Archives in Context and as Context

Kate Theimer
Approaching the field of digital humanities as an outsider is an interesting experience. It is best
compared, I think, to being a tourist in a foreign country for which there are no reliable
guidebooks. It is a country in which the language is almost the same as the one you speak, and
yet words are used to mean somewhat different things. It is also a relatively young country, still
trying to define its national identity.
As an archivist, attempting to learn more about this foreign country of Digital Humanities, I
am struck with how often its citizens refer to the archives they or their colleagues create. To
continue the tourist analogy, imagine that the country I come from is the nation of Archives,
and that it has a longer history than that of the country of Digital Humanities. The nation of
Archives has well established national principles. It is a small country, perhaps, and not a
powerful player on the international stage, but its citizens are quietly proud of what they have
managed to accomplish with such a small national budget.
And so I, a tourist from the country of Archives, visited the foreign land of Digital Humanities
and quickly realized that something a bit odd has happened to my treasured national heritage.
When I questioned digital humanists about what they meant when they use the word archives
or questioned the appropriateness of using it to describe various collections, the responses varied
from befuddled confusion (Im not sure what I mean) to a strenuous defense of the different
usage. Given the emerging importance of digital humanities as a scholarly field, I thought it
would be useful to explore this disconnect and so perhaps shed some light for both archivists and
digital humanists about what each may mean when using this common word.
Archivists have become accustomed to the adoption of archives by information technologists
as well as the general public to refer to things which we archivists would not call archives. So it
is not the adoption of the term by digital humanists that is noteworthy, but that its meaning in
certain contexts has been altered by scholars, many of whom have experience working with
archives as traditionally defined. And yet it is these scholars who have chosen to describe the
collections they have created as archives, seemingly in all sincerity that their usage is appropriate
and not in contradiction to the practice of archivists. What could account for this disconnect?
But, perhaps more importantly, why does it matter? If some digital humanists, along with the
world in general, have adopted archives to mean a variety of things, why should it be
important to articulate and share the traditional archival vision of an archives? Archivists cannot
control the use of the word archives and do not have exclusive rights to it. Practitioners of the
digital humanities can and will continue to use it to mean whatever is meaningful in their
discipline. However, I will argue that there is value and context in the way archives professionals
have defined this term. The archivists definition is more specific, and therefore in my opinion
conveys greater meaning. It is this meaning, and with it the understanding of the specific role
archives play in preserving unique documentary material, that I want to promote.

In this article I will examine one formal definition of archives and use it to illustrate the
fundamental principles that separate traditional archives from many of the collections created by
digital humanists. I hope my discussion will itself be a demonstration of the need for greater
communication between digital humanists and information professionals, such as archivists,
about the areas where our practices intersect.
Surveying the landscape of the digital humanities, the archives that attracted my attention were
primarily online groupings of digital copies of non-digital original materials, often comprised of
materials (many of which are publications) located in different physical repositories or
collections, purposefully selected and arranged in order to support a scholarly goal. Some
prominent examples of this kind of usage are the Shakespeare Quartos Archive, the Rossetti
Archive and the William Blake Archive.[1] When I queried a few digital humanists about why
they felt the collections they created qualified as archives, the most common response was that
the materials had been selected. Based on this small sample, it appeared that their perception of
what constituted an archive was a grouping of materials that had been purposefully selected in
order to be studied and made accessible.
It is perhaps worth noting that many digital humanists, especially literary scholars, may have
more direct exposure to manuscript collections or special collections, rather than true archives.
The distinction between the two is sometimes not clear and many institutions have joint archives
and special collections units (or departments or offices). A manuscript repository (also known as
a manuscript library or special collections library) collects materials from outside sources
through donation or purchase. In contrast, an archives is the repository for the historical records
of its parent organization. For example, the National Archives of the United States is the
repository for the historical records of the U.S. government; the Harry Ransom Center acquires
its historical collections through donation or purchase. The National Archives, like most
archives, also contains some donated materials; however the primary holdings of any archives
will be the records of its sponsoring organization.
Although archives can be an organization or office within an organization, that is not, I think,
the usage that is most relevant to this discussion. For that, we need to discuss the first definition
of archives endorsed by the Society of American Archivists:
Materials created or received by a person, family, or organization, public or private, in the
conduct of their affairs and preserved because of the enduring value contained in the information
they contain or as evidence of the functions and responsibilities of their creator, especially those
materials maintained using the principles of provenance, original order, and collective control.[2]
There is nothing in this meaning of archives that references a selection activity on the part of
the archivist. This led me to think that perhaps digital humanists were assuming the larger
meaning of archives, which references the activities of the archivist at the repository level. This
is analogous to the third definition of archives as defined by SAA:
An organization that collects the records of individuals, families, or other organizations; a
collecting archives.[3]

