{"id":129,"date":"2023-12-08T14:27:32","date_gmt":"2023-12-08T19:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/claremccabe\/?p=129"},"modified":"2023-12-08T14:27:33","modified_gmt":"2023-12-08T19:27:33","slug":"archival-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/claremccabe\/2023\/12\/08\/archival-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Archival Power!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Archives are a vital societal resource! Archives are political! Archives are powerful!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And Archives are facing serious industry wide challenges! In this era of public divestment from the humanities and public resources, archives are in a perilous position. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what are archives to do? As we\u2019ve talked about extensively in class, I think outreach, education, and the broader public good are the future. Archives should meet their existing patrons where they are- no need to be prison guards. Keeping a secure reading room should still be an archival priority (even though some archives may be most at risk from insider theft!), but archives and archivists can still loosen the gates on historical knowledge. If the archives are filled with genealogists, they should serve and cultivate that population. Archives should reach out to the communities around them. Do they collect\/preserve a particular town or communities\u2019 records? Then that community should feel they have a stake in the archives. Furthermore, archives should aim to collect in conjunction with marginalized groups, to preserve a diverse historical record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, archives need to lobby on a national level. The public does not understand what an archive is or what archivists do. Some of that changes with us (and our elevator pitches). But some of that changes with archives building relationships with national and state governments. Or local governments and school boards. It\u2019s a hostile political moment for history, especially history which challenges a conservative traditional narrative of American history. This does not mean that archives shouldn\u2019t try. I actually think it means that now is the moment for archives to harness their power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks for a great semester everyone, I\u2019ve loved getting to discuss these important issues with you all- I feel it\u2019s made me a better historian and a better citizen!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Archives are a vital societal resource! Archives are political! Archives are powerful! And Archives are facing serious industry wide challenges! In this era of public&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/claremccabe\/2023\/12\/08\/archival-power\/\">Continue Reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Archival Power!<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":33611,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives-and-manuscripts","category-reading-responses","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/claremccabe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/claremccabe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/claremccabe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/claremccabe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33611"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/claremccabe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/claremccabe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/claremccabe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/claremccabe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/claremccabe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/claremccabe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}