No Innocent Deposits: Forming Archives by Rethinking Appraisal

312 Pages·2003·15.88 MB·English

by  Richard J. Cox

No Innocent Deposits

Forming Archives by
Rethinking Appraisal
Richard J. Cox
The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford
2004
SCARECROW PRESS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
by Scarecrow Press, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of
The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.scarecrowpress.com
PO Box 317
Oxford
OX2 9RU, UK
Copyright 02004 by Richard J. Cox
All rights resewed. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cox, Richard J.
No innocent deposits : forming archives by rethinking appraisal /
Richard J. Cox.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8108-4896-1 (alk. paper)
1. Appraisal of archival materials. I. Title.
CD973.A77 C69 2004
025.2' 1-4222 2003015231
@
The paper used in this publication meets
lM
the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information
Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO
239.48-1992. Manufactured in the United States of America.
For all of my students
who have participated since 1989
in my course on archival appraisal;
they will recogizize
what they have contributed.
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Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: Treasures Everywhere 1

1
2 The End of Collecting: Toward a New Purpose for
Archival Appraisal 19

3 The Archivist and Collecting: How Others Might See
Archivists as Collectors 47

The Traditional Archival and Historical Records
4
Program in the Digital Age: A Cautionary Tale 87

5 The Archivist and Collecting: A View from the Inside 115

6 Metascheduling: Rethinking Archival Appraisal and
Records Management Scheduling 147

Evidence and Archives 165

7
8 Archives and the Digital Future 201

9 Appraisal as an Act of Memory 231

10 Archival Appraisal Alchemy 259

Index 295

About the Author 303

V
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Acknowledgments

These reflections on the daunting task of archival appraisal
undoubtedly will produce different reactions from different archi-
vists, users of archives, and others just seeking to gain an under-
standing of archives. My thoughts about appraisal have been
influenced, to varying degrees, by discussions with many col-
leagues, some of whom I have known a long time and others I have
met much more recently. Whatever value these chapters might have
is due to my discussions (sometimes arguments) with individuals
like Nicholson Baker, Jeannette Bastian, Frank Boles, Terry Cook,
Barbara Craig, Bruce Dearstyne, Luciana Duranti, Terry Eastwood,
Tim Ericson, Mark Greene, Elisabeth Kaplan, Kate Manning, Tom
Nesmith, Jim OToole, Helen Samuels, Joan Schwartz, Patricia Slee-
man, David Wallace, and Beth Yakel (and many others I am forget-
ting).
vii
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1

Introduction:

Treasures Everywhere

TRASH AND TREASURES
Much has been written about America as a "throwaway society."
We do not need to read to confirm that we regularly toss away
immense quantities of unwanted materials. The weekly trash day
suggests that we are still tossing out lots of stuff, amazing quantities
of discarded and spoiled food remains, paper and plastic products,
and old containers of every shape and former purpose. Where I live,
we recycle every two weeks, and the bright blue plastic or paper
bags holding metal, plastic, and old newspapers pile up like mod-
ernistic sculptures in a trendy art boutique. Bulk trash day is even
more dramatic, leading to scenes that suggest the aftermath of a tor-
nado striking a department store. I note that we have four chairs in
various places in our home retrieved from the curbside on those
mornings. My next-door neighbor wanders through the neighbor-
hood on these days, and her front porch is a perennial storage site
for furniture, art, ceramics, old signs, architectural elements, and
other objects that she has rescued from the street. On those bulk
pickup mornings, you can also see secondhand and antique store
owners prowling about, looking for materials they can recycle, for
a price, to individuals who decline the adventures of the curbside
hunts.
1