This page is referenced by:

• 1 2017-09-15T08:33:14-07:00 Lost Lives and Pieces of Paper 6 gallery 2017-09-15T12:26:54-07:00

  Original Order

  Archives wield power in another way as well. In addition to being able to selecting which documentary records will be preserved and which will not, archivists also preserve and rearrange (when necessary) the collections they acquire.
  
  As of summer of 2017, Alan Lew’s papers are currently rehoused, but not yet fully processed. In archivist-speak, that means that an archivist has taken the materials and placed them in acid-free folders and boxes but not altered the original order. Keeping original order is important to archivists (and the scholars who use an archives materials) – as much as possible, archivists strive to limit their influence on a collection. Preserving original order allows researchers to encounter sources in whatever arrangement the person creating the sources left them. Ideally, then, original order would allow a researcher to think about how a source’s creator was organizing the papers he or she left behind. This is important because of how researchers physically encounter archival material.

  Using the Archives

  Archives do not allow just anyone to stroll through their collections, which are stored in climate controlled, secured-access spaces. Rather, researchers request a single box at a time, which is brought to the reading room by archives staff. Researchers, then pour to through the contents of the box they have requested, which often as not, means pulling out and reading the documents held in individual folders. When archivists consider arrangement, what they mean is the order of the individual documents, folders, and the boxes. Arrangement, then, influences the order in which a researcher interacts with, and therefore might form conclusions about, archival materials.