The Connectedness of Documentary and Archive Work – Emily

Despite using archival material in Documentary Research two years ago, I mostly learned the ins and outs of ethical and interesting documentary work in that course; I thought of the archival material as more of a tool in the documentary making toolbox, per se, than an entirely other discipline. The work that we have been doing in this course has changed my perspective on the connectedness of these fields as a whole, because we are engaged on a working level with the archival material, rather than just being provided with it. Not only this, but that documentary work and archival work have somewhat of a symbiotic relationship. Most documentary work requires access to archival material, which in turn allows that material to be used and observed on a regular basis. It therefore would make sense for documentarians to have some level of archive knowledge, because, as I am finding in this course, having an understanding of the archival side helps with the effectiveness and efficiency of research.

Recording and organizing the Bert Meyers letters, for example, has showed me the detail level work that is required to process archival material, which helped me to understand why it can sometimes be so difficult to locate necessary archival information for documentary work and historical research; not only can processing be slow, but it also means that archives are likely, and maybe even expected, to have back logs which may contain the archival material documentarians need. Understanding both the documentary and archives perspective, then, helps with patience when it comes to completing research.

While I’ve always understood that archival work was detailed oriented, I am definitely discovering that quite possibly the hardest part of the work is to know when to be a little LESS detail oriented (i.e. recording just the names, dates, and important information from letters, rather than an intricate transcription). This can be really challenging, especially when the subject matter is so personally interesting, but at the same time, learning what information is most important to archive is exactly what we do when we decide what information is most relevant to include in a documentary or digital story. Therefore, getting to be actively involved in both sides of these disciplines throughout this project has definitely showed me how similar they are, and how much they lean on one another for a successful outcome.