This blog post was written by TJ Moaton, MLIS student and co-president of Dominican University's student chapter of the Society of American Archivists.

Tl;dr – Memory is tied to how you live your life. Archivists and information professionals in general are memory workers, but everything everyone does is connected to some kind of memory work.

Can you remember that?

Well, who says that’s true? Why should we believe that, let alone remember it?

Today, we’re in a moment where “truths are being revealed” about the past and the present, and how they might shape our future. But some people knew those truths all along. Whether it’s the discovery of the horrors of Indian boarding schools or the desires of some folks to have weddings on plantations, the moment those subjects become topics of public conversation, many people’s memories are at work. But throughout history, some memories have been more privileged than others.

Archivists exist within an interesting tension. They’re tasked constantly to ensure that things are preserved “the way they are”, through ideas of provenance or of “original order.” It’s not just that things need to be remembered, there is a way things should be remembered that we need to preserve, so that reality make sense.

Moody-Adam, Michele. Making Space for Justice. Blog.apaonline.org. December 5, 2024. 

At the same time, due to mistrust in many institutions, people create their own archives to experience better representation and to not have their realities denied. Coupled with the fact that so many people can share their realities at any time, in many formats, all the time, archivists have to make concessions that they cannot preserve it all, even if that may affect the context of the full story.

So, what do we do, as future information professionals? Maybe it’s time to understand all the varieties of archives there are, many of which we exist in without realizing it.

I’m inspired by the work of Michele Moody-Adams, the first woman and first African-American to serve as the Dean of Columbia College, the undergraduate college of Columbia University. As a philosopher, she focuses on the role of monuments and memorials in promoting public/collective memory. She is a big reason why I’m currently in this MLIS program, as memory is always tied to knowledge and information.

So, what are monuments and memorials, or how I usually like to ask, “How would you explain them to a kid?” They can serve many purposes, from sites of contemplation and reflection to sites of gathering, education, and even resistance. They are never neutral, always imbued with some type of intention or agenda as to how we should remember people, places or ideas.

That can be cemeteries, or cookbooks, or family bibles. They can be textiles like quilts or digital ephemera like YouTube compilations of your favorite TV characters’ best moments. There is labor involved in the creation, and an intention for people to participate in some fashion, which leads to community and knowledge formation.

Today, archivists have to deal with the nature of climate change bringing into more clarity how fragile our material possessions are. And while digitization has provided much in the way of accessibility, there are many fears around what may happen if or when those technologies fail.

This is an unbelievable moment in time, in that there is a speed and a change to the nature of the work of information organization, management, and dissemination that’s unprecedented. But we can always take the time to remember that as ways of resistance, of healing, and of making sense of individual and communal realities, many of us are memory workers, and we have much to learn from each other about how we do it, and why.

References

1. Moody-Adams, Michelle. Making Space for Justice. Blog.apablog.com. Accessed December 5, 2024. https://blog.apaonline.org/2022/11/18/recently-published-book-spotlight-making-space-for-justice. 

2. Ohio State Center for Ethics and Humanity. (2022, December 8). Dr Michelle Moody-Adams: Distinguished Lecture in Ethics [video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fMJZdmqaRI.