Archives and Museum Informatics Technical Report #9 (Pittsburgh, Archives and Museum Informatics, 1989)
by David Bearman, Archives & Museum Informatics
Footnotes
1. Jack Goody & Ian Watt, "The Consequences of Literacy," in Literacy in Traditional Societies, ed. Jack Goody (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1968). I am indebted to this article for pointing out that "this form of speech can be transmitted over space and preserved over time," that "the administrative possibilities of paper are greater than those of stone or baked clay," and for many other extremely suggestive ways of viewing recorded knowledge.[Return to paper]
2. Ibid.
[Return to paper]
3. Maynard Brichford, "Seven Sinful Thoughts," American Archivist
43 (Winter 1980) 13-16.
[Return to paper]
Chapter 1
1. Maynard J. Brichford, Archives and Manuscripts: Appraisal and Accessioning (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1977).[Return to paper]
2. SAA Task for Force on Goals and Priorities, Planning for the Archival
Profession (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1986). Interestingly
it was also the focus of the first two recommendations of the Commission
on Museums for a New Century in 1984. See Commission on Museums for
a New Century, Museums for a New Century (Washington DC: American
Association of Museums, 1984).
[Return to paper]
3. Paul Conway, "Perspectives on Archival Resources: The 1985 Census
of Archival Institutions," American Archivist 50 (Spring 1987): 174-91.
[Return to paper]
4. Howard Lowell, Preservation Needs in State Archives (Albany, NY:
NAGARA, 1986).
[Return to paper]
5. National Historical Publications and Records Commission, Directory
of Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the United States (Phoenix:
Oryx Press, 1988).
[Return to paper]
6. This figure and other data cited in the article without identification
of another source are derived from U.S. Bureau of Census, Statistical
Abstract of the United States: 1988, 108th edition (Washington, DC:
Government Printing Office, 1989). See also the seminal work of Fritz
Machlup, The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United
States (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962) and the recent
work of Michael Rogers Rubin, Information Economics and Policy in
the United States (Littleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1983).
[Return to paper]
7. Directory of Associations (New York: Gale Research, 1988).
[Return to paper]
8. Theodore Schellenberg, "The Appraisal of Modern Public Records,"
NARS Bulletin 8 (1956).
[Return to paper]
9. 10 G. Philip Bauer, "The Appraisal of Current and Recent Records,"
The National Archives Staff Information Circular 13 (June 1946): 1-22.
[Return to paper]
10. Frank Boles and Julia Marks Young, "Exploring the Black Box: The
Appraisal of University Administrative Records," American Archivist
48 (Spring 1985): 121-140.
[Return to paper]
11. Frank Boles, "Mix Two Parts Interest to One Part Information and
Appraise Until Done: Understanding Contemporary Record Selection,"
American Archivist 50 (Summer 1987): 356-368.
[Return to paper]
12. Greg Bradsher, informally circulated paper on NARS FBI appraisal process, NEH/Mellon Seminar in Modern Archives, Summer 1986; National Archives and Records Administration, Office of Records Administration, "Appraisal of Department of Justice litigation Case Files: Final Report," (Washington, DC: NARA[1989]); Michael Stephen Hindus, Theodore M. Hammett and Barbara Hobson, The Files of the Massachusetts Superior Court, 1859-1959: An Analysis and a Plan for Action, A Report of the Massachusetts Judicial Records Committee of the Supreme Judicial Court (Boston; G.K. Hall, 1979); Baer, Christopher T., "Documenting Strategy and Structure: A Chandlerian Conceptual Model for Appraising the Penn Central Archive" (Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists, 30 August 1986).
In the National Archives appraisal of the FBI files, the appraisal of the case files of the Penn Central Rail Corporation by a team at the Hagley Foundation, and the appraisal of the Massachusetts Court records appraisal, the ratio of man years to records has been 30/320,000, 8/60,000 and 5/35,000 or 1:10,830, 1:7,000. If we examine the three projects in terms of records retained, the ratio of man-years to records kept is 30:50,000, 8:10,000 and 5:8,000 or 1:1,666, 1:1,250 and 1:1,600, which are extremely similar numbers.
Baer reported informally
that the 60,000 ft. of case files appraised were part of a larger
record of about 325,000 ft. of routine records. Bradsher reports that
the 320,000 ft. of the FBI records were a component of about 600,000
ft. reviewed by the appraisal team, including 220,000,000 3x5 cards
which served as indexes to the records!