If an archivist is perceived to be one who creates an archives, i.e. a place in which valuable
materials are collected, then the selection function emphasized by the digital humanists makes
more sense. An archivist in this sense is one who selects things for preservation and makes them
accessible. And the experience of most scholars working with archival or manuscript collections
may very well have left them with the impression that this is the primary work of an archivist
and the meaning of an archives.
And so it is, in part, but I believe that for most archivists it is the first definition of archives that
distinguishes our work and our profession. Many other kinds of professionals (and nonprofessionals) select or collect materials, preserve them, and make them accessible.
What defines the work of an archivist, and so an archives in the mind of an archivist, is what
materials are selected and how they are managed. Archivists select and preserve archives as
defined in the primary definition, which is to say aggregates of materials with an organic
relationship, rather than items that may be similar in some manner, but otherwise unrelated. The
archival selection activity, known as appraisal, generally takes place at this aggregate level,
and it is whole collections, donations, or records series which are being selected. These
aggregates are maintained using the principles of provenance, original order, and collective
control. These principles constitute the primary differences between archives and other kinds of
collections.
The first of these principles is provenance. Just as in the art world, provenance refers to the
history of an object, its creation and ownership. With works of art, provenance is usually used to
better understand or authenticate an object. While those uses also apply in the archival world,
provenance is also the basis for the principle of provenance, also known by its French
designation respect des fonds. This principle dictates that records of different origins
(provenance) be kept separate to preserve their context.[4] In other words, records originating
from different sources are never to be intermingled or combined. It is important to note in this
regard that the source of a record is not necessarily the same as its author.
This distinction about the source of a record is related to the second key archival principle, that
of collective control. Archival materials are generally managed as aggregates, not as collections
of individual items. These aggregates, which can be referred to as record groups, series, and
manuscript collections, are established according to the source of the aggregate, often a result of
the activity which generated the records.[5] The principle of collective control is dependent on
understanding the provenance of the aggregate of materials. To return to the primary definition of
archives, the aggregate will be defined by who created it (a person, family, or organization,
public or private) and why it was created (in the conduct of their affairs). The aggregate of
records created by a person, family, or organization may contain records with many different
authors. For example, the records of a publishing house may contain correspondence with many
individual authors. Once transferred to an archival repository, those records will be maintained as
a distinct aggregate (say, the Records of Smith Publishers) and the contents will not be
removed and added to other aggregates based on the individual authorship or topic.[6]
The third principle directs that within each aggregate of records the original order imposed by
the source of records should be preserved or recreated, if it is known.[7] This principle, along with

adhering to the principle of provenance and collective control, exists to preserve the original
context of the records. Some records are meaningless outside their original context and others
gain additional value by being examined within it.[8]
While not specified by Pearce-Moses, another defining aspect of archives is that primarily
original or unique materials and not published ones are collected. When published materials or
copies of materials are accessioned it is usually because they are part of an aggregate and
therefore gain or provide context as part of the grouping.
These qualities taken together preserving groups of primarily original, unique materials,
which are maintained using the principles of provenance, original order, and collective control
are the bedrock of the practices of archivists. These practices are expressions of a common set of
values values which I think archivists do not discuss often enough outside our own
professional communities.
I believe embedded in the discussion of what constitutes an archives is, consciously or not, a
debate over the importance of authenticity an#333333;">d#000000;">#333333;"> the
preservation of context. In fact, an essential aspect of demonstrating authenticity is preserving
context. Authenticity is typically inferred from internal and external evidence, including its
physical characteristics, structure, content, and context.[9] Physical characteristics, structure, and
content are all internal evidence; the external evidence of authenticity is supplied through
context, and so the archival drive to preserve context is in part motivated by the need to preserve
the evidence needed to assess the authenticity of the material.
For archivists, preserving context is also about preserving the conditions that make documents
more meaningful to users. All of the aspects of an archives encapsulated in the archival definition
are designed to preserve the context of materials. I will return to the issue of context again, but
with this in mind, I want to return to considering the digital humanities usage of archives.
Given the importance archivists place on the principles I have just described, it may be easier to
understand the disconnect between the way archivists define archives and the way it is often
used in the digital humanities. Archivists would not refer to online groupings of digital copies of
non-digital original materials, often comprised of materials (including published materials)
located in different physical repositories or collections, purposefully selected and arranged in
order to support a scholarly goal, as an archives and so the confusion of an Archivist tourist
in the land of Digital Humanities.
I can think of three possible responses to this archival questioning of archives in digital
humanities. First, as noted above, archivists do select materials for acquisition and accession. So
if digital humanists identify the primary activity of the archivist as one who selects things, then
this could lead them to consider the collections of materials they have created by selection as
archives. However, while it is true that at the repository level, archivists create the archives
by designating some administrative records as having permanent value and by accepting
donations of collections of records created by people, families, and organizations (and
occasionally purchasing them), these selection decisions are made at the aggregate level. It is
these aggregates, as whole units, that are selected, not the individual items within them, which

