When Mark Greene died last June, the archival profession lost a leader and colleague whose contributions will not soon be repeated. Mark was an archivist’s archivist. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that he lived his profession to the exclusion of most other ordinary activities one could partake. The archival profession was his vocation,... Continue Reading →
The Houghton Library Symposium, which marked the 75th anniversary of its founding, asked provocatively, “Who cares?” The resulting answers, provided by speakers and attendees, reflected a wide variety of opinions and experiences. The Houghton staff who planned the event were led by a Symposium Committee, which included Emilie Hardman, Dennis Marnon, Leslie Morris, and Ryan... Continue Reading →
Houghton Library at 75: A Celebration of its Collections (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), xii + 116 pages. Envisioned as an “enchanted palace” by Harvard librarian Archibald Cary Coolidge in 1924, Houghton Library opened in 1942 with steel, bricks, and mortar, as well as a donation of stock in the Corning Glass Works from... Continue Reading →
"Archives are writings that have any historical importance, and national archives are those records that may be useful to one in writing a country's history or of any particular phase of its past, not merely the account of wars and the actions of politicians, but the actual life of the people; and to afford this... Continue Reading →
A nation that does not know its past will not be able to fully understand its present nor visualize its future. This theme is one of several which emerge from the extensive research into the national archives of 198 countries between September 2017 and December 2018, conducted by 46 students and alumni of San José... Continue Reading →
275 YEARS American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA (1743) - "The oldest learned society in the United States, was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin for the purpose of 'promoting useful knowledge.'" American Philosophical Society 80 YEARS Illinois State Archives, building, Springfield, IL (October 26, 1938) - The building now named the "Margaret Cross Norton building"... Continue Reading →
Ascendant political leaders and new political institutions gain power and develop legitimacy by controlling the archival record, as this year’s Archival History Section Meeting in Portland has demonstrated. In one of the largest section gatherings of recent memory, over 50 attendees in the room (and one over Skype) heard two presentations by current Chair, Dr.... Continue Reading →
For the first half of its 30 year career, the Archival History Roundtable printed a newsletter. Between February 1987 and the summer of 2000, the Archival History Roundtable printed and distributed fourteen newsletters, all of which are now available and word-searchable as single PDFs on the SAA-Archival History Section’s microsite, or as an omnibus PDF... Continue Reading →
Editor of The American Archivist, Gregory S. Hunter, explains in the most recent issue that “English-speaking archivists have much to learn from the professional literature of other nations.”[1] Indeed, since the 1940s, translations have graced the pages of The American Archivist. In 1941, the medieval philologist and ‘Monuments Man’ Lester K. Born presented “Baldassare Bonifacio... Continue Reading →