[Return to paper]
13. James Gregory Bradsher, "When One Percent Means a Lot: The Percentage
of Permanent Records in the National Archives," OAH Newsletter (May
1985).
[Return to paper]
14. Daniel Laberge, "Information, Knowledge and Rights: The Preservation
of Archives as a Political and Social Issue," Archivaria 25 (Winter
1987/1988):44-50.
[Return to paper]
15. Joan K. Hass, Helen Willa Samuels and Barbara Trippel Simmons,
Appraising the Records of Modern Science and Technology: A Guide (Cambridge
MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1985). See also their "The
MIT appraisal Project and its Broader Implications," American Archivist
49 (Summer 1986): 310-314.
[Return to paper]
16. Max Evans, "The Visible Hand: Creating a Practical Mechanism for
Cooperative Appraisal," Midwest Archivist 11 (1986): 7-13.
[Return to paper]
17. Helen Samuels, "Who Controls the Past," American Archivist (Spring
1986): 109-124; Larry Hackman and Joan Warnow-Blewett, "The Documentation
Strategy Process: A Model and Case Study," American Archivist 50 (Winter
1987): 12-47; Richard J. Cox and Helen W. Samuels, "The Archivist's
First Responsibility: A Research Agenda to Improve the Identification
and Retention of Records of Enduring Value," American Archivist 51
(Winter/Spring 1988): 28-42.
[Return to paper]
18. Hackman and Warnow-Blewett, "The Documentation Strategy Process^."
[Return to paper]
19. Philip N. Alexander and Helen W. Samuels, "The Roots of Route
128: A Hypothetical Documentation Strategy," American Archivist 50
(Fall 1987): 518-31.
[Return to paper]
20. This approach will also be reflected in Samuels' forthcoming publication
documenting colleges and universities.
[Return to paper]
21. David Bearman, "Adequacy of Documentation as a Program, A Concept
and a Goal" (Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the National
Association of State Archivists and Records Administrators (NASARA),
28 July 1984).
[Return to paper]
Chapter 2
1. After completion of this article, I received the Winter 1989 issue of the American Archivist with a fine article by James O'Toole, "On the Idea of Permanence," which affirms some of the ideas expresses here, but appears not to draw the ultimate conclusions for administration of an archives that I draw. I regret not having the opportunity to consider O'Toole's views and incorporate reference to them in this piece.[Return to paper]
2. New York Document Conservation Advisory Council, Our Memory at
Risk: Preserving New York's Unique Research Resources (Albany, NY:
New York State Document Conservation Advisory Council, March 1986).
[Return to paper]
3. For example, so-called Perma-Life Paper, which has a pH of 8.5,
has a durability of 1200 folds and a half-life of 200 years, an obvious
improvement over papers with lifetimes of less than 50 years, but
at the cost of having to copy the originals onto new paper, for which
no simple and inexpensive methods have yet been devised. It is possible
to extend the life of paper by deacidification, but the intervention
is too expensive on scales approaching those which confront archives.
For further discussions, see The Laboratory: Current Developments
in Instrumentation & Technique, 1964, pp. 98-101, on Permalife.
[Return to paper]
4. Perhaps the most elaborate efforts to maintain records are those
of the Church of Latter Day Saints Genealogical Society, and they
illustrate why such efforts are not being undertaken elsewhere on
an effective scale. See Records Protection in an Uncertain World (Salt
Lake City, UT: LDS Church Genealogical Society, n.d.) Millions of
rolls of microfilm are being made and stored in subterranean vaults
constructed 700 feet deep in granite mountains where the temperature
is 57 degrees Fahrenheit year round and humidity is 40-50%. The initial
construction included space for 885,400 rolls of 35mm microfilm.
[Return to paper]
5. National Conservation Advisory Council, Conservation of Cultural
Property in the United States (Washington, DC: National Conservation
Advisory Council, 1976); Proposal for a National Institute for the
Conservation of Cultural Property (Washington, DC: National Conservation
Advisory Council, 1982) for further discussion for the growing importance
of preservation.
[Return to paper]
6. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science Panel
on the Information Policy Implications of Archiving Satellite Data,
To Preserve the Sense of Earth from Space (Washington DC: NCLIS, 1984).
[Return to paper]
7. Howard Lowell, Preservation Needs in State Archives (Albany, NY:
NAGARA, February 1986).
[Return to paper]
8. Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler, Archives & Manuscripts: Conservation. A
Manual on Physical Care and Management, SAA Basic Manual Series (Chicago:
Society of American Archivists, 1983).
