Researching Archives: Locating Culture

In this reading, it states that archives are collections of documents and artifacts.  I thought it was very interesting that we could create our own archives.  It says, "An archive can be a shoe box full of mementos from your volleyball career, a collection of pens used by a local mayor to sign laws, an elderly neighbor's egg cup collection..." I had no idea that collecting things from my marching band season could actually be considered an archive.  That seemed very interesting.

I also had no idea that the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., is one of the largest archives in the U.S.  Having no idea what was actually in this archive, it was interesting to find out that the ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in The Wizard of Oz were located in the Smithsonian.  It also "has 10 separate archives, which hold an estimated 50,000 cubic feet of paper documents, 7 million still photographs, and thousands of motion picture films, videos, and audio recordings."  I did hear that the Smithsonian is closed down for ten years, but it would definitely be interesting to go visit that archive.