Creative Archiving: A Case Study from the John Latham Archive

Abstract

This article looks at the history of the archive profession and emphasises the perceived role of the archivist as the keeper of truth. It focuses on the recent developments in archival practice with the adoption of post-modern thinking and its implementation with open-access archives online. Following a discussion of that approach, it introduces the concept of creative archiving as an alternative approach to archival practice and continues with the presentation of a case study from the John Latham Archive. It concludes with a discussion of the main pros and cons of creative archiving.