Archival Futures comprises nine chapters wherein archival scholars discuss challenges posed by the digital age in archives and imagine the future of archives in a digital world. Writers identify that while the digital age has already changed archives and the archivist’s role, digital records have largely been created within traditional record-keeping frameworks. Emerging digital technologies and practices present far greater challenges and while technology is further transforming the nature of the record, it also transforms the way people and organisations behave, communicate, and do business. In addition, organisations beyond archives are moving into the archivist’s role.
A key theme identified in this collection and a focus of Lemieux’s chapter is the emergence of decentralised networks, big data and the complex technical infrastructure that threaten the hierarchical structures that have supported record-keeping and the traditional institutions that seek to ensure access, preservation and authenticity. In this context Ranade explores access to a future digital archive that will be diverse, multi-faceted and contextualised, Yeo examines records appraisal in the digital world, which some proponents of big data suggest is becoming redundant, and Bunn points out that archival description cannot be assured to transfer meaning and understanding.
With the integrity of the record at threat, Duranti and Gauld both make compelling observations about the broader cultural impact of the rise of the information age, which has compromised the ability to verify and contextualise information, sidelined experts and appears to herald the decline of the age of ideas.
Moss and Thomas observe that the internet itself is now an archive that creates a collective memory and an extended present, but it is constantly metamorphosing, often beyond the reach of archival methodologies. Connectivity between past, present and future is also explored by Reed, Oliver, Upward and Evans in their discussion of a continuum-based approach to managing authoritative information and enabling multiple rights in records.
Contributors draw on the past and present to examine the changing record-keeping landscape and identify solutions, some of which point to a re-examination of the archivist’s role. A focus of Theimer is that the digital world has blurred professional boundaries, and archival work is shifting from experts to people with allied skills, less advanced skills or machines. It becomes apparent archivists will need to adapt and learn new skills. It is also suggested archivists stand up for their profession to ensure the integrity of records and a ‘digital truth’.
Archival Futures makes a significant contribution to the discourse on the digital future for archives, and I would recommend it to archivists and all information professionals.