Tag: history

Donation Trauma – Is it a thing?

Without collecting and selection, the role of an archivist couldn’t exist. We are the modern-day hunter gatherers, seeking out historically valuable information and collecting it together in well organised groups for us to look after forever more. But how much thought do we really give to those handing their treasures over to us, and what impact does this transaction have on them? I think about this in more depth in this post.

Whether it’s creating a brand-new collection, or adding to an already established one, collecting is a core role of the archivist. Knowing where to look to find the records that tell the stories that need to be told is a skill built up over time. However, it’s a task that comes with many pitfalls and is problematic in a range of ways. How do we decide what is important? How do we know what story is the most important to tell? We know that we can’t collect everything, but although our role is to curate content, how do we know we’re saving the right things? Across the archive sector, what is kept depends largely on who is in charge of the collection and even though policies and processes are in place to help guide decisions, there is no real standardisation and opinions are what decide the value and therefore the fate of a record.

Sometimes this can lead to us being offered collections that don’t fit with our collecting policy, or would be better placed with another organisation, or even in some cases may not have the value that the potential donor thinks it does. We’re well versed in how to deal with this. Empathy and compassion are under valued skills of the archive profession in general. But do we apply this thought process to those we accept collections from? I’m not sure we always do.

A lot of our records come from community groups who have been building up collections as a labour of love for many years. Even some individuals have collected valuable records and have decided to donate them so ensure they survive long term. However, in our excitement to fill the gaps in our holdings, do we always acknowledge how difficult this decision could have been? Or the reasons it has been made? Having worked in the sector for so long, I’ve formed strong emotional attachments to the collections in my care, even when I wasn’t the collector, so having to give up the records which have played such an important roll in your life can, in some cases, be really difficult. To be handed paperwork that feels like signing your life away by an over excited archivist who keeps talking about the gaps that’s been filled or the importance of the collection will likely not make this easier.

Large group of people different silhouette crowded together in heart shape isolated on white background. Vector illustration

Trauma has become an important word across the sector in recent years, particularly in reference to trauma informed practice and the emotional trauma that archivists can go through dealing with records with difficult subject matter. This in an important part of the work we do and needs to be explored more to ensure we feel able to do our jobs every day. But we do also need to be mindful of the impact we can have on others and be prepared to act with compassion when needed. Even if inside, we are doing cartwheels about the amazing stuff being donated. Allowing free access to donated collections can also help ease this transition. Donators should be welcomed to work on the collections they have contributed, or just be able to look at them whenever opening hours facilitate this. No one will know more than them about their collections and cultivating these relationships can only bring us benefits.

I think the previous blogs about working with community archives inform this post as well. Communication skills have never been more important in our role, and we should always take a minute to think about the task we are doing and how it may affect the people we are working with. This can only ever be a good thing.   

But, that’s not who we are?

I don’t think I’m sharing any huge secret when I say that archivists, and maybe by default archives, have a bit of an image problem outside of our sector. Since I joined the sector we have battled against the stereotypical cardigan wearing gatekeeper image of our profession with little success. But working within the sector, I know that archivists are a vibrant, passionate, friendly bunch of people who on the whole love the job that they do and want to help others explore the joys of archives. So where dos the disconnect come in? And what do we need to do to change it? That’s what I’m going to talk about in today’s blog.  

A closeup shot of a door with black and yellow stripes

The perception of archivists from outside the sector is something that’s always bothered me. When I decided to become an archivist, I was met with two main questions when I told people; one, ‘what’s that’? and two, ‘is that for people like us’? The latter was in reference to my working class background. I didn’t actually know what an archive was myself until much later in life and even when I found out, it did still seem like a sector that might be closed off to me. Perseverance paid off, but the fact that both these questions still plague the sector almost 20 years later is a problem. Worryingly, a problem that we don’t seem to be moving towards solving at any great pace.  

I think this may be something to do with a topic I mentioned in a previous blog. I think  perceptions of what an archivist is and isn’t are warped to the extent that people are so unsure of what we do and if it’s for them that they just don’t engage. The other side of the coin is that this is a truth universally acknowledged by archivists, but then also ignored. We don’t seem to care enough about this perception to do the work towards changing it. It is easier to continue to put pictures of our collections on social media and hope that the right person sees them and makes the leap to engage with the archive rather than putting our heads over the parapet and encouraging people to explore archives.  

This is not a blanket opinion of the sector. There are archives who post some content about the work they do, or fit information about archives into the latest Tik Tok trend, but I think sector wide input is needed for the perception to begin to change. And we also need to acknowledge that we want it to change. Explore Your Archive was designed as a mechanism to help the sector do this, but it has turned into a content sharing platform which floods the internet with images of archive content but does little to explain why people should engage with archives and what they can learn from them.  

