On (not) saving things

This idea came up in the Prelingers’ interview about types of archival collection development. On one end of the spectrum are the archivists who feel compelled to save everything. (I’ve unkindly referred to this type as “functional hoarders” in the past. I guess I just did it again.) On the other end, where the Prelingers’ own strategy lies, are the archivists who actually curate their collections, and have the audacity to turn down donations if they don’t seem to fit within their scheme.

If I seem bitter about the former kind of archival development strategy, it’s because trying to have a discussion about it so frequently veers into the territory of clinical psychology. “But what if someone needs this someday in the future?” You cannot control for everything that happens in the future. Haven’t we, at this point, all laughed at the vision we had in the 1950s of how the world would look in the year 2000? Our track record for accurately anticipating long-term needs isn’t so spectacular.

Rick Prelinger sums this up really nicely in this interview.

I am intrigued when I’m asked how I feel about our inability to save everything, as if this should make me sad. Why are we so focused on completism? The idea that a complete archives of human activity and experience constitutes a good thing isn’t by any means a new idea, but it gained currency a few years back when technological advances convinced many of us that collecting and preserving everything was possible. […] We absolutely cannot save everything. And we shouldn’t. Loss is formative. Absence is necessary to truly understand presence.

Archivists certainly carry a heavy load in a what’s-the-meaning-of-our-history kind of long-term perspective. Most archivists have encountered gaps in the historical record, mysteries that they could have solved if only their predecessors had kept better records. Thus, the “completist” agenda to save every scrap.

I understand this perspective, but honestly it stresses the hell out of me to keep up with this kind of thinking. I much prefer the Prelingers’ serendipitous style of collection management. I mean, as long as archivists are human beings, we’re not going to escape various cultural biases anyway in our collection strategies. (Right? Discuss.)