Book: Richard Cox, Personal Archives and a New Archival Calling

Book: Personal Archives and a New Archival Calling by Richard Cox, 2009

"Archivists need to transform their own culture from one of collecting and acquiring to one of collaborating and assisting. Doing this should also open up new possibilities for promoting, in a more understandable fashion, the archival mission. ... At one time, personal archives were the backbone of public archives, the most prized acquisition by archivists, manuscripts curators, and special collections librarians because of the quality of the documentary evidence they provide and often their association with important events or famous people. Now they may be valued more by the individuals and families keeping them for highly personal reasons of identity, memory, sentimentality, or whatever. In my opinion, the archival mission is in the midst of great change, and it is a change that needs to be embraced and nurtured."

Indeed! I think, the increasing interests in how to preserve/archive "my own digital materials" can be turn into a golden opportunity for professional archivists to expand the rigid boundary of traditional archives, interact with more ordinary individuals as their clients, and take an active role in the information technology development where the money goes.