ISBN: 978-1-939901-14-9
The Anarchivist
$34.00
by Geof Huth
Publication Date: August 2020
English
Paperback
7 x 10 in.
145 pages
This volume assembles essays on the practice of archives by the archivist and experimental poet Geof Huth, along with his color photographs of ancient records on parchment and distressed paper. Huth reflects on the interplay between history, archives, and memory—on how we imagine facts and truth into being. In the end, the book is concerned with how we produce knowledge via the stories told through those records we have determined to keep.
Geof Huth is an archivist, records manager, librarian, and poet interested in the intellectual and poetic possibilities of archives and language. He has worked for over 30 years in government records and has spoken across the country on most aspects of archives and records management. Along with his wife, Karen Jamison Trivette, he runs the weekly podcast An Archivist's Tale, which has interviewed over 100 archivists in nine countries.
Follow his blog, and on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
“A lucid, elegant distillation of the why and what of archivy and archivists. Compellingly quintessential Huth! The archival equivalent of Atul Gawande: makes a complex specialist subject accessible to a general readership with persuasive and poignant wit.”
— Sarah R. Demb, Senior Records Manager at Harvard University
“In his personal, but researched essays, Huth explores the very core of the record, the archivist, the act of archiving and the archives as a fundamentally human endeavor. Huth offers unusual insight into archives, naming what many feel: within most researchers is an archivist; within most archivists, a researcher. The difference is the place and purpose of the catalyst.”
— Elizabeth Myers, Director of Special Collections at Smith College
