Francis X. Blouin

This book gives an overview of the changes over the last century in the ways historians and archivists see their respective roles. The authors describe an 'archival' divide between the increasingly technology-focused archivists and the changing research interests of modern historians. I found the historical theory parts quite informative.

I'm not entirely convinced that this divide exists in the way the authors describe it: most archivists do talk to the researchers who use their materials, after all, and have to understand their topics of research in order to direct them to collections of relevance.

The book ends with a plea for historians to be able to annotate archival finding aids with comments on the material's usefulness for various types of research. This capability is starting to happen in some systems, but I have some doubts about the general willingness of historians to actually spend time doing this sort of annotation.… (mere)