This site was created as a tool for activists who are interested in archiving their social movement materials but aren’t sure where to begin. This project grew out of research that indicated a disconnect between what activists imagined as the long-term care of their movement materials and the archival practices of professional archivists. It is my hope that this tool will help activists find the best home for their movement artifacts and for archivists to have more fruitful conversations about intended archival donations in terms of access, attribution, description, etc.
Values
From the Society of American Archivists’ Core Values Statement and Code of Ethics: Archivists collectively seek to document and preserve the record of the broadest possible range of individuals, socio-economic groups, governance, and corporate entities in society. Archivists embrace the importance of identifying, preserving, and working with communities to actively document those whose voices have been overlooked or marginalized. They seek to build connections to under-documented communities to support: acquisition and preservation of sources relating to these communities’ activities, encouragement of community members’ use of archival research sources, and/or formation of community-based archives. Archivists accept and encourage a diversity of viewpoints on social, political, and intellectual issues, as represented both in archival records and among members of the profession. They actively work to achieve a diversified and representative membership in the profession.
