From Archival Management to Archival Enterprise to the Information Domain: David Gracy and the Development of Archival Education at the University of Texas
Patricia Galloway
pp. 3 - 33
Abstract
David B. Gracy II is very well known for his advocacy for archives and the study of archives, an enthusiasm that he has been communicating to students from the 1970s through the first decade of the twenty-first century. He has been involved during his career with most initiatives having to do with furthering archival education through both continuing education for working archivists and, at the University of Texas at Austin (UT), crafting a full program of postgraduate archival and preservation education. In this article I discuss the development of a discourse about and cadre for archival education in the United States, counterpointed by developments at UT from the perspective of Gracy’s career as it intersected with the social worlds of state, local, and national archives and archivists; national postsecondary education for archivists; and the national professional association of archivists.
Archives and Society: David B. Gracy II and the Value of Archives
Randall C. Jimerson
pp. 34 - 53
Abstract
As president of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) for 1983–84, David B. Gracy II initiated the Archives and Society program, which focused on the value of archives to all members of society. This program included an effort to redefine the term “archivist” in order to emphasize the relevance and significance of the archival profession, a social marketing investigation of “the image of archives and archivists” as held by organizational resource allocators, and other efforts to promote broader understanding of the archival profession. This essay examines the Archives and Society initiative, the leadership of David Gracy, and the ongoing legacy of his term as president of SAA.
Professional, Institutional, and National Identities in Dialog: The Development of Descriptive Practices in the First Decade of the US National Archive
Anne Gilliland
pp. 54 - 73
Abstract
Drawing upon archival sources, this article reviews the historical background and discourse surrounding early descriptive developments at the US National Archives from 1935 to 1941. It identifies three discursive strands and discusses their implications for archivists today: how local and national differences might temper wholesale adoption of practices employed in other settings; the initial attempt to blend bibliographic and archival approaches at the National Archives; and the conceptualization and subsequent adoption of the record group as an institutional compromise. This compromise embedded conceptual principles identified by European archivists while simultaneously addressing specific pragmatic and physical considerations presented by federal records at the time.
Archives, Libraries, Museums: Coming Back Together?
Deanna Marcum
pp. 74 - 89
Abstract
While libraries, archives, and museums have taken separate paths to professionalization, the digital environment, along with its many opportunities for collaboration, is bringing these cultural institutions closer together, just as David Gracy projected early in his career. In the networked world, these siloed organizations with their unique professional histories are realizing that users of their content want information about subjects, not information from a particular source.
Preservation of Texas’s Public Records, a Vital Work in Progress
Martha Doty Freeman
pp. 90 - 107
Abstract
Management of state and local records has a long history in the United States and in Texas, where interest in the varieties of information embedded in government documents became a matter of public investigation and funding in the 1920s. This article, written in honor of David B. Gracy II, one of the most ardent advocates of the intrinsic value of such records, describes efforts to preserve local government documents and enumerates the ways in which their uses have intensified since the mid-twentieth century.