Archive Me

Our class has been discussing how the digital age has affected the archival process. What needs to be preserved? How is it to be preserved? Who decides what is to be collected and how to organize it? We and the readings we’ve been assigned have come up with a few possible answers to this last question – the government? Libraries? Universities? Private companies?

The topic leaders on Monday opened with a question concerning a different aspect of these questions – something along the lines of “how do we create our own archives online?” Although the class went on to discuss programs and things like Omeka which facilitate building traditional-type digital archives, this question got me thinking about how each of us who use the internet and sites like Facebook or Pinterest start forming our own personal archives of our lives. Like traditional archivists, Facebook users must choose what objects they include in their collection – which pictures, notes, communications, etc. They organize them for future use according to the rules of the site and according to more personalized folders. They add these items under the assumption that they will be preserved on Facebook’s servers to be consulted in the future. Similarly, Pinterest users roam the site and the internet for objects they want to preserve and collect for future reference and to share with those who visit their pages. All of this is sounding particularly “archive-y” to me. 

What is the difference between these sites and other digital archives? Perhaps the scale is smaller, the focus narrower. Each Facebook page chronicles the existence of just one average person while traditional archives generally focus on famous people, or periods, or events. However, if these mini-archives are preserved for future generations, historians will be able to mine a wealth of information about life as it really was in the 21st Century. Instead of having a relative wealth of sources about the “important” people and events of our time and a desert of information about what everyone else was doing, these historians will finally have access to how these grand events actually affected everyday workings – that is, IF historians notice their worth in time to preserve them. Through sites like Facebook and Pinterest, WE become the archivists collecting and organizing history.