Saving Everything
The ease and ubiquity of digital documentation may entice us to ponder the possibility of keeping everything, but is more really better?
In their book Metaphors We Live By (University of Chicago Press, 1980), linguist George Lakoff and philosopher Mark Johnson suggest that the metaphor “more is better” holds particular coherence in our society because it maps a MORE–LESS relation onto the experientially resonant UP–DOWN metaphor. They offer this as partial explanation for why the phrase “more is better” resonates deeply for many English-speakers. Although some have characterized hoarding an archival “fever,” the generally positive value ascribed to “more,” based on our physical experience of the world (and coherent with many other ideals of unrestricted capitalist expansion), suggests one explanation for the frequent, though unexamined, assertion that we should save everything. One lesson of archival appraisal theory, however, is that only preserving some records is necessary and good. (Image: “The Archive of the Available Past” by Jo Guldi.)
Advocates of keeping everything (were it possible) have their reasons. For example, Kahle (2007) suggests that the growth in computer capacity allows the preservation of the Internet, and the Google Books project has claimed to be digitizing “all knowledge.” The argument may suggest that the preservation of all information would result in a more accurately representative record, and in fact eliminate the ambiguities and subjectivities of archival appraisal. In addition, some may suggest the passive approach of not selecting any information for preservation might also be a more “natural” approach since it does not entail archival intervention (Jenkinson, Duranti 1994, see also Tschan 2002).
The wish to save everything rests on certain incorrect assumptions. As Margaret Hedstrom pointed out in a 2011 lecture, those ascribing to the “save everything” perspective often assume that more is necessarily better, that storage is cheap and reliable, and that “everything” is a lot smaller than it actually is. Yet, as some archivists have observed, “fat files” (or the largest groups in a series) do not necessarily yield greater information quality; in some cases, they just contain duplicate or irrelevant information, especially in the electronic domain (Lyle 2004). In addition, saving everything tends to ignore the fact that much digital information contains duplicates, is only as accessible as reliable information retrieval mechanisms have been implemented, and is expensive to maintain. I will briefly explore reasons that justify archival appraisal theories, and explain some of the benefits and beneficiaries of each.
Archival appraisal is carried out with goal to assure the survival of certain documents and information beyond random chance. One theme that we have encountered this term is that, though they are imperfect, appraisal theories at least offer a rationale and explanation for archival actions. Even bad decisions are better than no decisions at all (Cox 1994, 18). In this case, reflective appraisal and established criteria also offer the archivist justifications to fall back on. One well-remarked example is the case of immigration records in Canada; in the 1980s when it was found that the Canadian archives had disposed of records that may have allowed the tracking of Nazi war criminals, public outcry spurred the development of macroappraisal as a more effective and justifiable strategy to explain archival appraisal decisions (Cook 2005). Thus, conscious appraisal policies benefit archivists in that they offer justifications and explanations of their actions.
Some archivists have observed that “weeded” collections are stronger than large, unfocused ones. Jenkinson, and neo-Jenkinsonians like Duranti (1994; Tschan 2002) have argued that appraisal destroys the naturalness and interrelatedness of archival collections. In contrast, however, careful appraisal has been seen by others to make archival collections more useful. As Boles and Greene observe, the removal of a few documents from a collection will not “create havoc”; instead, they suggest, the “vigor and vitality” of a series or collection “can be improved, not damaged, by judicious pruning” (Boles and Green 1996, 306). Researchers and governments may benefit from well-tended archives that are not made difficult to use by the presence of large amounts of irrelevant information, duplicates, or unorganized material.
Appraisal also helps to ensure “representative documentation” (Cox 1994, 30). It is possible to imagine that, if the entirety of documentation was kept, the records of marginal groups may effectively disappear. Varied factors are at play: marginal groups may create sorts of information that do not fit into mainstream archives, they may consciously exclude their materials or information from mainstream databases or institutions (Malkmus 2008, Flinn et al. 2009), or information retrieval opportunities may not function with enough efficiency to find obscure records in unstructured information spaces. In this situation, archival appraisal, along the lines of documentation strategy or community archiving, could help to curate and identify important information that pertains to small communities. By bringing such documentation into institutions of the “epistemic infrastructure” (Hedstrom and King 2006), archivists give it a greater chance of being found and recognized. Representative documentation, thus, could benefit marginalized or minority groups and ensure their recognition in governance and dominant society. Further, if the role of government is to serve society, then government would also benefit from efforts to ensure representative documentation.
Archivists have also noted that the documentary record, even if it comprises more than “a sliver of a sliver of a sliver” (Harris 2002), is always partial and incomplete. As Ciaran Trace elegantly argues, records are not just “technical facts” (Trace 2002, 152); in fact, bureaucratic recordkeeping is always “reactive” or “proactive” to structures and pressures of the organization, and thus, “organizational records should be viewed as a product of a social process” (155) rather than objective markers of “truth.” Even if archives passively accepted “all” records, much of what “really happened” would not be recorded in archives. Likewise, Boles and Green (1996, 304) point out that “the archivist who chooses to include impartiality as an essential characteristic of archives is of a happy and theoretical bent, preferring to ignore unpleasant and perhaps unsettling realities that exist in the real world of twentieth-century American bureaucracy and law.” These observations show that the universe of documentation is never impartial, and they suggest that responsible and active appraisal by archivists may be one means to counteract institutional and systemic biases for deeper understandings of “what really happened.” This may benefit not only groups who have suffered discrimination or even genocide, but also society as a whole (Caswell 2010, also Flinn 2008, Johnston 2008).
The idea that keeping everything is desirable may take the frequent “more is better” metaphor to its superlative: “everything is best.” As suggested above, however, a “complete” record is elusive even if we never had to hit the delete key. Not appraising is an irresponsible decision on the part of archivists. If archives do not appraise, they will relegate themselves to ineffective and irrelevant cultural institutions. As Bearman (1989) suggests, archivists should be “culture custodians”: “The challenge is to make sense of the documentation — not to keep it. To deliver it where it is needed — not to store it. Let us stress making comprehendible connections over acquiring comprehensive collections, or we risk amassing a rotting storehouse of knowledge.” Storing and hoarding constitute archival pathologies; appraisal, on the other hand, offers an important way to contemplate the cultural record, the collective past and present, and promote healthier and representative records of society.
