Love is Not Enough: Advocacy, Influence and the Development ofArchives

Abstract

This position piece has been revised slightly by the author from his keynote address delivered at the 2011 annual meeting of the Archives and Records Association in Edinburgh. It reflects the personal views of the author, drawing on ideas he explored in more detail in the lead section of the book he edited, Many Happy Returns: Advocacy and the Development of Archives , which was published by the Society of American Archivists (SAA) early in 2011. That the article depends so much on the author's personal experiences and observation reflects the fact that our professional literature gives scant attention to advocacy for archives as organizations, especially to advocacy directly aimed at increasing the resources and strengthening the infrastructure of individual archives. This article and the author's fuller recommendations in Many Happy Returns seek to reduce this gap by suggesting how to set an advocacy agenda for an archives, how to identify the subjects for advocacy, and how archivists and their allies may become more effective in advocacy for archives.