15
th
International Congress on Archives
Owens
www.wien2004.ica.org
1
The Archives: Centre and Transmitter of Memory
Brian M. Owens
This session explores the role that archival institutions serve in the preservation and the utilisation of
memory. It will be demonstrated that archives are facilities of societal memory and that archives and the
archival staff are essential transmitters and the effective voices of that memory. The recorded word embodies
memory and hence cultural identity and political and economic power. The records of the archives have been
metamorphosed into neurological functions of remembrance. When archives are ignored, or are destroyed, the
transmission function is altered and the result can be cultural, or societal amnesia. The study of archives, as
institutions of memory, is essential in the fuller philosophical discussion of memory. The world's archives
provide an extensive body of recorded data which serve as a foundation of memory and hence archivists must be
recognised as persuasive and active agents contributing to the preservation and enhancement of memory and in
the development of knowledge.
voiced by the renowned English writer of literature, Margaret Drabble in her novel The seven sisters. The
palimpsest, as we know, is a record, or series of records, written upon one single medium, be it vellum or
parchment. In the European Mediaeval period, the valuable medium was reused. Original writings were
scrapped away and the medium was recycled by inscribing new writings on its surface. Over a period of time
many inscriptions, or memories were recorded on the one surface, thus the creation of the palimpsest. Drabble is
acknowledging that the palimpsest, the archival document, is a series of memories, be these unified or not,
partially laid one upon another. Life is a series of memories positioned one a top the other. Drabble is
supporting the idea that life or memory is likened to the archival document. We appropriate ideas. We reinvent
ourselves. Archival institutions define civilisation. They make available multi-leveled layers of knowledge,
invoking inspiration and providing the tools for analysis, in essence, archives are building blocks of civilisation.
Memory can then be equated as an essential structure of civilisation which transmits its ideas to contemporaries
and to future generations.
Memory has recently materialised as a focus of questioning amongst historians, philosophers, popular
culturalists, writers of fiction and others. The focus of this universal discussion addresses the questions:
What is memory?
and
What is the significance of memory?
These questions have become a philosophical interest of the archivist, and hence the reason for this
conference. Memory is an ability by which events are remembered. It is a method of retention of things past. It
is a capability of manifesting and perpetuating our very being. Recollection provides us with the ability to
construct knowledge and perhaps endow us with wisdom. Memory defines us as human beings. The
knowledge, or the wisdom that the goddess Memory dispenses to all is a divinatory omniscience.
the tool which provides us with a linkage between our universe and understanding. The construction of an
accurate definition of memory is a very complex one, indeed. Although the term and study of memory has
become very fashionable among a number of disciplines, the study of memory must have a more articulated
theoretical basis and undergo a systematic evaluation of its objectives of study.
I am confident that we, as
archivists, can and will make a contribution to this discussion.
Maurice Halbachs and Henri Bergson provided the first over-all philosophical investigation of memory.
Scholarship in the later part of the twentieth century has renewed interest in the question of memory. The
1
Drabble, Margaret. The seven sisters. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2002, p. 203.
2
Martin, Henri-Jean. Trans. By Lydia G. Cochrane. The history and power of writing. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1994, p. 90.
3
Confino, Alan. "Collective memory and cultural history: problems of method." The American Historical
Review. vol. 102, no. 5. Dec. 1997, pp. 1386-1403. p. 1387.
