Imagining Archives

Essays and Reflections

Edited by Terry Cook, Gordon Dodds

Publication date:

05 August 2003

Length of book:

264 pages

Publisher

Scarecrow Press

ISBN-13: 9780810847712

Hugh A. Taylor is one of the most important thinkers in the English-speaking world of archives. A retired civil servant and archival educator, he was named to the prestigious Order of Canada, his nation's highest civilian award. The fifteen essays in this volume are presented in chronological order so that readers may appreciate the broadening evolution and rich interconnections in Taylor's thought as these occurred over more than three decades. These essays link archives to social life and contemporary ideas. Long before postmodern scholars' recent fascination with 'the archive,' Taylor was intent on constructing archives anew, imagining them as places where archivists connect their records with social issues, with new media and technologies, with the historical tradition of archives, with the earth's ecological systems, and with broader spiritual meaning. Also included are two original essays by editors Terry Cook and Gordon Dodds.

Chapter 1 Introduction
Part 2 Part 1: About Hugh A. Taylor
Chapter 3 1 The Far Away Archivist
Chapter 4 2 Imagining Archives
Part 5 Part 2: Essays and Reflections by Hugh A. Taylor
Chapter 6 3 Archives in Britain and Canada—Impressions of an Immigrant (1969)
Chapter 7 4 Administrative History: An Archivist's Need (1970)
Chapter 8 5 The Discipline of History and the Education of the Archivist (1977)
Chapter 9 6 The Media of the Record: Archives in the Wake of McLuhan (1978)
Chapter 10 7 Documentary Art and the Role of the Archivist (1979)
Chapter 11 8 Information Ecology and the Archives of the 1980s (1984)
Chapter 12 9 Transformation in the Archives: Technological Adjustment or Paradigm Shift? (1987-88)
Chapter 13 10 My Very Act and Deed: Some Reflections on the Role of Textual Records (1988)
Chapter 14 11 Towards the New Archivist: The Integrated Professional (1988)
Chapter 15 12 The Totemic Universe: Appraising the Documentary Future (1990)
Chapter 16 13 Chip Monks at the Gate: The Impact of Technology on Archives, Libraries, and the User (1991-92)
Chapter 17 14 Opening Address to the "Documents that Move and Speak" Symposium (1992)
Chapter 18 15 Recycling the Past: The Archivist in the Age of Ecology (1993)
Chapter 19 16 A Life in Archives: Retrospect and Prospect (1993)
Chapter 20 17 The Archivist, the Letter, and the Spirit (1997)
Part 21 Afterword: On reflection and Imagination
Part 22 About the Author and Editors

...will be of interest to any archivist interested in the social foundation of archives and archival theory, and it is a valuable addition to archival science.