The definition for archive is: “a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people.” Archives come in different forms, each having different purposes which we can use to explore others purposes, along with our own through the use of public, family and personnel archives.
The public archives are used for the study of Jersey in many forms. Publicly funded libraries from the Government are important in preserving the identity of a place in order for us and future generations to explore. Due to public archives being open to such a diverse audience, this means there is a diverse collection that can be used for a wide range of purposes. The collection of historical records compiled from a range of sources paints a picture of each differing viewpoint on the context of the world at that time.
“What is the source’s purpose, what is it trying to show and how accurate is it?” Are the questions that we can consider and allow us to delve into the uniqueness of each bit of historical material. In doing this we can assess what relevance the archive has on each person today, and how they can possibly relate to it. In this respect, the public archives purpose is to enhance our understanding of where humanity has come from, how far it has come, and how from this we can guess where we are going as a generation. This incorporates a lot of relevance as one day, our lives and memories will be locked into an archive for future generations to look at us the way we are looking at these older generations, which of course then becomes a matter of perception. Today’s ideology of perception arguably has a completely different meaning than back when the archives stated in the mid-19th century.
Regarding the features of society, when there wasn’t room for much more than the very dominating, traditional culture, now there is an encouragement for individual and freedom of expression of culture. This contradicts the culture of the archive in a sense that, we are essentially living with the opposing shadow of traditionalist culture over today’s freedom of culture. Interestingly, issues at the time of the mid 1800’s have to now show developments in areas of life and also the struggles in life. Arguably these struggles as each generation has passed have helped grow into a certain rebelliousness that has led to the free culture that we live with today. So therefore, we must in a sense be somewhat thankful for those who have preserved history in the archive, who may have documented the good’s and bad’s of their own times. For examples works depicting issues of poverty in the 19th century, and further more modern times, have evolved and essentially undermined traditionalist culture and taken us closer to where we are now. Therefore we can perhaps use todays issues, to predict how through the archive will record this and impact future generations who in turn will develop and impose their own culture on top of ours. Essentially, the role of the archive is a repeating cycle of past cultures that determine where future cultures are going.
In contrast, the purpose of a family archive is to preserve the history of our own family’s lives on a more personal basis. This leads us onto why as humans we are interested in pursuing such a task. Of course, unlike a public archive which is designed for everyone’s benefit, a family archive is of more sentimental value, designed to show the history and through this the relationships, the struggles, those special moments through time in order so that we can relive those times, and remember our feelings towards a preserved moment from a family archive. Within my own family, the family archives, represent a bind compilation of moments that show my family’s special moments. Each member of the family upon viewing these images, has a personnel emotion that is connected to that emotion, and when as a family we come together to discuss these emotional attachments towards a captured significant moment in my family’s lives, we can empathise with each other’s viewpoints.
Interestingly family archives essentially strengthen families’ bond, by enhancing our memories of the past which unites us as we enter into the future. By recording our time together as a family, apart from it strengthening our relationships, we can use family archives to show the evolution of how our own family changes. In this sense, as children grow up, become parents and have their own kids, family archives can allow us to explore the cycles of that which we go through in life. In a sense, the family is always developing and evolving; however with this idea of cycles repeating themselves, it shows that once the circle has gone on a full cycle and we come back where we started with children of our own, we can compare the changes from when we were children ourselves. In a sense, in the short term, the value of an archive is to bring a family closer together to enhance their relationships, and in the long term can be used to show the difference between each cycle of life and therefore has a purpose that repeats itself but is all the more significant.
Referring back to the point of family archives representing the sentimental side that archives hold is important. We find value in anything our family has associations with. Arguably family archives are more than just associations, they holding special, personnel and intimate memories at the heart of the family. When sometimes we don’t take into account of an individual, but of a collective group, which allows us to unlock and delve into our family secrets, that is essentially categorises the nature of our family itself within a wider context of the society in which we live in. This is comparable to the public archives which display, a wide variety of society, allowing us to paint a picture with all these. However in this sense, it shows a limited picture of wider society, with a strong perception from the family’s lives and point of view and shows rather the life of society, predominately of the family’s lives within a wider context of the bigger society.
On the issue of family archives presenting a limited perspective, interestingly we are more selective of what we include in our archives. For example, if we want to present the dynamics of the family, it hardly shows reality as each photograph trying to capture the type of family who we want to be, essentially missing the undesirable sides to the family. This means that it is important like with the public archive to recognise a sort of family identity, an especially so with a family who may have lost identities and as time goes on like with the idea of cycles, can understand the foundations of the family. An example of this is through time our imagination on past events can affect the historical side of what actually happened, and so through the family archive, its value allows us to ensure that we have a stronger grounding in our own family’s character and nature.
On the other hand, personnel archives which in a sense derive from the previous archives are originally have been much more intimate and private to most people. However nowadays the terms are changing, where personnel archives are being shared with others, and personnel archives are now about photographs which we don’t want to share. Now it seems to be a matter of how we want to appear, which strongly contradicts how public and family archives function in terms of their purpose. With private archives, now becoming more like public archives, with this, private archives are arguably taking the roles of public archives as they are being opened to everyone. Interestingly, the photos that are kept are often photographs that don’t want to be shared, are photographs that tend not to be focused on how others would perceive them and judge the, hence why they aren’t shown. Arguably unlike family and public archives which are slightly linked, with the opening of public archives this shows how society is interested in how they appear, lacking a sense of authenticity.
Furthermore, private archives are almost unintentionally stored. For example, as photographs are taken to be initially shared, and photographs that contradict how that person wants to be appear are stored and not deleted. This means that personnel archives are taking the form of photographs how we may not want to appear, but in reality aside from social media, that is how we look in person. This contrasts how a family archive works which emphasises the idea of how we can look back on memories to be rebuilding family foundations of who the family’s identity is, because nowadays a personnel archive stores the photographs representing who we are avoiding to be as perhaps it breaches the norms of society. This means that as were are essentially, hiding from ourselves of who we really are, undermining the role of a family archive in bonding who a particular family is, dictated by each individuals character, however each individuals character is being influenced by their own personnel archive resulting in a changed family life. Interestingly there appears to be a link with the idea of a public archive here, where like through time there was a certain culture barrier that restricted much than traditionalist, conservative culture that is similar today, with people only, accepting the same culture of everyone else.