Oh, I agree if you're looking for this type of thing the archive is the 
place to go...but I think most people in the general public would go to a 
library and see what someone has published on the subject rather than scout 
out the archive where the info might be and remember, lots of folks live 
outside a travelable area to an archive....:)  and different archives, that 
would be state archive's have different things in them...for instance those 
state archives in the East have things about the East in them or what ever 
state they are in....not to mention I tried reading the Warren Report and I 
gotta tell you, needed lots of coffee for that....:)

But while we're on this subject...the other thing I find about history and 
whether books or documentaries is:  they seem to always go over the same 
ground...i.e. I mean how many times can you describe Washington Crossing the 
Delaware....I'm not saying he's not imporant in history....:)  but even with 
a new twist...the words George Washington in a title has a tendency to turn 
me away....

Same with history of Battles...and historians sometimes only give you the 
upper crust of things...i.e. like the Battle of Brandywine, not sure there 
is any real historical work on that...but there was a minor Battle in that 
Battle called Paoli...you never hear those mentioned in any historical works 
of late...I think the History Channel had a program on the Rev Battles or 
George Washington and the name Brandywine was said, but never gave any 
details about it...

Maybe that's because of just a real lack of historical original records to 
work with for that time period...I don't know....

You never see any *birds eye* view of subjects...let's say an indepth book 
on or information on the Battle of Brandywine for instances...or say about 
Washington's Guard unit...Ok, I'd read that one....:)  and the Minutemen, 
gee that concept goes back to the revolution as well...you don't see 
anything about those...

Seems like so many things are just becoming sound bites of late...and when I 
say in depth, I mean every available morsel of information that may be 
anywhere about it....:)

Charlotte



----Original Message Follows----
From: [log in to unmask]
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ARCHIVES] LONG:  value of government records [was public ignorance 
of archivists]
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 12:21:58 -0400

Charlotte writes of the general public's lack of interest in government 
records:  "I think most of us think of a state archive as the repository for 
old 'government' documents, not necessarily anything that would be of 
interest to them."

My experience lies in the area of Federal rather than state archives.  I 
have an interest in what Federal records contain not only as an historian 
and former archivist, but also as a citizen.  Here's how that plays out for 
me.  How many other people react this way?  I don't know, I don't claim to 
speak for anyone but myself.  This is just how I see the importance of 
archival records as opposed to other sources of information.  I put this 
together during my lunch break.  But if some of you are not interested in my 
lengthy musings on the value of government records, stop right here and go 
ahead and delete this, I won't mind, LOL.

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