[Return to paper]
9. At normal room temperatures. This life can be doubled for each
ten degrees the storage temperature is reduced.
[Return to paper]
10. Margaret Hedstrom, "Optical Disks: Are Archivists Repeating Mistakes
of the Past?" Archival Informatics Newsletter 2 (Fall 1988): 52-3.
[Return to paper]
11. Ritzenthaler, Archives & Manuscripts: Conservation, p. 46.
[Return to paper]
12. David Bearman, "Electronic Records Guidelines: A Manual for Policy
Development and Implementation" (Report prepared for the United nations
Administrative Coordinating Committee, Administrative Committee for
the Coordination of information Systems, Technical Panel on Electronic
Records Management, [1989]).
[Return to paper]
13. In a delightfully provocative talk to the SAA meeting in 1979,
newly elected President Maynard Brichford noted that "let them rot"
might be the appropriate attitude to take towards records requiring
active conservation. He went on to state that "we are keepers for
a purpose and that purpose is not 'keeping' but using." I only wish
he had pursued the issue and supported his arguments at the same time.
See "Seven Sinful Thoughts," American Archivist 43 (Winter 1980):
13-16 for the text of Brichford's address.
[Return to paper]
14. Evans, Frank B., Donald F. Harrison and Edwin A. Thompson, "A
Basic Glossary for Archivists, Manuscript Curators and Records Managers,"
American Archivist 37 (July 1974): 415-34.
[Return to paper]
15. Rapport, Leonard, "No Grandfather Clause: Reappraising Accessioned
Records," American Archivist 44 (Spring 1981): 143-50.
[Return to paper]
16. National Archives and Records Administration, Annual Report for
the year ending September 30, 1988 (Washington DC: NARA, 1989).
[Return to paper]
17. Alan Calmes, National Archives and Records Service 20 Year Preservation
Plan (Washington, DC: NARS, November 1984). National Archives and
Records Service, "Intrinsic Value in Archival Material," Staff Information
Paper 21 (Washington, DC: NARS, 1982).
[Return to paper]
18. Microform was adopted as the preservation technique of preference
by the national newspaper project because it reduces the space requirements
for storage by 98%, assists in retrieval speed, and allows for low
cost distribution. In spite of this, the National Archives microfilms
a mere 20 million images a year in its Federal Records Centers, and
does very little microfilming of archival records, none for the simple
reason of saving long term storage costs. See National Archives and
Records Administration, Annual Report for the Year Ending September
30, 1988 (Washington, DC: NARA, 1989).
[Return to paper]
19. Ritzenthaler, Archives & Manuscripts: Conservation, p. 59.
[Return to paper]
20. National Conservation Advisory Committee, Conservation of Cultural
Properties in the United States (Washington, DC: NCAC, 1976), 313.
[Return to paper]
21. William Saffady, Optical Disks vs. Micrographics as Document
Storage and Retrieval Technologies (Westport, CT, Meckler, 1988)
estimates the cost of labor and equipment for microfilming and a CAR
implementation at $166,000 per million documents, or $415 million
for the 2.5 billion documents in State archives. In this implementation,
copies would be easily distributable, inter-archive loans could be
launched remotely, and digitized images could be linked over networks
at little added cost or using existing fax machines.
[Return to paper]
22. The MAPS Newsletter includes a price list for microfilming services
in each issue. The prices quoted are from the spring 1989 issue.
[Return to paper]
23. Frederic Miller, "Use, Appraisal, and Research: A Case Study of
Social History," American Archivist 49(Fall 1986): 371-92.
[Return to paper]
24. Clifford A- Lynch, "Optical Storage Media, Standards & Technology
Life-Cycle Management," ARMA Quarterly (January 1986):44-54
[Return to paper]
25. National Research Council, Committee on Preservation of Historical
Records, Preservation of Historical Records (Washington, DC: National
Academy Press, 1986). In support of the Council's recommendation see
John C. Mallinson, "Preserving Machine-Readable Archival Records for
the Millennia," Archivaria 22 (1986): 147-152.
[Return to paper]
26. Sue Gavrel, "Preserving Machine-Readable Archival Records: A Reply
to John Mallinson," Archivaria 22 (1986): 153-5.
