraries anymore. They believe that so much information is available through computers in our homes and in our pockets that libraries are obsolete. I am a big Internet user. I spend much of my day getting my information from remote machines and connecting to other people and worlds through them but I still actively use the library. Libraries have never just been about the books or even the information they provide.

Libraries give knowledge some tangible structure, providing a contained place and some authority to learn to evaluate information. Libraries attach local support and familiarity to large bodies of human ideas that are often different from our own.

The library in the Town in which I settled as an adult has provided me with reading material and a comforting place to do my writing and research. As a young mother, it was a haven where I could meet with other young mothers finding their way. It allowed me to hand my daughter a key to knowledge and assisted me with helping to instill a love of learning and curiosity. My library has remote access to reading materials and databases. It provides a place for local artists to display works, for community groups to meet, for people to discuss big ideas in a neutral space.  My town has even been working for the past few years to build an outdoor gathering area near our library. There is a gazebo with plans to have outdoor concerts. They will even be putting in a skate pond. My fellow townspeople seem to feel as I do - that the library is our local heart that can serve as a grounding point for our shared activities, the growth of ideas, and the building of a better future.

A library gives us a heightened sense of place that embodies civic pride. It allows us to discover, articulate and even show off who we are and who we want to be.

A library building and the human support within is a monument to civilization. It shows us all bound together with our dreams and our potential represented in one building. That is where libraries stand in my opinion. That is where they will always stand - reminding us from where we came while pointing us toward where we are going. Libraries will change, but they always have the potential to be the heart of every small community and a thread from one community to the next.

Local Archivists Moving into a Digital Realm

My Friday blog post on Social Media and Community Documentation focused on capturing information provided on social media sites that reflect a sense of community. The idea of "community" can apply to people with similar interests, online friends, and other connections. These connections are often reflected in "traditional" archives collections when we focus on collecting the papers of individuals that subscribe to theories of provenance -- keeping papers created by a particular person or body together. Such collections naturally show connections between record creators. I noted in my recent blog post that, " Archivists need to take notice of the social networks individuals are forming and how they will change the collections we create." These networks reflect a new kind of provenance that will naturally reflect connections similar to our intensely paper based special collections and archives.


Today I would like to focus on a particular community - that of a geographic locale. The papers of local historical societies and other similar local institutions focus on capturing a local identity. This blog post poses more questions related to online communities than answers to prompt local archivists to think about these issues. In my observation, with increased use of the Internet by residents, local identity does not break down as outside influences more easily flow into places that were seemingly less influenced by the world beyond small geographic boundaries. Online environments can, and many do, reflect a local geographic community and sense of place. How can we capture this digital identity and does it differ significantly from the "real" world? What changes does a local archivist see in her community's sense of place when studying the digital documentation of a region? First, using the locale as a starting point for capturing digital data how do we collect what is online to reflect our local community? Should we even try to do this?


Last week, Inside Higher Ed posted an article titled, "Archiving the Web for Scholars." The article discussed a number of interesting projects related to developing collections of online resources for documenting society. Especially noteworthy for this discussion is the American University in Cairo project to document the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, "which contains blogs, Twitter feeds, photos, videos, and online news coverage of the political tumult that engulfed the Egyptian capital this spring." The site does a remarkable job of capturing an event, reflecting a people, and showing how an online medium and outsiders influenced a truly community specific event (albeit a large community with international attention.) 


I provided the following after thoughts in my blog post last week: "Can documentation be captured and formed around a social media platform such as Facebook as a starting point or is that too large to accurately reflect society? Should we focus on smaller groups that use Facebook? Should archives that focus on particular areas focus on the Facebook groups that cover these topics? For example, should a university special collections that specializes in women's history find groups related to that topic in an online world? Will our traditional institutions be able or willing to change what they do in this way? Will we form new kinds of 'archives' to accommodate this or will all the traditional approaches just go right out the window? Are we starting from scratch? Will traditional archives separate from digital." I think the Cairo example and others in the Inside Higher Ed article show the remarkable transition that archives are now undergoing and reflects the challenges we face.


