The archivist, the letter, and the spirit

Archivaria

Volumn 43, Issue , 1996, Pages 2-16

  Taylor, Hugh ^a  

^a Public Archives of Canada   (Canada)

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EID: 84880404342     PISSN: 03186954     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (57)

1. I1 Corinthians 3:6.
2. Discussed more fully in Hugh Taylor, "Information Ecology and the Archives of the 1980s, " Archivaria 18 (Summer 1984), pp. 25-37.
3. Ronald R.E. Weissman, "Archives and the New Information Architecture of the Late 1990s, " American Archivist 57, no. 1 (Winter, 1994), p. 20.
4. Ronald R.E. Weissman, "Archives and the New Information Architecture of the Late 1990s, " American Archivist 57, no. 1 (Winter, 1994), p. 20.
5. Weissman, "Archives, " p. 21.
6. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
7. Duranti, "Commentary, " p. 38.
8. Teny Eastwood, "Towards a Social Theory of Appraisal, " in Barbara L. Craig, ed., The Archival Imagination: Essays in Honour of Hugh A. Taylor (Ottawa, 1992), p. 83.
9. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
10. Ramon Gutiirrez, "Decolonising the Body: Kinship and the Nation, " American Archivist 57, no. 1 (Winter 1994), p. 91. I I It is so typical of a fragmented approach common to all professions that we tend to polarize points of view. All this is done in good faith defending the "right. " But, in the matter of appraisal, are we striving for synthesis or supremacy? Logical and empirical decisions that have been documented arise out of practical experience. This fact helps us recognize that we are dealing with artifacts which were created for a specific purpose and cast in a diplomatic form to serve that purpose and render it useful for the present and the future. Both polarities around the broader issue of classic philosophical rationalism versus post-modem analysis recognize the value of use, but not necessarily in the same terms. Wisdom grounded in an understanding of social change which incorporates accountability at the local level should be recognized as an element in macroscopic realities. As in the natural world, can we settle for a "balanced turbulence"? Perhaps this is an issue requiring a holistic solution beyond opposing points of view which are so much a part of our literate culture of individualism.
11. Ursula Franklin, The Real World of Technology (Toronto, 1990).
12. See also Hugh Taylor, "Chip Monks at the Gate: the Impact of Technology on Archives, Libraries, and the User, "Archivaria 33 (Winter 1991-92), pp. 173-180.
13. Peter Lyman, "Invention the Mother of Necessity: Archival Research in 2020, " American Archivist 57, no. 1 (Winter 1994), p. 125.
14. The debate took form, for the most part, in a series of articles in Archivaria culminating in Hugh Taylor, "Through the Minefield, " Archivaria 21 (Winter 1985-86), pp. 180-185.
15. Tom Nesmith, "Archives from the Bottom Up: Social History and Archival Scholarship, " Archivaria 14 (Summer 1982), p. 26.
16. David Bearman, Archival Methods, Archives and Museum Informatics, 1989, p. 55.
17. Margaret Hedstrom, ed., Electronic Records Management Program Strategies, Archives and Museum Informatics Technical Report No. 18, 1993, p. 98.
18. Terry Cook, "Mind Over Matter: Towards a New Theory of Archival Appraisal, " in Barbara L. Craig, ed., The Archival Imagination: Essays in Honour of Hugh A. Taylor (Ottawa, 1991), pp. 38-70. The title may be seen as somewhat misleading. Cook is offering an alternative to the Cartesian philosophy of mind over matter.
19. Brien Brothman, "Orders of Value: Probing the Theoretical Terms of Archival Practice, " Archivaria 32 (Summer 1991), pp. 78-100.
20. Richard Brown, "Macro-Appraisal Theory and the Context of the Public Records Creator, " Archivaria 40 (Fall 1995), p. 138.
21. Candace Loewen, "From Human Neglect to Planetary Survival: New Approaches to the Appraisal of Environmental Records, " Archivaria 33 (Winter 1991-92), p. 91.
22. Joan Schwartz, "'We make our tools and our tools make us': Lessons from Photographs for the Practice, Politics, and Poetics of Diplomatics, " Archivaria 40 (Fall 1995), pp. 40-74.
23. Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaming Earth to the Ecozoic Era (San Francisco, 1992). This is recommended reading to grasp in lay terms the context and development of our planet whereby the universe from the "big bang" onwards tells its own "story" of evolution through time within a cosmic setting. Berry is a priest and geologist who calls himself a geologian, and created the term "ecozoic. " Swimme is an astrophysicist and cosmologist.
24. Arthur Kroker, Technology and the Canadian Mind: Innis/McLuhan/Grant (Montreal, 1984), p. 8.
25. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
26. Brian Swimme, The Universe is a Green Dragon: a Cosmic Creation Story (Sante Fe, 1984), p. 100.
27. Terry Eastwood, How Goes it with Appraisal?' Archivaria 36 (Autumn, 1993), p. 112.
28. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
