As I prepare to discuss my experience with the Irving Wallace collection at our CCEPS presentations next week, I’m thinking about the nature of change in the archives. Technologies change, archival practices adapt to new circumstances, and, perhaps most interestingly, the materials in our care are subject to unpredictable shifts in demand. A collection might go unused for decades only to be re-discovered by new researchers who bring to it new passions, new perspectives, and new questions. It is a beautiful thing that, for all of our focus on ensuring the long-term preservation of our materials, archivists ultimately have little control over how these materials will be used by researchers over time.