After reflection, I think that Facebook is a good starting point for considering online communities that reflect particular locales. Within my own online community, I follow NH sites on Facebook. I follow sites specific to my town including school Facebook pages. I follow "what to do in my community" type pages and I follow area associations in which I take an interest. But I also follow similar folks on Twitter. I get emails from a local Yahoo mom's group. I follow our school district superintendent's blog. Town institutions such as the local library, historical society, chamber of commerce, etc could easily reach out to our local community through the Internet. If I were running my local historical society, I would try to capture this information coming from diverse online sites to accurately reflect my particular locale. I would create a policy to explore a wide range of social media and Internet sites that may contain information about my local community. 


While the media has changed and the means to "collect" information has changed, the planning involved in creating good collections has not. A good collection development policy must be in place. We must still create some kind of strategy that considers what documentation should exist and how to capture it. In fact, it is more important to consider this than ever. We must contemplate who is creating online information in our given locale and develop our understanding of online networks to secure records (web sites, data flowing through social media, etc.) to adequately document our communities in the 21st century. Knowledge of our times cannot be separated from this ever growing and ever changing environment. A local archivist (whether a professional or volunteer "citizen archivist") must be savvy enough a computer to consider these facets of documentation.

Why Value Archives?

It seems appropriate to address the topic of why we should value archives on Freedom of Information Day 2010. Freedom of Information Day celebrates open access to government information in a democratic culture. According to the American Library Association, the date is marked on the birthday of James Madison "who is widely regarded as the Father of the Constitution and as the foremost advocate for openness in government."

This week also marks "Sunshine Week" celebrating our right to access information in a free and open society. This initiative was begun in 2002 by newspaper editors in response to efforts of the Florida state government to make numerous exemptions to public records laws and thus to information's accessibility. The week is now celebrated nationwide in the United States and seeks to bring light to issues blocking freedom of information.

So, in celebration of these marked occasions, we must remember how archives help facilitate our freedoms by making government actions and decisions visible to the public. Archives secure our rights, keep our government systems running efficiently and openly. They hold liable those who may oppress us and devalue human rights, and ensure continuity in our government and social systems. Archives give us primary information about events so that we can better evaluate truth for ourselves, rather than solely through the lens of another interpreter.

However, the information archives offer us and archives' benefits extend beyond government records. Archives support research, inquiry, and lifelong learning. They encourage us to study ourselves, and to find value in what we do and who we are. They help us form a national and global identity and can help us secure a personal identity. They offer insight into how our ancestors live and how diverse cultures live so that we can evaluate our own role in society. Archives build a shared sense of purpose, forming valuable communities that strengthen pride and serve as society's building blocks for mutual appreciation, understanding, and peace. They encourage education and inquiry, while facilitating cultural entertainment and tourism. Archives preserve cherished memories and allow us to build on past successes while evaluating past failures to move society forward.

I am the granddaughter of holocaust survivors. As such, I always remember that the first thing oppressors do is try to peel away the identities of the oppressed so victims lose their sense of self and are devalued by society. While we may hold ideas about ourselves closely in our hearts, tangible documentation helps secure our identity, values and connections to a community. (Randall Jimerson addresses this in his book "Archives Power: Memory, Accountability and Social Justice" and brings the point home most clearly in discussions of George Orwell's writings.)

For all these reasons and more, I work to preserve cultural heritage and I recognize that through my work I have a public responsibility. Through my actions as an archivist, and in my writings about archives, I explore how we can best maintain an accurate documentary record and how we can promote the value of archives to the general populace. I hope that others will grow a greater appreciation for archives. We often take open access to information for granted. Above all, we must never forget how archival documents ensure our freedom. If we allow others to take away public control of information, we lose not only our ability to seek truth, but are in danger of losing our own sense of identity -- the greatest freedom of all.