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Richard J. Cox new book on personal archives...
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Rory Litwin
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Jan 17, 2009 18:55 PST
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I'd like to announce the publication of Richard J. Cox's new book on
personal archives, from Litwin Books.
Personal Archives and a New Archival Calling: Readings, Reflections
and Ruminations.
Author: Richard J. Cox
Price: $35.00
Published: January 2009
ISBN: 978-0-9802004-7-8
Printed on acid-free paper
In Personal Archives and a New Archival Calling: Readings, Reflections
and Ruminations, Richard J. Cox argues that personal archives might be
assuming a new importance in society. As the technical means for
creating, maintaining, and using documents are improving and becoming
more cost-effective, individuals and families are seeking to preserve
their old documents, especially traditional paper forms, as a
connection to a past that may seem to be in risk of being of being
swallowed up in the immense digital gadgetry in our Internet Age.
There is a reversal to other technologies as well, such as leather
bound journals and fountain pens, by some individuals resisting or
protesting the increasingly digital world they reside in. Behind these
very different approaches are similar impulses, and, these divergent
paths raise identical questions about the role and purpose of
traditional archives dating back two centuries and more. Personal
recordkeeping raises a remarkable array of issues and concerns about
records and their preservation, public or collective memory, the
mission of professional records managers and archivists, the nature of
the role of the institutional archives, and the function of the
individual citizen as their own archivist. Archivists need to develop
a new partnership with the public, and the public needs to learn from
the archivists the essentials of preserving documentary materials. We
are on the cusp of seeing a new kind of archival future, and whether
this is good or bad depends on how well archivists equip citizen
archivists.
Rory Litwin
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