[Personal_archives] Au revoir

[Martha Langford]

Dear friends,

Our week is coming to an end. I want to thank Catherine Hobbs for the 
invitation to peek behind the archivists' curtain and to correspond with 
some of you. I also want to thank you for including my students, one of 
whom has followed leads and made amazing connections. Others have read 
the string and thought their thoughts - all good.

This is also an opportunity to thank all the archivists who have 
facilitated my research in the past and those I will call on in the 
future, in museums, libraries, historical societies and ... archives.

We opened up a huge topic, one that the group may pursue in terms of 
policies and practices. What I would also reinforce, and this is what 
I've been nibbling at over the last few days, is the value of the 
archival imagination - those intuitions and hunches, generously shared 
with a researcher. What bounty in those chance remarks! What a day when 
Stanley Triggs at the McCord pulled open a drawer and said: We also have 
these family albums - maybe you'd like to do something with them. This 
was a backstage moment that changed my life.

Be well.

Martha