Content area
Full text
In 1977, noted historian Howard Zinn offered a controversial opinion about libraries and archives, some archivists probably did not want to hear. He noted, "that the existence, preservation, and availability of archives, documents, records in our society are very much determined by the distribution of wealth and power. That is, the most powerful, the richest elements in society have the greatest capacity to find documents, preserve them, and decide what is or is not available to the public."1 Essentially, Zinn mused on control and the possible misappropriation of culture in our effort to sustain historical legacy. The statement actually inspires many questions such as, are we bound by ethics and morals? Or are we neutral wardens, fighting for representational equality in the face of censorship, marginality, and exclusiveness? According to Zinn, archivists wield power, as dictated by conformity to institutional rules and regulations, and inherent information dissemination "is not neutral either in origin or effect. It reflects the bias of a particular social order; more accurately, it reflects the diverse biases of a diverse social order."2 His thoughts extend beyond just dissecting the political legitimacy of the archivist, but rather constitute a call to archivists to reassess their position as activist information gathers. It was time to go beyond the margins and not just conserve the past, but to also inform and document the present. Certainly a community presence, an academic curriculum, or a mission statement dictates the collection policies of an archive or repository, but what constitutes a notion of history? Kwame Nkrumahi wrote "the history of a nation is, unfortunately, too easily written as the history of its dominant class." (Or its victors, as Napoleon said.) This is a practice archivists have grown to question and decipher, as 'history' now is writing itself through the voices, clicks, and tweets of not just scholars and researchers, but also activists, day-laborers, and citizen journalists. As John A. Fleckner, Chief Archivist, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution said, "As archivists who maintain the integrity of the historical record, we guard our collective past from becoming the mere creation of "official history."3 While this idea might seem inherent or presumptuous, is it radical?
In order to characterize 'radical', it is within reason to define and contextualize...