In the scholarly communications lifecycle, it is the archive (as place and as collection) that has traditionally functioned as the research laboratory, the source of knowledge for the humanities and its sub-disciplines. This article examines the notion of the archive as revealed through a process of infrastructural inversion, with an emphasis on understanding the working information practices of archivists as a prerequisite to any discussion of humanities infrastructure initiatives. Situating the archive as a form of infrastructure and archival labor as a form of maintenance work generates descriptions of archival systems and practices that shine a spotlight on key negotiations and tensions that adhere in a profession that exists in service of others. In particular, the article and the argument therein set out to describe what will be lost if this archival assemblage of people, practices, activities, artifacts, and structures is set aside rather than ported into any imagining or re-imagining of the humanities of the future.
Ciaran B. Trace (Fri,) studied this question.