Resumo
Recent developments in society, information technology and new communications have made a huge impact upon archives in the 2nd decade of the 21st century. It seems that while formal archives are able to create vast volumes of new archives through digitization, other groups in society are choosing to do precisely the opposite: that is not to create and deposit archives. This decision may be based on engagement with contemporary concerns or on historical, political, social, or personal reasons. At the same time, archives have attained a heightened currency though television and satellite media, through legislative changes, and through the growing visibility of the importance of archives to other academic disciplines: all have contributed to a new archival consciousness. Louise Craven asks what impact these developments have on the archival heritage on the 21st century and considers whether they have influenced our philosophical understanding of the archive. She looks at the effects of these developments on those traditional tenets of archival theory and the archival episteme, and finally considers the object of archival science in the 21st century.
