Better off Forgetting? Essays on Archives, Public Policy, and Collective Memory

Better off Forgetting? is a compilation of 11 essays that seeks to re-examine archives and the role they play in shaping public policy and collective memory. The essays collectively look at a wide range of issues relating to freedom of information, privacy, technology, human rights, public policy, collective memory, and democracy. The collection is divided into five thematic sections: The History of Funding, Access and Privacy, The Digital Age, Accountability and the Public Sphere, and Resource for the Present.

By compiling these essays, Cheryl Avery and Mona Holmlund sought to confront a difficult question—whether current public policy implicitly suggests we are "better off forgetting." But in an effort to present balanced viewpoints and reflect the "dynamism of the debate surrounding archives' role" in public policy, the volume only indirectly confronts this question and offers no definitive answer. Instead, the collection takes accountability as its central theme and tacitly exposes the challenges facing modern archives and the vulnerability of our collective memory.

The essays on funding provided by Marion Beyea and Shelley Sweeney help provide historical perspective on societal and governmental valuation of archives. With this foundation, the volume progresses as a series of comprehensive discussions on access and privacy, digital information, democracy, accountability, and public policy. The thematic sections help organize the book's broad subject matter, but they do not delineate the discussion about a particular topic. The editors acknowledge the holistic nature of archival practice and suggest that "the most comprehensive understanding of the problems facing archives today will come from a reading of these essays that sees them as intersecting parts of the whole."

This is good advice given the nature in which certain themes weave throughout the book, but many of the essays can also be taken as stand-alone articles. Jo-Ann Gafuik's critical analysis of access-to-information legislation is sure to become a staple of archival literature on the subject. Yvette Hackett provides a well-rounded discussion on how digital information is impacting the core archival functions. In his essay on public programming, Tom Nesmith acknowledges that archivists have often shied away from taking a wider role in public policy for fear of appearing partisan, but he challenges this position, writing that "archives need to be careful and fair in their analyses, not passive in the guise of neutrality." Robert Steiner closes the volume with a forward-looking argument that archivists are uniquely suited to confront the "literal disintegration of meaning in political communications and in journalism."

The collection is clearly wide reaching in its assessment of contemporary archives. But readers hoping to use the volume for quick access to information on specific topics will be pleased to find a well-constructed 12-page index. Given that there has been an increasing emphasis on transparency and accountability in government and public institutions and a rapidly changing information environment, Better off Forgetting? is a timely addition to contemporary debates about Canadian public policy. Readers who are familiar with archives but not with public policy, accountability, and collective memory may regret that the compilation lacks an introduction to the key terms and concepts that bind the essays together. But anyone searching for literature that situates archives squarely in the realm of public affairs and collective memory will be well served by this volume of essays.