Controlling the Past: Documenting Society and Institutions - Essays in Honor of Helen Willa Samuels

In this compelling and wide-ranging volume, twenty leading archivists honor Helen Willa Samuels, retired institute archivist of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, by exploring the theme of documenting modern society and its institutions, and carefully considering the implications arising from the archivist's control over social memory. Editor Terry Cook's introductory essay places the significance of Samuels' ideas in the context of modern archival practice and traces her influence on North American archival thinking. Divided in two sections, the first nine essays explore the rich contexts in which the appraisal of potential archival sources takes place and focus on understanding and managing all documentation to select the small percentage that will survive in archives. Several chapters trace how the profession is being radically transformed in the digital age with topics such as making a case for electronic records management, documenting appraisal as a societal-archival process, and challenging stereotypes about corporate archives. The second section looks at both the documentation and who is doing the documenting. Seven essays explore the nature, influences, and ethics of archivists and their roles in appraising records, documenting society and its institutions, and describing records with digital tools. A pair of retrospective reflections round out the volume, including one from Samuels, who reflects on the origins of her work on appraisal. Just as archivists shape what society can know about itself through documentation, so, too, this book is bound to shape contemporary archival perspectives about the challenges and responsibilities of "controlling the past." Read it and see.