Controlling the Past: Documenting Society and Institutions

As I was sitting down to begin writing this review, I caught sight of that day’s feature article in the Guardian, on MIT, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary around now. Undisputed as one of the world’s leading universities, it is noted as a ‘maverick community . . . [which] brings highly gifted, highly motivated individuals together from a vast range of disciplines but united by a common desire: to leap into the dark and reach for the unknown’. It struck me at once that Helen Samuels must have found her true home when she joined its staff in 1977, and also that she must from the start have thrown herself into MIT’s full life. This comment may seem superficial, but Helen was certainly one of the most outstanding and influential writers and thinkers in archivology, whose work has marked a major turning point in the theory and practice of archival management. I am not sure that she has been generally accorded this status among European archivists, or not yet (perhaps because she is a woman?). At all events, there is surely no one in the archival world that better deserves a substantial festschrift; in this volume she has been well rewarded. There are 17 essays in this volume, plus a substantial overview by Terry Cook, and a reflective commentary by Helen Samuels herself. Every one of these is by a colleague who has achieved international recognition, has something worthwhile to say, and says it well. The editor has divided these papers into two main sections, on the idea and practice of documenting society, and then on the influence of all this on the nature of archives work. This division works well enough (in a book of collected essays there are always some that do not quite fit in), but in reading it I have tended to think in terms of a threefold division of topics. There are some contributions that are clearly historical, there are some on the ethical and (as it were) political difficulties in running archives services in particular types of business; but the main thrust of most of the participants is in explaining and extending the many aspects that are called into inclusion when we consider all the ramifications of contextuality. All this is evidence of Helen’s lasting influence. Her principal contribution has been to solidify the concept of documenting the activities of her employing institution (and hence of society) and to use this concept as the basis of her work in appraisal. Journal of the Society of Archivists Vol. 32, No. 2, October 2011, 305–317