[Personal_archives] Arrangement discussion - another lead balloon?

[Heather Home]

The article that most spoke to me was the Hurley article. His method of 
describing what thoughtful arrangement is and what it isn't, his 
stressing of the obligation of the archivist to the record, his 
acknowledgment of the the inability to nail anything down still seems 
very relevant in current practice. Yes, even within the digital realm. 
The article makes clear that arrangement is not a set of rules, but a 
set of guiding principles. Like a notation system or musical score, 
there are notes to hit, actions to take, but how it sounds or looks in 
the end depends on the combination of the record, the practitioner and 
the interpretation.  This score is what the NSARM policy seems to be 
trying to convey, though whether it has all the notes I think is still 
up for discussion.

I know from my own practice that my arrangements of archival fonds do 
not all "look" the same in terms of levels of arrangement or 
description, yet they visually and physically present themselves to the 
researcher or donor in a consistent or similar way because they are all 
in acid free file folders and acid free boxes with numbers and stamps 
conveying order even when there is none, or it is very loose, or 
idiosyncratic. In imposing this meta-level of order, even when trying to 
do no harm but indeed protect the record, we have of course altered it . 
It brings to mind the current practice in archaeology which is to leave 
it all in the ground, document it, cover it up, protect it but leave it 
in context (when and where this is possible). Obviously we cannot seal 
off the offices, kitchen drawers, or bedrooms of our donors but it makes 
me wonder how many people are documenting sites of creation on a regular 
basis (when that is a possibility) or photographing material in the 
state in which they receive it? And how this documentation informs 
arrangement?

Heather

-- 
Heather Home, B.A., M.A.S.
Public Services/Private Records Archivist
Queen's University Archives, Kathleen Ryan Hall
Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7L 3N6
t: 613.533.6000 x74456
f: 613.533.6403

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