As also mentioned in a previous blog, we need to acknowledge that the sector is changing and the work we do will be changing with it. Modern record collecting and community engagement is becoming the main focus of our role which is very different from the inward facing focus on catalogue creating and nothing else that archivists did when the profession established.  

So how do we fix it? I don’t really have an answer, but I do have some ideas. Using the tools we have already, and our skillset would be a great start. Using Explore Your Archive in a different way as a sector would help. It would provide a unified voice through which people literally all over the world could be encouraged to visit their archives and find things of interest. Open days are also a useful tool, as is engaging with local media and telling people about what we do and why rather than what we have. Increasing community engagement work will also increase our potential audience and may also increase our holdings as community groups realise what we can help with. To me, the benefits are many, but it would be remiss not to mention the main barriers to making this work. Archive budgets and resources are already stretched to their limits so an anonymous blog telling people to spend more money and time on yet another task is likely not overly welcome. Prioritisation of time and resource is always going to be a factor for our sector and I believe this is important enough to warrant prioritising and focus from the sector as a whole. Image is everything and we need to work on improving ours.  

Let It Go – Was Elsa onto something?

You may be wondering what Elsa and Frozen has to do with archives. This topic links into something that I touched on in my previous storytelling blog. I talked in that blog about how archivists need to think about who the correct person is to be telling stories using the records in their collections. I think that most archivists would agree that one of the main aims of preserving records is to provide access to them. However stereotypical views of archivists seem to be at odds with this fact. Do archivists really live up the stereotypes placed on them. Are we more open to collaboration and user-initiated projects and we’re just really bad at telling users this? Or are we somewhere in the middle? I’m attempting to unpack my thoughts on the subject in this blog.

From the archivists I’ve met and worked with and the way I behave myself, I think that in many cases, archivists become very attached to the collections they are working with – to the point that many can claim to be subject matter experts on collections they have catalogued. Although learning in depth about the topic of the collection your cataloguing is not a requirement, many archivists can claim an unusually large level of knowledge about the collections they work with. I’ve definitely gathered some incredibly niche knowledge over the years. However, I would also argue that many of us are over keen to share this knowledge and tell everyone about the amazing records we’ve worked with that day and what we found out. So many archivists career stories start with ‘I love history….’ for a good reason. It’s this enthusiasm that helps us create such detailed catalogue descriptions or find that perfect image for an enticing social media post. So why then, do so many people still consider archivists and gatekeepers and archives as inaccessible to them?

At an event I attended recently, a range of community archivists expressed that they wouldn’t want to give an institution access to the collections they had formed because they would likely never see it again, or their access would be severely restricted. They also worried that an institution would be given a collection which would immediately be shelved and no work done on it as no money was available to catalogue and make it available for research (or for the donator to access it). While it cannot be denied that many archives suffer from lack of funding and this may be the reason that donated collections lie untouched, restricting donator access at this point to me sounds counter intuitive. Wouldn’t it be far better to work with the donator who cared enough to spend their time and energy gathering the collection and preserving it as best they can for their community, to make the collection accessible. It should also be noted that although we can learn and become experts on collection contents, this is no substitute for lived experience from people involved in the collection topic in some way.

If an archivist’s job is to collect, preserve and make available, in many cases, community archives have done the collecting for us already. In these cases, if the community archive is willing to work with an institution, could the archivist’s role move to preservation and access facilitation? For example, providing a cataloguing process document and support to the community archive so they can use their expertise to catalogue the collection would be beneficial for everyone. The collection could then be donated for permanent preservation with the collaborating institution, who can also help to facilitate access. For this to work, there would need to be changes in the way archivists view who can access their collections – if a community archive is doing all the work to catalogue a collection – we can’t then restrict their access to that collection. If the archive is open, access should be provided. Donor agreements can help both parties document what they need for the arrangement to work and if agreement is possible, far more collections could not only be preserved in appropriate conditions, but also accessed by a wide range of users. I know that ideally someone would be paid to do this work (funding will be a topic covered in future blogs) but in cases where this isn’t possible, if a community archive is already creating a list of the record they have, surely archivists at institutions could support in turning that list into a sector compliant catalogue? I’ve never heard of an arrangement like this in practice but would love to be proved wrong so if you already do something like this please do get in touch.

Although archivists do want collections to be accessed, I think sometimes we are too focused on controlling how that access works. Yes, we need safeguards and procedures in place to preserve records but if the records never make it make it to the archive they won’t be preserved or accessed anyway. The main aim is for records to be used so it may be that a case-by-case approach is required to collection acquisition and access. Even though the thought of this makes me a bit anxious, but I think it’s time to challenge ourselves to do what’s best for the communities we serve as well as the records in our care. In many cases one wouldn’t exist without the other and we should be making the most of these connections to help improve access in ways that we can’t do on our own.

The role of the archivist is changing, in my opinion for the better and we should be using our expertise for the good of the communities around us and the stories they have to tell. Even if that does mean letting go a little bit.