[Return to paper]
Chapter 3
1. The Research Libraries Group News regularly reports the number of records added to the RLIN database. The comparison to NUCMC given here is from "RUN AMC at the Five Year Mark," 18 (Winter 1989) 7-8.[Return to paper]
2. David B. Gracy, Archives & Manuscripts: Arrangement & Description,
SAA Basic Manual Series (Chicago: Society of American Archivists,
1977).
[Return to paper]
3. Ibid.
[Return to paper]
4. Terry Abraham, Stephen E. Baizarini and Ann Frantilla, "What is
Backlog is Prologue: A Measurement of Archival Processing," American
Archivist 48 (Winter 1985): 31-44.
[Return to paper]
5. William Maher, "Measurement and Analysis of Processing Costs in
Academic Archives," College & Research Libraries 43 (1982): 59-67.
[Return to paper]
6. Uli Haller, "Variations in the Processing Rates on the Magnuson
and Jackson Senatorial Papers," American Archivist 50 (Winter 1987):
100-9.
[Return to paper]
7. Max Evans, "Authority Control: An Alternative to the Record Group
Concept," American Archivist 50 (1986): 240-261.
[Return to paper]
8. The exception that proves the rule is the ultimate completion and
publication of Program Reporting Guidelines for Governmental Records
Programs (Albany, NY: National Association of Government Archives
and Records Administrators, 1987), which appears to be observed largely
in the breach. An SAA committee charged with developing standards
for reporting failed to do so over a decade long period ending about
1985. Perhaps the completion of the Institutional Self-Evaluation
Guidelines published by SAA in 1989 will help. Paul Conway tried to
pull some useful information out of the latest SAA survey of archivists,
but like my earlier study, more questions remained than were answered.
See "Perspectives on Archival Institutions," American Archivist 50
(Spring 19870: 174-91 and David Bearman, "The National Archives and
Records Service: Policy Choices for the Next Five Years," For the
Record (December 1981). Progress since the NISTF final meeting at
which I reported on the "poverty of archives" using data that was
even poorer, has been minimal.
[Return to paper]
9. David Bearman and Richard Lytle, "The Power of the Principle of
Provenance," Archivaria 21 (1985): 14-27; David Bearman and Richard
Szary, "Beyond Authorized Headings: Authorities as Reference Files
in a Multi-Disciplinary Setting," in ed. Karen Muller, Authority Control
Symposium (Tucson, AZ: Art Libraries Society of North America, 1987),
69-78; David Bearman, "Who about What or From Whence, Why and How:
Intellectual Access Approaches to Archives and Their Implications
for National Archival Information Systems," in eds. Peter Baskerville
and Chad M. Gaffield, Archives, Automation & Access, (Victoria, BC:
University of Victoria, 1986), 39-47.
[Return to paper]
10. As expressed by Mary Ritzenthaler in Archives & Manuscripts: Conservation
(Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1983), 53: "While a collection
is being organized destructive fasteners, accretions and other items
viewed as foreign should be removed from the records...These items
can convey much useful information about the collection. The manner
in which a creator arranges records into particular groups will often
give archivists valuable clues as to the importance and interrelationships
of records. For example, fasteners used to unite groups of material
can tell the archivist great deal about how the creator of the records
viewed and ordered the world. It is thus important to leave clues
in place for the archivist to use in evaluating the collection and
gaining intellectual control over it. Once the order and relationships
among materials have been established, however, any object that can
cause mechanical or chemical damage should be removed."
[Return to paper]
11. William M. Holmes, Jr., Edie Hedlin and Thomas E. Weir, Jr., "MARC
and Life Cycle Tracking at the National Archives: Project Final Report,"
American Archivist 49 (Spring 1986): 305-9. See also David Bearman,
Letter to the editor, American Archivist 49 (Fall 1986): 347-8 and
Thomas E. Weir, Response to Bearman, American Archivist 50 (Spring
1987): 172-3.
[Return to paper]
12. "NARA Life-Cycle Systems Data Elements Manual" (Unpublished manual
prepared by National Archives and Records Administration staff; 1989).
[Return to paper]
13. David Bearman, Functional Requirements for Collection Management
Systems, Archives and Museum Informatics Technical Report 1(Fall 1987).
[Return to paper]
14. David Bearman, "The National Archives and Records Service: Policy
Choices for the Next Five Years", For the Record (December 1981)
[Return to paper]
15. David Bearman, "Electronic Records Guidelines: A Manual for Policy
Development and Implementation" (Report prepared for the United Nations
Administrative Committee for the Coordination of Information Systems,
Technical Panel on Electronic Records Management, 1989)
[Return to paper]
16. Charles M. Dollar and Thomas E. Weir, Jr., "Integrated Systems
Management of Official Records and Documents in United Nations Organizations:
A Requirement of the 1990s" (Report prepared for the United National
Administrative Coordinating Committee, Administrative Committee for
the Coordination of Information Systems, Technical Panel on Electronic
Records Management, 1989).
