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The decisions archivists make every day have far-ranging consequences. Not only do they decide which records to dispose of, but they also decide which to keep and where to keep them. The kept documents become our historical records, and it is from historical records that we select our narratives of who we are, who we have been, and who we might become. It is how these decisions are made that I wish to examine here-particularly those around concealment.
The Society of American Archivists (SAA) defines concealment as "the failure to disclose something, either passively, by not declaring what is known about the thing, or actively, by hiding the thing or hindering its discovery." In their Core Values Statement, the SAA goes on to instruct archivists not to "willfully alter, manipulate, or destroy data or records to conceal facts or distort evidence [and to] thoroughly document any actions they take that may cause changes to the records in their care or raise questions about the records' authenticity."? Meanwhile, the "Accountability" paragraph of the SAA's Core Values emphasizes that "preserving evidentiary records for both public and private entities creates a mechanism to cultivate transparency within organizations and can help make power imbalances visible."s
Concealment of records is usually perceived as antithetical to records' accessibility, but some records are accessible today only because they were at one point concealed, suggesting that concealment is at times beneficial to the accurate construction of historical records. I am not suggesting that archivists should engage regularly in concealment, nor would I suggest that non-archivists who happen to become record custodians should be held to the same standards as trained archivists. Rather, I hope to use the cases...