Publication date:
10 December 2003Length of book:
304 pagesPublisher
Scarecrow PressISBN-13: 9780810848962
The public increase of interest in the past has not necessarily brought with it a greater understanding about how archives are formed. To this end, Richard Cox takes a serious look at archival repositories and collections. Cox suggests that archives do not just happen, but are consciously shaped (and sometimes distorted) by archivists, the creators of records, and other individuals and institutions. In this series of essays, Cox offers archivists rare insight into the fundamentals of appraisal, and historians and other users of archives the opportunity to appreciate the collections they all too often take for granted.
...this volume contains rich examples of the various kinds of archival practices, dubious decisions, inadequate methods, and limited professional assumptions about the function of records in society. It is also replete with wide-ranging ideas taken from the literature on museums, libraries, and other memory institutions. Thus, this work references a vast array of fascinating studies and perspectives on 'collecting' from both within the archival profession and from institutions in other parts of the heritage sector....Cox makes some telling points about the importance, indeed, the urgency of appraisal. Cox is virtually unmatched in the sheer mass of information he collects and proffers to archivists through his published studies. He brings to his writing aseemingly inexhaustible storehouse of knowledge of instructive cases, histories, news, and stories about record keeping practice and the strategies and conventions of such preservation bodies as libraries, museums, and other memory institutions. A readerneed only glance at the footnotes and bibliographies in his numerous publications to appreciate wide reading. (When does he take time to sleep?) Indeed, Cox is a relentless documenter and an unabashed empiricist....No one has done more to educate America