Book Reviews

RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage reviews books, reports, new periodicals, databases, websites, blogs, and other electronic resources, as well as exhibition, book, and auction catalogs pertaining directly and indirectly to the fields of rare book librarianship, manuscripts curatorship, archives management, and special collections administration. Publishers, librarians, and archivists are asked to send appropriate publications for review or notice to the Reviews Editor.

Due to space limitations, it may not be possible for all books received to be reviewed in RBM. Books or publication announcements should be sent to the Reviews Editor: Amy Cooper Cary, Raynor Memorial Library, Marquette University, 1415 W. Wisconsin Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53233-2221, e-mail: amy.cary@marquette.edu, (414) 288-5901.

David Thomas, Simon Fowler, and Valerie Johnson. The Silence of the Archive. Chicago: ALA Neal-Schuman, 2017. 187p. Softcover, $76.00 (ISBN 978-0-8389-1640-7).

The Silence of the Archive is a deceptively slim volume, for within its covers the reader discovers a wide-ranging, thought-provoking conversation that brings together fascinating examples and anecdotes from archival history and a variety of perspectives and insightful commentary, all arranged in a thematic exploration of the silences or absences in archives. The result is a timely contribution that succeeds in asking the big questions so necessary for the survival of archives in today’s world and bridging the gap in the archival literature between practical manuals and the contributions of archival theorists, historians, cultural theorists, and others about the archival endeavor. In considering what archives are not, the authors ironically bring us much closer to a grounded holistic understanding of what archives are, and what the role of archivists is, or should be.

Geoffery Yeo writes in his introduction:

[T]here is a long-standing belief in the power and importance of archives and records and their potential to determine the ordering of society. Yet it seems that archives are often silent when we expect them to speak. Why and how does this silence arise? Can we—should we—take steps to eliminate silences and to make good the apparent errors and omissions of past record keeping? (xi)

The contributing authors are well equipped to engage the topic at hand. David Thomas, Valerie Johnson, and Simon Fowler are all archivists with practical experience working in various capacities at the National Archives of the United Kingdom. In addition, Thomas and Fowler are educators. Each author brings a unique perspective: Thomas is the author of a book about archival forgeries and falsifications; Fowler is a researcher interested in nineteenth- and twentieth-century records, family and military history and genealogy; and Johnson has published on the work of historians and archivists in the academic, corporate, and public sectors. Not surprisingly, the authors rely heavily on their experiences within the United Kingdom; this in no way detracts from the book; it simply leaves room for further explorations of this topic within other geographic or topical areas. As their point of departure, the authors use the work of historian and anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot on archives as institutionalized sites of mediation between sociohistorical processes and the narratives about these processes.

The Silence of the Archive consists of two broad sections: 1) the causes and reasons for archival silences; and 2) how archivists and users have filled the gaps. The first three chapters provide a topical framework for the discussion of archival silences. In chapter 1, “Enforced Silences,” Fowler considers the large, established archival holdings of governments, powerful individuals and families, and the means by which these record creators and managers destroy, hide, or omit records. In the second chapter, “Inappropriate Expectations,” Fowler examines user perspectives of archives, acknowledges the limitations of archival collections and the inability (and unsuitability) of archives for containing a complete record of the human experience, and discusses the challenges of communicating the contents of archives to users through finding aids and catalogs. In chapter 3, “The Digital,” Thomas writes on the paradigm-changing world of digital information and collections and the question of digital silences, ranging from “big data” to preserving websites to digitized analog collections. He suggests that archivists learn to adapt to new digital paradoxes: specifically, that digital openness might mean less information and certainly less knowledge; and the increasing volume of digital records may mean that archival institutions will become smaller and change what they do.

The second set of chapters (4–7) look at how users have filled gaps in archives. In chapter 4, “Dealing with the Silence,” Johnson demonstrates ways of addressing silences, from seeking alternative voices or reading voices back into the past, to ensuring a diversity of voices in archives into the future. She cautions us, however, not to lose sight of the fact that historical records are limited and sometimes limiting and that, in some cases, silences and forgetting may be necessary. Thomas is also concerned with how archival silences may be filled—but from a different perspective. In chapter 5, “Imagining Archives,” he examines the significance of archival forgeries and their role in filling archival voids. In chapter 7, “Solutions to the Silence,” Johnson concludes that archives and archivists are powerful forces in supporting memory, especially to those denied a voice in the past. In the final chapter, “Are Things Getting Better or Worse?” Thomas closes the conversation with a list of areas of concern as well as opportunities. Much depends on archivists seizing the opportunities provided by the digital paradigm to prevent digital silences and on historians embracing a more nuanced understanding of archives as mediated sites of historical inquiry and production rather than sites of truth.

The Silence of the Archive is an important contribution to the archival, library, and information studies literature in that it brings together and examines a number of significant themes in archival theory from a common, practical frame of reference shared by archivists and users alike. This thoroughly engaging book will appeal to a broad range of readers. One of the delightful things about this volume is that it reads almost as a series of internal conversations between the contributors as they engage with diverse topics such as archives and historical methods, power, accountability, truth, representation, ways of knowing, memory, silence, and forgetting. By simultaneously grounding the topic in actual archival experiences, acknowledging theoretical frameworks for understanding archival silences and asking questions about what, if anything, should be done, this slim book opens up a whole new way of looking at what we are doing and where we stand. This book should be required reading for librarians, archivists and historians, and students of archives.—Tamara E. Livingston, Museums, Archives & Rare Books