Randall C. Jimerson

Slightly uneven and definitely showing its age, this book still had the power to give this archivist some inspirational feelings now and then. Jimerson pulls in a comprehensive history of archives across cultures and time, literary criticism (particularly Orwell's 1984 and Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being), the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, an overview of archival enterprise, and a nod to electronic records and ties them all up with a call to rethinking the archival code of ethics to include a social justice focus. Parts of this worked better than others, but I particularly liked the historical overview and the section on archives in South Africa. Jimerson's conclusions vacillate between an energizing call to arms and a rather tepid encouragement to maybe think of justice while wielding your power as an archivist to select, preserve, and provide access to historical documentation if you feel comfortable doing so and your institution lets you. If this book was being published today, questioning the neutrality of archivists would be much less of a controversial opinion and the author would hopefully rely less on white dudes to support his argument, but in 2009, this was certainly pushing the archival envelope.… (meer)