“What can I say, I'm a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff which despite the light of progress and all that, still vanishes every day like shadows at noon, goings unheralded, passings unourned, well, you get the drift.” ForgottenEveryday LifeTaken For GrantedArchivists Book:House of Leaves Source: House of Leaves
“My work is whatever I want it to be, and I report to no one regularly. The head librarian -- the man in charge of the University's entire collection -- is a figurehead, well-to-do and poorly read, with whom I have only perfunctory contact.” LibrariansArchivistsMatthais Lane Book:The Archivist Source: The Archivist
“A good deal of time spent researching this book might well have been wasted and valuable opportunities missed if it had not been for the help and suggestions of archivists and librarians.” ResearchLibrariansArchivistsStalingrad Author:Antony Beevor
“Since the first satellites had been orbited, almost fifty years earlier, trillions and quadrillions of pulses of information had been pouring down from space, to be stored against the day when they might contribute to the advance of knowledge. Only a minute fraction of all this raw material would ever be processed; but there was no way of telling what observation some scientist might wish to consult, ten, or fifty, or a hundred years from now. So everything had to be kept on file, stacked in endless airconditioned galleries, triplicated at the [data] centers against the possibility of accidental loss. It was part of the real treasure of mankind, more valuable than all the gold locked uselessly away in bank vaults.” DataArchivistsArchiveUnprocessed Author:Arthur C. Clarke
“I’m looking for information.” She lifted her arms, indicating the breadth of the library, and declared with self-parodied drama, “I’m surrounded by it!” LibraryLibrariesLibrariansArchivists Book:The War Beneath Source: The War Beneath
“Some historians, by prioritising accuracy of information and parading their attentiveness, diligence, and industry, emphasised only the objective of factual knowledge which might prove detrimental to their scholarly creativity, empathy, and synthetic power as well as their aesthetic judgement and broader understanding. R. E. Stansfield-Cudworth, ‘Archivists and Historians: Perspectives on the Place of Historical Research in Archival Practice’ (2015), p. 16.” HistoryArchivesHistoriansArchivists Author:Robert E. Stansfield-Cudworth
“The tide of nineteenth-century whig orthodoxy – with its unequal emphasis on constitutional history – subsided, in the mid-twentieth century, to reveal new approaches to History. In the Stubbsian realm of later-medieval political history, for instance, this tide’s retreat enabled the advance of waters which emphasised personalities and the importance of political connections and patronage networks. R. E. Stansfield-Cudworth, ‘Archivists and Historians: Perspectives on the Place of Historical Research in Archival Practice’ (2015), pp. 18–19.” HistoryArchivesHistoriansArchivistsWhig Philosophy Author:Robert E. Stansfield-Cudworth
“Description may require the study of individual documents which thereby stimulates examination of informational value: those actors, factors, or features populating the documentary landscape. R. E. Stansfield-Cudworth, ‘Archivists and Historians: Perspectives on the Place of Historical Research in Archival Practice’ (2015), pp. 30–1.” HistoryArchivesHistoriansArchivistsArchival DescriptionCataloguing Author:Robert E. Stansfield-Cudworth
“The sphere of ‘historical research’ does not readily or exactly correspond with that of ‘archival practice’ but the notion that even if a single component of the latter is omitted from the former that that then validates the profession’s collective defenestration of all issues historical fails to appreciate the complexity of all arguments. R. E. Stansfield-Cudworth, ‘Archivists and Historians: Perspectives on the Place of Historical Research in Archival Practice’ (2015), p. 41.” HistoryArchivesHistorical ResearchHistoriansArchivistsArchival Practice Author:Robert E. Stansfield-Cudworth
“A view of archivists as historians’ handmaidens accepts subservience, infers disciplinary subordination, and implies professional inferiority, which does not realise the scale and extent of archivists’ true accumulated expertise. Consequently, if we invert the proposition to pose not whether historians make better archivists but whether archivists make better historians, it is possible to consider not whether archivists should be scholars and engage in historical research but whether the realm of historical scholarship should incorporate archivists and archival activities. R. E. Stansfield-Cudworth, ‘Archivists and Historians: Perspectives on the Place of Historical Research in Archival Practice’ (2015), p. 46.” HistoryArchivesHistorical ResearchHistoriansArchivistsArchival Practice Author:Robert E. Stansfield-Cudworth