I have always been an archivist. I thought it appropriate to write about this subject as it has been on my mind a lot these days and I have been reminded of it.
I think archiving can start by putting all sorts of tools, equipment and apparatus that are not used as old technology products or spare parts into the famous “box”. In other words, even if you are someone who thinks you are not involved in archiving, you may have made such an attempt at storage. I think men do it more often and in an exaggerated manner.
When I was a child, I used to keep my school notebooks. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because it makes me feel nostalgic. For example, even after my annual spring cleaning, I couldn’t throw away my first notebook from primary school, I still have it. To be honest, I am not sure that we can acquire this kind of behaviour on our own. I mean, how conscious do we have to be as a child to say “I am going to keep this and look at it in a few years”?
I think it started with my father’s advice. I must have engraved it in my mind, both in terms of utilising the remaining pages of the notebooks and in terms of the tought of “one day you can show it to your children”.
I don’t know if I have the same curiosity now, but I was more curious and eager to learn in those days when we were more in touch with real life (analogue environment). Certain newspapers were bought literally every day in our house until we thought they had not changed their political views. I am not exaggerating, every single one of them was kept in case we needed them, and they piled up as high as the hills above my height. They were kept in the attic or the cellar until the pages turned yellow. They would be used one day, wouldn’t they?
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During this time I used to cut out scientific news from newspapers and collect them. I would file them and date them in a corner. As you can imagine, this was my father’s teaching. From that day on, whenever I took notes, I always put the date in the top right-hand corner. Sometimes with encouragement, sometimes by copying movements and sometimes with unique aspects, people create things within themselves and begin to use them both fondly and as if they were the new normal. I think saving money at a young age was a step that encouraged this.
Children generally copy their family members and then their friends, relying on their words and accepting them as true. I did the same, imitating my father. We would know how to use every aspect of the newspapers, and I would start to analyse and understand the crosswords he spent half an hour solving every day. After a while I managed to do it myself, and if there was a puzzle page, I made sure I saved it. But I solved so many that it was not enough. Crosswords were one of the values that introduced me to dictionaries and developed my grammar at a young age.
All sorts of toys we used to play with our friends, old cassettes and albums, magazines, newspaper supplements with unusual content and much more... I am sure you have such memories too. As I said, if they are stored emotionally, the nostalgic effect comes to the fore, and if they are handled functionally, an archival structure can emerge.
Let me continue chronologically. At that age I liked to play computer games. I mentioned in one of my first articles that I played strategy games in particular. In role-playing or strategy games, you play in what is called a relatively “open world”, depending on the year in which the game was made. Unless the games have precise instructions, it is always up to you how you play. While there is a way to progress in such games, there are also other interesting elements that are presented to us.
As you can imagine, I would go to each of them and make an inventory of the items I found there. I would try to find almost every single item and “be at peace”. Because I had to find them! The bad guys’ attack on my town could wait. The funny thing is that either my inventory would be full and I would wonder which item to leave behind, or it would stay with me until the end of the game and I would never feel the need to use it.
What causes this behaviour? Is it the effect of kleptomania, an inner need to succeed, or simply a hoarding fetish? Does this kind of structure speak of excess? Could the same psychological factor be the reason why, as a child, I was absolutely reluctant to share my toys? I don’t know, but despite all these thoughts, if I were to play again, I would still collect these items and build up my archive.
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The other thing that comes to mind when you talk about not being able to share is my books. Sorry, I don’t think I’ll ever get over that, because I’ve had bad experiences. One day in 2015, for some reason, it occurred to me to write down the books I read on a piece of paper as I put them on my bookshelf. As time went by, I tidied up what I had written and started to make the note better and more detailed with new features. Of course, I preferred to transfer them to digital, which immediately interested me. At that time, I didn’t focus on the design, it was enough to be useful and functional.
Throughout 2018, I bought more books and read more books than ever before. I thought that this process should become more serious, so I took the step that would maximise the quality of the archive: using Microsoft Excel, the world’s best programme, which I believe is the common love of all archivists. I love you, Excel. I apologise for not being able to use you to your full potential.
In my previous job, there was a lot of editing and updating of Excel spreadsheets. I made sure I filed them after each one. I had no idea why I was doing it, but it felt good. I didn’t do it for praise. I don’t think archivists expect praise. I just thought “what if we need them one day”. Has it happened? Once or twice, yes. Only so many times in all these years, but the important thing is that they were needed. You never know when an archived item might come in handy. Besides, the archivists don’t care, they just organise and store them. Now you see why we collect/save all these (not to the extent of a disease, of course), don’t you?
I don’t know when I first had this idea, but there was another practice that I clearly remember writing down in my diary (another archival method, and I also keep my diary notebooks) in 2018. Around the age of 30, I wanted to keep a record of my family lineage. I had and still have the desire to organise valuable information such as the family tree, some interesting memories and anecdotes, some personal information, etc. in an organised way and make a book. This is a project that is high on my list of things to do in life.
Imagine you found a huge notebook from 3–4 generations ago among the dusty things stored away and learned detailed information about your family that you never knew. This thought would make me very happy and I would like the next generations of my family to experience the same thought. If you have noticed, it may seem that this is not about my happiness, but it is not: it is not just that guessing the expression on their faces that makes me happy, but the desire to leave such a set of memories for the future.
In this context, archivists are the invisible characters of life. They are like the bass guitarists in a band who are thought to have no influence on the songs, or the supporting actors who are not conspicuous in the action on stage, or the minor characters who do not have a direct impact (or perhaps do not at all) on the narrative of the book. We can’t all be the main character, some of us have to be the narrator. I think that is quite an exalted role. How would it feel to think that your words could influence the future, in small or major ways?
Photo by Eduardo Olszewski on Unsplash
I wanted to tell about the impact of archiving on me from my childhood to the present (and even the future), in different forms (analogue and digital), in different subjects (education, entertainment, work, personal desire). In all of this I can also see that I am actually dealing with the curiosity to create order, the disciplined process of keeping records, the process of editing and adding through constant reading and writing. If we were to look at fortune in this way, I think I might have been destined to be a museum or library keeper. How wonderful that would have been.
I think there are two moments when archivists are happiest. The first is when they have created a structure that is suitable for all the records they keep. The second is when the day comes (who knows when that day will come) and that record is needed, and the record is revealed with a look of pride. For them, this moment is as impressive as the big prizes that are handed out.
The worst part of this endeavour/job is probably not being immortal. Well, if they are properly preserved, at least those in our archive can do that for us.
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