The Character of Personal Archives: Reflections on the Value of Records of Individuals
The Character of Personal Archives: Reflections on the Value of Records of Individuals
复制标题
个人档案的性质：对个人记录价值的思考
作者：
C. Hobbs
本文探讨了个人档案的性质，并提出，最近的辩论有关的收购和评估的记录集中在行政或政府的记录模式，并没有发生类似的辩论有关的个人记录。通过采用当前档案理论的组织为基础的战略，个人档案，档案工作者将反映在互动的核心，并在社会中扮演各种角色的个人。然而，在个人档案中，无论是个人独特的文献模式，还是个人性格和内心斗争的表现，都反映了个人档案与组织档案的不同。通过寻求反映档案中个人的性格和多样性，档案工作者将更好地代表创造者，而不仅仅是作为一个社会代理人，而是作为创造性的个人，通过时间锻造他或她自己的生活。个人收藏品包含个人生活和人的个性的文件。虽然这些档案通常反映了创造者职能的记录证据，但与组织的档案一样，个人档案也包含了记录创造者个人特征的痕迹。在这里可以瞥见内在的灵魂，以及它在公共活动中的外在表现。我在《关于个人记录价值的思考》127中与文学手稿收藏馆的工作，国家图书馆专门与诗人、小说家和剧作家以及与文学有关的组织和个人（如翻译和小型出版社）合作。在做这项工作的过程中，我感觉到主流档案学理论中关于个人档案的一些沉默。大多数这类理论都是由为国家档案馆工作或在国家档案馆工作过的作家以及最近的其他机构档案馆工作过的作家所阐述的，这些档案馆强调的是公司和集体，而不是个人和特质。虽然这可能有很好的理由，但我认为，档案理论需要更细致地阐述个人档案。事实上，有必要把“个人”的考虑放回个人档案中。在最近关于档案鉴定和档案获取的辩论中，行政或政府对档案的思考尤为明显。个人档案需要一种不同于行政或政府记录的评估方法。这种新的治疗方法的起点可能涉及我们如何概念化记录以及我们如何在获取过程中处理它们。那么，是什么让个人档案与其他类型的基金不同呢？记录了什么样的人类经历？当然，个人档案的一个至关重要的方面是记录个人的活动，但在个人档案中，也记录了人们在做他们所做的事情和评论时的个人的，特殊的，独特的观点。因此，个人档案不仅是关于“官方”个人事务和正式活动的交易，而且几乎就其本质而言，也是关于日常和个人生活及关系的最普遍的评论来源。从广义上说，个人的爱好是一个网站，个性和生活中的事件以纪录片的形式相互作用。当然，正如米歇尔·福柯（Michel Foucault）和其他后结构主义批评家所认为的那样，个人在他/她的私人话语和个人思考中往往反映了各种公共道德或社会规范，通常是潜意识的。虽然这些个人反思因此成为掌握这些更大的社会学视角的有用资源，但个人过滤器本身揭示了记录创建者的内在性格。在这里，我们有档案的心理比他们的交易性。个人档案包含个人对生活经历的看法;它们代表了与其他类型记录中的集体形式和系统组织的背离。个人档案中有一种亲密感，这种亲密感在集体的、公司的、正式的记录保存系统中是不存在的。这些亲密的元素不仅反映在个人档案的内容和组织中，而且在档案管理员与创建者/捐赠者的直接互动中发挥作用，评估，获取和随后的个人档案管理。就作者的爱好而言，档案材料中记录的经历不仅包括作者活动的行为和事实，还包括她或他的观点，意见，偏见和情绪。
This article examines the character of personal archives and suggests that recent debates concerning the acquisition and appraisal of records have centred on administrative or government records models, and that similar debates have not occurred concerning personal records. By adopting the organization-based strategies of current archival theory to personal archives, archivists will reflect on individuals at the crux of interactions and as performing various roles within society. In the personal fonds, however, both the unique documentary patterns of individuals and the expressions of an individual’s character and interior struggles reflect how individuals’ archives differ from organizational records. By seeking to reflect the character and interiority of individuals within archives, archivists will better represent the creator not just as a social agent, but as the creative individual forging his or her own life through time. Personal fonds contain the documentation of individual lives and human personality. While these fonds certainly often reflect the recorded evidence of the functions of the creator, in the same way as do fonds of organizations, personal archives also contain traces of the individual character of the record’s creator. There are here glimpses of the inner soul as well as its outer manifestation in public activities. My work with the Literary Manuscript Collection at Reflections on the Value of Records of Individuals 127 the National Library has involved working exclusively with fonds from poets, novelists, and playwrights, as well as organizations and individuals relating to literature such as translators and small presses. In doing this work, I have sensed some silences concerning personal archives in mainstream archival theory. Most such theory has been articulated by writers working for or experienced in national and, more recently, other institutional archives, where the emphasis is on the corporate and collective, as opposed to the individual and idiosyncratic. While there may be good reasons for this, I believe that archival theory needs to be elaborated with more nuance for personal archives. Indeed, there is a need to put a consideration of the “personal” back in the personal archive. The administrative or government focus of much archival thinking has been especially evident in recent debates about records appraisal and records acquisition. Personal archives require a different appraisal approach than do administrative or government records. A starting point for this new treatment could concern how we conceptualize the records and how we approach them during the acquisition process. What then makes personal archives different from other types of fonds? What kinds of human experiences are recorded? Certainly, one critically important aspect of personal archives is documenting the activities of individuals, but in personal archives, what is also recorded is the personal, the idiosyncratic, the singular views of people as they go about doing the things that they do and commenting on them. Personal archives, then, are not only about transactions of “official” personal business and formal activity, but are also a most prevalent source of commentary on daily and personal life and relationships, almost by their very nature. Broadly put, the fonds of an individual is a site where personality and the events of life interact in documentary form. Certainly, as Michel Foucault and other post-structuralist critics would argue, the individual in his/her private words and personal musings often reflects, usually subconsciously, various public mores or societal norms. While these personal reflections thus become useful sources for grasping these larger sociological perspectives, it is the personal filters themselves that reveal the inner character of the records creator. Here we have the psychology of archives more than their transactionality. Personal archives contain the personal view of life’s experiences; they represent a departure from the collective formality and systemic organization found in other types of records. There is an intimacy in the personal archive not present in the collective, corporate, formalized record-keeping system. These intimate elements are reflected not only in the content and organization of personal records, but come into play in the archivist’s direct interaction with the creator/donor during appraisal, acquisition, and subsequent management of personal archives. In the case of authors’ fonds, the experiences recorded in the archival material include not just the acts and facts about the author’s activities, but also her or his views, opinions, prejudices, and emo-