A Website by Brian M. Cumer

I am a PhD candidate in the LIS Program at the University of Pittsburgh, School of Information Sciences. My dissertation research examines how technology and policy have influenced archaeological recordkeeping in the U.S.  Prior attending Pitt, I worked as an archivist throughout the Pittsburgh region helping non-profit organizations. I also have a professional background in archeology, and I have participated in field research in Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana, and Israel. I have an M.A. from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (Archaeology Concentration), where I first became interested in archives while working at the James L. Kelso Bible Lands Museum.  My primary motivation for pursuing a PhD in Library and Information Science is closely tied to my personal passion for teaching. As a Teaching Fellow at Pitt, I have taught courses on archival preservation and archival appraisal, I also teach a course I designed entitled Archives and Cultural Heritage, which I am offering for the second time this summer.

SOME THOUGHTS ON ARCHIVES & CULTURAL HERITAGE:

Governments, various people groups, and institutions have invested large amounts of financial and emotional capital in their cultural heritage.  With documentation comes accountability.

For many, it also helps define and promote individual, group, and national identity.

What does this mean for archivists?

Just like so many other areas of documentation, all the players in the cultural heritage sphere rely on the accessibility, preservation, and advocacy of records to better understand and interpret their world.  Without sound documentation, cultural identity becomes unreliable, somewhat like an invalid form of identification needed in order to assert an individual’s association or membership with a group or institution.

Acquiring a solid grasp on the issues surrounding documentation and cultural heritage means having a broad understanding of a large and divergent group of interrelated fields.

Archivists are, in large part, still on the outside of this community.

The cultural heritage field is populated with governmental and non-governmental organizations, archaeologists and anthropologists, historians, lawyers, museum curators, and in more recent years, computer scientists.  Each discipline or profession brings a significant skill to the table.

To further complicate the picture, the cultural heritage field has not just seen exponential growth, but is undergoing rapid changes in its very nature due to the impact of technology.

Archivists have an incredible opportunity to help shape cultural heritage in the way we organize records, provide access to them, and perform our role in helping to preserve the memory of events, groups, places, and attitudes, as well as other aspects that make up culture.  This will require archivists to learn to think a bit like a historian, relate to other cultures like an anthropologist, understand emerging technological trends like an IT specialist, and mediate between interest groups like a politician (a good one)!