Archiving for self-ascertainment, identity-building and permanent self-questioning: archives between scepticism and certitude

Abstract

Archives are facing many challenges as information overload and increasing societal diversity. These two trends ask for decided measures, one in terms of selection and the other in terms of expanded information preservation to document all societal groups appropriately. These opposing trends force archivists to rethink permanently their appraisal politics and their functional orientation. Basic archival functions have to be aligned on one hand with services for an organisation related to democratic standards as accountability and transparency and on the other hand with a memory politics aiming at an extensive documentation of the enormous societal diversity by preserving the (cultural) patrimony of all groups to facilitate their identity-building. By looking back in our institutional history and comparing the Swiss and the Canadian approach in appraisal as well as the larger political context of documenting, we aim to show that a clear functional orientation, a transparent and participatory process of selection, a cooperative approach in fulfilling existing challenges and duties as well as a sound understanding of our institutional past help to make the necessary choices. It is important to stress, firstly, that archives as multifunctional institutions serve the principles of democracy and support the rule of law, and secondly, that by selecting documents for preservation and by reducing the mass of information, we nonetheless will preserve an abundant documentary heritage, which will not only serve to stabilize societal (or communitarian) identity but it will still serve as a reservoir feeding essential scepticism as an engine for progress.