The Illusion of Balance

Working on my talk for Archives & Friends Alumni & Friends day in Knoxville. It's hard for me to get in all that I'd like to -- I have, admittedly, chosen an incredibly huge topic. I'll post my talk next week, but for now I'll say that the talk is an argument that archivists set larger goals for itself. Both the goal and the topic could be so large that I might not be able to communicate that in the end it means much at all, but I feel satisfied that I've buttressed it up against nothingness, even if only with reasoning and powerpoint.

So if the talk doesn't collapse in on itself (and if it does, that's okay, really -- I've finally gotten to the age where it's a relief to find out if you're heading in the wrong direction) I think I might have something larger to work on. At this point, it's not really research, though. I wouldn't mind doing research for it, historical research.

At least in our normal conception of it, history is fixed in place. In reality it might move around as much as the present; but it doesn't move as fast. I feel like every time I look to the web to re-scout the digitizing archives or information-use landscape, I discover more and more projects. And not necessarily because they were just conceived. I suppose one could start with a simple map of all the projects out there...well, I bet someone already has.

Is it human nature that I want information to stop freaking moving and growing and changing? I want a fixed version, and the illusion of control. But that's silly; a fixed version is a dated version. The mind and its knowledge of the world can never settle.

That reminds me of an article I read in Archivaria by Koltun. And, uh, it also reminds me that I'm reading Dahlgren.
(Which in turn reminds me, I really need to call my friend Ambrose.) Any other archivists/information professionals out there Delany fans? This is the first time I've read him, but I'm enjoying it. (Thanks, Ambrose.)