In my last post, I talked about the challenges social media presents to archivists, questioning the place that social media “records” have in an archival collection. Now I would like to look at this issue of social media and archives from a different perspective. Instead of looking at how social media fits into archival collections, I will now consider how archives use social media themselves.
I suspect that many archives jumped onto social media because of either internal or external pressure. Someone high up decided that the repository really should have a Facebook page or Twitter account, since everyone else has one. Or, the archivist themselves felt this same sentiment, based also on the fact that every other library, archives, museum, business, etc. is creating their own social media presence. There’s certainly nothing wrong with this, but I have seen in many of the archives or libraries that I follow on Facebook (my one and only social media account) a tendency to be posting in what seems like a haphazard manner. A sort of “we haven’t posted anything in a week and just need to get something up” attitude. Every institution is certainly not going to have the resources to put together a robust social media strategy. A post on the the popular (relatively speaking) blog ArchivesNext by archivist Kate Theimer sheds some interesting light on why connecting with users online is so vital, and might warrant taking some time away from “traditional” archival duties.
The blog post in question is titled “The Future of Archives is Participatory: Archives as Platform, or A New Mission for Archives.” It was posted in 2014. In this post – which is actually the text of a talk that she had recently given – Theimer discusses the changing role of archives through the years. Up until the 1990’s, archives considered their role to be “collect, preserve and provide access to materials of lasting value.” Sounds fair enough. But, she notes that to simply provide access is purely passive: waiting for users to come to you. With changing expectations of how information (and anything, really) can be accessed, however, this attitude doesn’t work anymore. She notes the often thrown around concept that if it’s not online, it doesn’t exist, though she tweaks this sentiment to say that if it’s not online, researchers will work on something else.
So, Theimer suggests a new mission statement for archives: “Archives add value to people’s lives by increasing their understanding and appreciation of the past.” She argues that this shifts the concept of providing access to a more active one, and that this revised way of viewing the role of archives puts people at the center rather than the material. She is talking not just about putting more material online, but actively informing people of the available archival material, trying to facilitate a sense of connection through stories and collection highlights, and finding ways to allow for participation by the public, through means such as allowing comments and tagging.
I agree with Theimer in many ways, but I still struggle with the issue of what comes first: the archival records or the users of those records. More often than not, archives have a small staff, and a large backlog of material to process. To add outreach and social networking to the pile of work just takes away from that backlog. But, what good are archives if nobody uses them? I suppose the solution is simply to find the right way to strike a balance the two priorities of serving the people and serving the material (simple to state, much less simple to do, of course).