The usefulness of archives

Recorded information is everywhere in modern society. Individual documents, texts produced on typewriters, still photographs, moving picture images on film and videotape, sound recordings-all these various forms of information surround us. Recording information and finding ways to keep and use it for long periods of time are very old problems for human culture. In its more or less insatiable desire to gather, comprehend and utilize data, humanity has long sought means to fix knowledge in such a way that it can be called back to mind when necessary or desirable. Society at large uses archives and the information they contain. Large numbers of people with a great range of interests seek information from archival records. Many archival records are useful because they are a source of personal individual identity. Birth records or church baptismal and membership records are used to demonstrate citizenship or eligibility for social security and medicare benefits. Archival records are used by countless family historians and genealogists. This is not just frivolous hobby, such users of archives are engaged in the important psychological task of anchoring themselves and their family in time, setting a fixed and reliable context for themselves in an increasingly fluid, changeable world.

Using archives also brings larger societal benefits. Medical researchers use archival records to trace the symptoms and patterns of disease in their search for treatment and cure. Scientific researchers use climatic records in weather prediction.

Corporate bodies, too, derive benefits from the usefulness of their archives. Legal requirements and administration demand control over such documentation as contracts and financial data. Economic motives are essential source of records. Acquiring, managing and spending money produce large quantities of recorded data which is useful in providing a picture of economic health. Such records are necessary in accounting for one’s own funds as well as for money held in trust for others for particular reasons. Hiring, firing, paying and evaluating workers create records that are important to employer and employee alike, both in normal times and whenever problems arise.

Those who search the past for understanding the present find in archives the raw materials with which to construct their narratives and analyses. Indeed, most researchers are guided by the slogan they learn early in their training: “no archives, no history”.

Archives are useful because they inform, entertain enlighten and educate.

Many archives actively plan and implement educational programs for senior citizens and for school students. Archival records help senior citizens relive their own experiences and tell the stories of their lives to others. Those same records help young people reach back beyond the extent of their own personal memory.

Anniversary celebrations of churches, social clubs, schools, neighbourhoods and towns are all enriched by drawing on archival sources: original letters, photographs, reminiscences and other records. When individuals make contact with such archival sources-not only the information they contain, but also the “real things”, letters and diaries written by real people-they transcend the bounds of time and realize in direct and personal ways that they are part of a larger whole.

Archivists are charged with the responsibility to preserve records for the indefinite future. This responsibility requires that archivists employ certain safeguards to ensure that the records in their care will survive, including establishing and enforcing procedures that will guarantee the physical survival and integrity of the records. This also implies the responsibility to organize the records in a coherent and understandable way. All these activities are carried out to serve the purpose of making the records usable. Archivists are preservers of information.

Archivists make the records available to those who seek information-whether in person, by mail, by telephone or perhaps by electronic mail or fax machine. The archivist explains and enforces any restrictions on access to the records, while at the same time publicizing information about the archives and actively reaching out to a wide public audience through exhibits as well as educational and other public programs. Many changes affected the way records were made, how they were used, and ultimately what they meant. The nature of recorded information has evolved substantially since mankind first began to write things down rather than simply try to remember them. Today the amount of recorded information is vast and growing inexorably more so. To keep this quantity in perspective is a significant task of archives. Understanding the nature and characteristics of recorded information is essential for anyone who records, keeps or uses – that is to say, for every one.

Ex. 2. Translate into English.

A.В начале XX века выдающийся русский археолог В.А. Городцов на Северном Донце (in the Northern Donets basin) вел раскопки курганов (barrows), большинство из которых относились к эпохе меди-бронзы (to the Copper-Bronze Age). Городцов заметил, что наиболее древние погребения располагались в простых ямах (pits) – в так называемых катакомбах (“catacombs”; наиболее поздние находились в деревянных срубах (in timber – framed structures).

Взяв за основу эти три типа погребальных сооружений (tomb construction), В.А. Городцов выделил три археологические культуры: ямную, катакомбную и срубную. При этом было замечено, что каждому типу соответствуют определенная поза захороненного и разные вещи, положенные в могилу. Особенно явно различалась керамика.

Благодаря работам исследователей удалось установить территорию, которую занимали племена каждой из культур, выяснить время их существования, изучить хозяйство и быт, познакомиться с произведениями древнего искусства.

B.C момента первой публикации в 1964 г. книга лорда Тейлора «Микенцы» (“The Mycenaens”) зарекомендовала себя (has established itself) как лучшая исследовательская работа в области археологии о микенцах. В книге рассматриваются великие открытия, сделанные Шлиманом и его последователями в цитаделях Микен (Mycenae), Тиринфе (Tiryns), Пилосе (Pyloc), подтверждающие, что рассказ Гомера о Троянской войне не сказка, а быль. В книге рассматриваются и произведения искусства, проливающие свет на блестящую цивилизацию; и, прежде всего, книга охватывает историю подъема и падения в течение 400 лет этой великой цивилизации, которая оставила свой отпечаток на бронзовом веке Средиземноморья и завещала (bequeathed) свое наследие грекам классического периода.