MARY LYNN RITZENTHALER, Preserving Archives and Manuscripts, 2nd ed.

Preserving Archives and Manuscripts, 2nd ed. MARY LYNN RITZENTHALER. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2010. 544 p. ISBN 1-931666-32-

Material Literacy: Reading Records as Material Culture

This paper links certain ideas from archival literature with modern conservation and museological theory and practice, and illustrates some of these ideas with an example from the holdings of the Archives of Manitoba. Material literacy is the ability to decode and interpret the significance of the material composition and construction, and of the physical state, of a tangible record. A creator’s material, technology, and design choices will be informed by the need to communicate within the contemporary socio-cultural context. Once created, records start changing through natural deterioration, through wear from use, and through deliberate alterations to the records by their creator(s), and by subsequent custodians and users. Evidence of creation and change are part of the history of a record, and the past and present choices of creators and custodians may have a significant impact on the future interpretation of the record. Archives also actively change this evidence through physical and intellectual mediations during their custodianship. The author briefly considers how the material aspects of records are approached in archival practices for assigning value, examination, description, and documentation of interventions. Records in their original forms can powerfully communicate meaning between generations and cultures, offering researchers a personal and direct sensory engagement with the past. Awareness of records as material culture is required before the value of physical evidence can be recognized and evaluated as a primary source of contextual evidence, thereby enriching the preservation of the meaning of the records. RÉSUMÉCet article établit des liens entre certains concepts archivistiques et la théorie et la pratique modernes en conservation et en muséologie, et illustre ces concepts à partir d’exemples tirés des archives du Manitoba. L’alphabétisation matérielle constitue la capacité de décoder et d’interpréter l’importance de la composition matérielle, de la construction et de la condition physique d’un document concret. Le choix du matériau, de la technologie et du design par le créateur seront influencés par le besoin de communiquer au sein du contexte socio-culturel contemporain. Dès leur création, les documents se transforment à cause de la détérioration naturelle, de l’usure, et d’altérations délibérées par leurs créateurs, les utilisateurs et les gardiens subséquents. Les signes de la création et des transformations font partie de l’histoire du document, et les décisions présentes et passées des créateurs et gardiens peuvent avoir un impact significatif sur l’interprétation future du document. Pendant qu’elles conservent les documents, les archives modifient aussi ces signes au moyen de médiations physiques et intellectuelles. L’auteure se penche brièvement sur la façon dont les pratiques archivistiques tiennent compte des dimensions matérielles des documents, au moment de l’évaluation, de l’examen, de la description et dans les traces de leurs interventions. Dans leur forme originale, les documents peuvent communiquer fortement le sens entre les générations et les cultures, en offrant aux chercheurs un contact personnel et direct avec le passé. En voyant les documents comme éléments de la culture matérielle, on peut reconnaître et évaluer la forme physique comme source majeure du contexte, et par là mieux préserver la signification des documents

Reconnecting Mind and Matter: Materiality in Archival Theory and Practice

This thesis considers the assumptions and beliefs of the archival profession to reconceptualize how materiality is related to contextuality, and thereby reveal the “mind” within the material (or immaterial) form and reconnect records' materiality with their archival value. It begins by describing how the materiality of archival records goes beyond physical form or material composition to include connections with the non-material processes which have shaped records, such as their relationships and associations with people, events, places of origin and other objects. As such, records are historical evidence of actions arising from within particular contexts, and remain participants in present human activity. Recognizing this evidential role for materiality enables fuller understanding of the contexts which produced particular records, and more careful consideration of how different representations of records shape both the questions that can be asked of records and the stories which the records can tell. In “traditional” archival theory, the materiality of records has usually been assumed to be incidental to, and largely disconnected from, their “intellectual” or “information” value, but over the last three decades archival theory has been re-oriented around the concepts of records as evidence of the dynamic contextual milieux of their creation. This contextualist shift in understanding records supports an increased and overt acknowledgement of materiality as integral to archival value: materiality is integral to context, content and structure, which together define records as records, and records as evidence. Materiality provides unique physical and sensory information about records' context of creation and ongoing use, as well as information about the written, image or aural content conveyed by the records. The thesis goes on to outline the inadequacy of current archival practice for addressing and protecting the evidential possibilities within records' materiality. These practices have not developed to fully reflect the contextualist perspective and to support access to, or preservation of, materiality as part of the preservation of archival value. If only content is conceived to carry value, than the meaning embedded in the materiality of records will not routinely be appraised, documented, or considered in other archival functions or management decisions. Methodologies cited as best practices in mainstream archival preservation literature are object-oriented rather than context-oriented: they are focused on managing the longevity of the individual material components of records without consideration for the relationship between materiality and archival value. By attempting to manage matter separately from the mind behind their creation, the evidential possibilities of records' materiality – and, by extension, their archival value – is at risk of loss. The thesis concludes with suggestions for adjustments to archival practices to bring them into alignment with the goal of preserving those aspects of records which contribute to their archival value, and reconnecting mind with matter.Master of Arts in Archival Studie