[Return to paper]
Chapter 4
1. Paul Conway, "Perspectives on Archival Resources: The 1985 Census of Archival Institutions," American Archivist 50 (Spring 1987): 174-91.[Return to paper]
2. Page Putnam Miller, Developing a Premier National Institution:
A Report from the User Community to the National Archives (Washington,
DC: National Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History,
1989).
[Return to paper]
3. Elsie Freeman, "In the Eye of the Beholder: Archives Administration
from the User's Point of View," American Archivist 47 (Spring 1984):
111-123.
[Return to paper]
4. Sue E. Holbert, Archives & Manuscripts: Reference & Access, SAA
Basic Manual Series (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1977),
2.
[Return to paper]
5. National Archives and Records Administration, Annual Report for
the Year Ended September 30, 1988 (Washington, DC: NARA, 1989). No
table on use is provided for the National Archives as a whole, but
the figures and the account of the Japanese internment users can be
found buried in the text on page 31.
[Return to paper]
6. William L. Joyce, "Archivists and Research Use," American Archivist
47 (Spring 1984): 124-33.
[Return to paper]
7. Roy C. Turnbaugh, "Living with a Guide," American Archivist 46
(Fall 1983): 449-52 discusses the expectation that published guides
will attract a more scholarly clientele to archives.
[Return to paper]
8. Frederic Miller, "Use Appraisal and Research: A Case Study of Social
History," American Archivist 49 (Fall 1986): 371-92.
[Return to paper]
9. Jacqueline Goggin, "The Indirect Approach: A Study of Scholarly
use of Black and Women's Organizational Records in the Library of
Congress Manuscript Division," Midwestern Archivist 11 (1986): 57-67.
Clark Elliott, "Citation Patterns and Documentation for the History
of Science: Some Methodological Considerations," American Archivist
44 (Spring 1981): 131-42. Both are cited in Miller, "Use, Appraisal,
and Research..."
[Return to paper]
10. Michael Stevens, "The Historian and Archival Finding Aids," Georgia
Archive 5 (1977):64-74.
[Return to paper]
11. Leonard Rapport, "No Grandfather Clause: Reappraising Accessioned
Records," American Archivist 44 (Spring 1981): 143-50.
[Return to paper]
12. Paul Conway, "Facts and Frameworks: An Approach to Studying the
Users of Archives," American Archivist 49 (Fall 1986): 393-407.
[Return to paper]
13. Richard H. Lytle, "A National Information System for Archives
and Manuscript Collections," American Archivist 43 (Summer 11980):
423-6.
[Return to paper]
14. Mary Jo Pugh, "The Illusion of Omniscience: Subject Access and
the Reference Archivist," American Archivist 45 (Winter 1982): 33-44.
[Return to paper]
15. Richard C. Berner, Archival Theory and Practice in the United
States: A Historical Analysis (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
1983).
[Return to paper]
16. Richard H. Lytle, "Intellectual Access to Archives: I. Provenance
and Content Indexing Methods to Subject Retrieval," American Archivist
43 (Winter 1980):64-76, and "Intellectual Access to Archives: II Report
on an Experiment," American Archivist 43 (Spring 1980):191-208.
[Return to paper]
17. Barbara Kalvert, "Reaching Out: A Review of Education & Public
Programs in New York City Funded Cultural Institutions" (New York:
Department of Cultural Affairs, 1988).
[Return to paper]
18. Sidney J. Levy and Albert J. Robles, The Image of Archivists:
Resource Allocators' Perceptions Chicago: Society of American Archivists,
1984); also known as the Levy Report after its principal author.
[Return to paper]
19. David Bearman, "Towards National Information Systems for Archives
and Manuscript Repositories: Problems, Policies and Prospects," in
Towards National Information Systems for Archives and Manuscript Repositories:
The National Information Systems Task Force (NISTF) Papers, 1981-1984
(Chicago: Society of American Archivist, 1987), 86-106.
[Return to paper]
20. David Bearman, "Electronic Records Guidelines: A Manual for Policy
Development and Implementation" (Report for UN/ACCIS/REM, [1989]).
