In his talk Secrecy, Archives and the Public Interest in 1970 Howard Zinn famously challenged professional archivists to realize the role of politics in their work. His talk included 7 points of criticism, which are still so relevant today, but the last two really moved me to transcribe and briefly comment on them here:

  1. That the emphasis is on the past over the present, on the antiquarian over the contemporary; on the non-controversial over the controversial; the cold over the hot. What about the transcripts of trials? Shouldn’t these be made easily available to the public? Not just important trials like the Chicago Conspiracy Trial I referred to, but the ordinary trials of ordinary persons, an important part of the record of our society. Even the extraordinary trials of extraordinary persons are not available, but perhaps they do not show our society at its best. The trial of the Catonsville 9 would be lost to us if Father Daniel Berrigan had not gone through the transcript and written a play based on it.

    1. That far more resources are devoted to the collection and preservation of what already exists as records, than to recording fresh data: I would guess that more energy and money is going for the collection and publication of the Papers of John Adams than for recording the experiences of soldiers on the battlefront in Vietnam. Where are the interviews of Seymour Hersh with those involved in the My Lai Massacre, or Fred Gardner’s interviews with those involved in the Presidio Mutiny Trial in California, or Wallace Terry’s interviews with black GIs in Vietnam? Where are the recorded experiences of the young Americans in Southeast Asia who quit the International Volunteer Service in protest of American policy there, or of the Foreign Service officers who have quietly left?

What if Zinn were to ask archivists today about contemporary events? While the situation is far from perfect, the Web has allowed pheomena like Wikipedia, Wikileaks, the Freedom of the Press Foundation and many, many others, to emerge, and substantially level the playing field in ways that we are still grappling with. The Web has widened, deepened and amplified traditional journalism. Indeed, electronic communication media like the Web have copying and distribution cooked into their very essence, and make it almost effortless to share information. Fresh data, as Zinn presciently calls it, is what the Web is about; and the Internet that the Web is built on allows us to largely route around power interests…except, of course, when it doesn’t.

Strangely, I think if Zinn were talking to archivists today he would be asking them to think seriously about where this content will be in 20 years–or maybe even one year. How do we work together as professionals to collect the stuff that needs saving? The Internet Archive is awesome…it’s simply amazing what such a small group of smart people have been able to do. But this is a heavy weight for them to bear alone, and lots of copies keeps stuff safe right? Where are the copies? Yes there is the IIPC, but can we just assume this job is just being taken care of? What web content is being collected? How do we decide what is collected? How do we share our decisions with others so that interested parties can fill in gaps they are interested in? Maybe I’m just not in the know, but it seems like there’s a lot of (potentially fun) work to do.