Background on Libraries and Archives in the Anthropocene
In May 2017, a group of archivists and librarians convened at the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts for a two-day colloquium on the impact of environmental change on historical memory institutions. The speakers in the Libraries and Archives in the Anthropocene colloquium explored the profound implications of cataclysmic climate change on the missions and practices of cultural heritage institutions, the challenges confronting them, and the opportunities for future efforts and investigations. The call for participants laid out the dire conditions that form the background for the colloquium:
As stewards of a culture's collective knowledge, libraries and archives are facing the realities of cataclysmic environmental change with a dawning awareness of its unique implications for their missions and activities. Some professionals in these fields are focusing new energies on the need for environmentally sustainable practices in their institutions. Some are prioritizing the role of libraries and archives in supporting climate change communication and influencing government policy and public awareness. Others foresee an inevitable unraveling of systems and ponder the role of libraries and archives in a world much different from the one we take for granted. Climate disruption, peak oil, toxic waste, deforestation, soil salinity and agricultural crisis, depletion of groundwater and other natural resources, loss of biodiversity, mass migration, sea level rise, and extreme weather events are all problems that indirectly threaten to overwhelm civilization's knowledge infrastructures, and present information institutions with unprecedented challenges.
Speakers at the colloquium included a diverse assemblage of archivists, librarians, artists, scientists, and technologists, with Roy Scranton providing the opening keynote address, and plenary discussions featuring Howard Besser, Amy Brunvand, John Burgess, Jill Kubit, Rick Prelinger, Jodi Shaw, and Eira Tansey. The colloquium was organized by Casey E. Davis Kaufman (American Archive of Public Broadcasting at WGBH), Madeleine Charney (Sustainability Studies Librarian at UMass Amherst), and Rory Litwin (former librarian and the founder of Litwin Books, LLC).