[Return to paper]
21. David Bearman and Richard H. Lytle, "The Power of the Principle
of Provenance," Archivaria 21 (1 985): 14-27.
[Return to paper]
22. Report of the First National Conference on Issues Concerning'
Computerized Records, 2 vols. (Boston: Public Records Division, Office
of the Massachusetts Secretary of State, [1987]).
[Return to paper]
23. Information Management Policy Overview: Strategy Direction in
Information Technology Management in the Government of Canada (Ottawa:
Communications Division, Treasury Secretariat, 1987).
[Return to paper]
24. Thomas E. Brown, "Machine-Readable Views," Archival Informatics
Newsletter2 (Summer 1988): 33-5
[Return to paper]
Chapter 5
1. This chapter was originally presented at the Society of American Archivists annual meeting, August 1986.[Return to paper]
2. William Nolte, "High Speed Text Search Systems and Their Archival
Implications," American Archivist 50 (Fall 1987): 580-84.
[Return to paper]
3. David Bearman and Richard Szary, "Beyond Authorized Headings: Authorities
as Reference Files in a Multi-Disciplinary Setting," in ed. Karen
Muller, Authority Control Symposium (Tucson, AZ: ARLIS/NA, 1987):
69-78.
[Return to paper]
4. In asking about accessibility, I am purposefully ignoring the issue
of the practicality of accessibility. Throughout this discussion I
will assume that all problems of connectivity, inter-operability and
data interchange have been resolved and that through standards and
shared protocols we do indeed have telecommunications access across
all systems, as required. This permits me the luxury of dealing entirely
with issues of intellectual compatibility and acceptable ways of providing
real people with the information they need.
[Return to paper]
5. Martha E. Williams, "Transparent Information Systems Through Gateways,
Front Ends, Intermediaries, and Interfaces," Journal of the American
Society for Information Science 37 (July 1986): 204-14.
[Return to paper]
6. The major archival document of ancient Persia, the Behistun inscription,
which led to the decipherment of all cuneiform texts, is on the face
of a mountain 300 feet above the ground. Given our current distinctions
between the formats of evidence appropriate to different repositories,
this and other cuneiform texts, stones and tablets, are found in museums,
not archives.
[Return to paper]
Chapter 6
1. This chapter was originally presented at the Texas Library Association annual meeting in 1986. Some references reflect the author's then current position as Deputy Director for Information Resources Management at the Smithsonian Institution.[Return to paper]
2. Kenneth Foote, "To Remember and Forget: Artifacts and Memory in
Communication and Culture" (Paper delivered at the annual meeting
of the Society of American Archivists, 1985).
[Return to paper]
3. Battelle Memorial Institute, Human Interference Task Force, "Reducing
the Likelihood of Future Human Activities that Could Affect Geologic
High-Level Waste Repositories," Battelle Technical Report BMI/ONBWI-537
(Columbus, Ohio: Battelle Memorial Institute, 1984).
[Return to paper]
4. M.T. Clancy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307 (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1979).
[Return to paper]
5. Ithiel de Solla Poole, Technologies of Freedom (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1983).
[Return to paper]
6. Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia, urn-burial, or, A discourse of
the sepulchral urns lately found in Norfolk, by Sir Thomas Browne,
physician of Norwich (Waltham Saint Lawrence, Berkshire: Golden Cockerel
Press, [1923]).
[Return to paper]
7. The Annales School of social historians is represented by a large
number of brilliant individuals. For a masterpiece of reconstructive
research on the detailed evidence of daily life see Fernand Braudel's
Civilization and Capitalism: 15th 16th Centuries, translated by Sian
Reynolds, 3 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1981).
[Return to paper]
8. Walter M. Miller Jr., Canticle for Liebowitz (New York: Bantam
Books, 1959). A more recent work in the same vein is David Macaulay's
Motel of the Mysteries, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979) which interprets
for the reader visual evidence of a lost civilization purportedly
as significant as Tut's Egypt. The discerning reader recognizes the
artifacts as remnants of 20th century Motel 6 culture.
[Return to paper]
9. Sidney J. Levy and Albert G. Robles, "The Image of Archivists:
Resources Allocators' Perceptions" (Chicago: Society of American Archivists,
1984).
[Return to paper]
10. Committee on the Records of Government, Report (Washington DC:
The Committee, 1985).
[Return to paper]
11. Dillon Ripley, Annual Report of the Secretary, Smithsonian Institution
Year Book (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1969).
[Return to paper]