29. For an introduction to this problem, see John Selby Spong, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture (San Francisco, 1991). This is a very controversial book among Anglicans, but contains a popular summary of the difficulties encountered in the Bible in terms of accepting it as literally the words of God, and Spong's solutions based on the meaning behind the words and other evidence from the midrashic tradition.
30. See also his Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes (San Francisco, 1996).
31. J.S. Spong, Resurrection: Myth or Reality?: A Bishop's Search for the Origins of Christianity (San Francisco, 1994), p. 8.
32. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
33. Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ (San Francisco, 1988), p. 36. Source not cited.
34. Matthew Fox, The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time (San Francisco, 1994), p. 5.
35. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
36. Richard Klumpenhouwer, "The MAS and After: Transubstantiating Theory and Practice into an Archival Culture, " Archivaria 39 (Spring 1995), p. 89.
37. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
38. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
39. John Main, O.S.B., Word into Silence (New York, 1980), p. 4. One facet of meditation is apotheia in the stoic sense of freedom from domination and control by the voice of the ego, thereby reducing it to silence. This is far removed from the intellectual detachment of the Western mind and the modem meaning of "apathy. "
40. Michael Heim, Electric Language: a Philosophical Study of Word Processing (New Haven, 1987), p. 236.
41. Michael Heim, Electric Language: a Philosophical Study of Word Processing (New Haven, 1987), p. 236.
42. Candace Loewen, "From Human Neglect to Planetary Survival: New Approaches to the Appraisal of Environmental Records. " This article examines our plight, the fragmentary, piecemeal appraisal, the contributions of philosophers, feminists, and historians to the problem, an appraisal of the Atomic Energy Control Board, and holistic survival values. So far as I know this excellent article is the first of its kind. See also, Hugh Taylor, "The Totemic Universe: Appraising the Documentary Future, " in Christopher Hives, ed., Archival Appraisal: Theory and Practice (Vancouver, 1990), pp. 15-30.
43. Howard Zinn, "Secrecy, Archives and the Public Interest, " Boston University Journal 19 (Fall 1971), p. 38.
44. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
45. Heather MacNeil, "Archival Theory and Practice: Between Two Paradigms, " Archivaria 37 (Spring 1994), p. 13.
46. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
47. Joan M. Schwartz, "'We make our tools and our tools make us. "' This is an admirable, groundbreaking addition to the work of Luciana Duranti. See endnote 22 for bibliographic information.
48. Brien Brothman, "The Limits of Limits: Demdean Deconstruction and the Archival Institution, " Archivaria 36 (Autumn 1993), p. 208. Brothman quotes this phrase in relation to archives as sign, "in Simon Schama's wonderfully ambiguous sense-a site of dead certainties. "
49. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
50. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
51. This is also the title of a work by Joseph Campbell, who was consulted by George Lucas in the making of the Star Wars trilogy. Luke Skywalker was the mythic hero.
52. This I believe as a meditator in the tradition of the fourth century John Cassian, the teacher and inspirer of St. Benedict, which the late Dom John Main has spread around the world through his workshops and tape-recorded talks. In order to make these reflections on spirituality in our profession as inclusive as possible, I have avoided discussing Christian beliefs and have referred to the Bible only as an example of the inherent dangers of literalism in dealing with a record of this kind.
53. For example, the Celtic world, with its remarkable fusion of pagan, and later Christian, spirituality with ecology, stands in contrast to the dichotomies bequeathed to us by Greece and Rome. For an excellent overview in a series of symposium papers, see Robert O'Driscall, ed., The Celtic Consciousness, (New York, 1981).
54. The remaining paragraphs in this article are taken from my unpublished commentary on the session, "Reconsidering Acquisition: The Total Archives Concept, " ACA Conference, Ottawa, 1994.
55. Kirkpatrick Sale, Dwellers in the Land: A Bioregional Vision (Gabriola Island, B.C., 1991), p. 45.
56. Doug Aberly, ed., Boundaries of Home: Mapping for Local Empowerment (The New Catalyst Bioregional Series No. 6) (Gabriola Island, B.C., 1993). This was enthusiastically reviewed by Denis Wood in Cartographica 30, no. 4 (Winter 1993), for which Ed Dahl was Review Editor.
57. To end on a personal note, this will be absolutely my last "stand alone" article to be published, and I would like to thank all my professional colleagues for their interest and support spanning forty-eight years. You have all be very patient! Once again, my warmest thanks to Jane Turner, Archivist of the University of Victoria, for her input digitally and critically.