seems to contrast with the approach taken in archives created by digital humanists. Within an
aggregate, or an archive, archivists do not select.[10]
Second, it might be argued that the archives created by digital humanists are themselves
archives in that they represent the records of those peoples own professional activities. For
example, if digital humanist Linda Tompkins creates a digital collection of materials related to
John Ruskin, do these materials not constitute materials created or received by a person, family,
or organization, public or private, in the conduct of their affairs and preserved because of the
enduring value contained in the information they contain or as evidence of the functions and
responsibilities of their creator? The archival response would be probably yes, but then they
would be the archives of Linda Tompkins, not the John Ruskin Archives. Archivists identify
aggregates, adhering to the principal of provenance, according to the source of the aggregate, not
the subject.[11]
Third, it could be argued that in the digital realm a different definition of archives applies. For
example, in a 2009 article in Digital Humanities Quarterly Kenneth Price flatly stated: In a
digital environment, archive has gradually come to mean a purposeful collection of
surrogates.[12] It certainly appears that this is the case in the field of digital humanities, just as
information technology has adapted archive to mean collections of back up data. Many
websites refer to the content maintained on the site, but not considered current, as existing in
archives. All these uses are valid in their contexts. Archivists cannot control the use of the
word archives and do not have exclusive rights to it. Language is constantly evolving and to
try to enforce one groups definition onto another groups usage is doomed to failure. However,
in such cases it is all the more important for those groups using the same word to understand the
distinctions and meanings it has beyond their own borders. This is what I am trying to do here
with the usages of the archival and the digital humanities communities.
Therefore, it is important to note that the formal definition of archives used in the archival
community cited here recognizes no differences for electronic records, born digital material, or
materials presented on the web. Prices definition, put forward for a digital humanities audience,
may be correct in that community of practice, but it should come as no surprise to digital
humanists that archivists have concerns about that definition.
The issue here is not that one definition is right or wrong, but that the archival definition carries
with it an adherence to professional practice and values that digital humanists are perhaps not
aware of. Personally, I would prefer that online collections that do not meet the archival
definition of archives be referred to as digital collections rather than archives. Collection
clearly implies materials that have been assembled and intentionally brought together.[13]
However, while the purpose of an archives as traditionally defined is to preserve materials in
their original context (or at least the organizational, functional, and operational circumstances
surrounding materials creation, receipt, storage, or use, and its relationship to other
materials[14]), archivists recognize that this is by no means the only context in which materials
may be understood. For example, a letter written by Dante Gabriel Rossetti may have context
within the records of an art dealer or publisher preserved in an archives, but it will also have
context seen with his other correspondence as gathered together in the online collection that is

the Rossetti Archive. The critical difference is that while such a letter can be placed within
many different contexts in many different kinds of collections, it is only in a collection managed
according to archival principles that the organizational context of the letter is preserved.
Preservation of this kind of context is what separates archives from libraries, most personal
collections, and assembled virtual collections.
What concerns me is that in the broadening of archives to extend to any digital collection of
surrogates there is the potential for a loss of understanding and appreciation of the historical
context that archives preserve in their collections, and the unique role that archives play as
custodians of materials in this context. Given the connotations of authority, rarity, and
specialness that the word archives has in our culture, it is not surprising that it is an attractive
word to use, as the creators of the William Blake Archive admit, to describe an online collection
for which no other word seems to fit. I have no illusions that this discussion will alter how digital
humanities scholars use archives within their own projects and discourse. I do hope, however,
that this usage can be informed with an understanding of the principles embedded in the word as
archivists have defined it, and that the role of archives (the kind that archivists manage) as
custodians of a particular kind of context can be appreciated.

Expanded from an original post by Kate Theimer on March 27, 2012. Revised for the Journal of
Digital Humanities June 2012.