Telling Our Own Stories: Maintaining collective memory in a world of distributed records

Abstract

This paper is based on a presentation I gave at the ARANZ conference held at Auckland University in September 2015. It seemed to me a very suitable venue for the presentation, because it relates to a research project I am working on together with the Auckland University Tramping Club community and the archival community to try to find a way to help maintain the records which help maintain the club’s collective memory, in a time when those records are becoming increasingly scattered between a whole range of different formats, locations and agencies. Eric Ketelaar noted that a common past is what gives continuity, cohesion and coherence to a community, and the records which support a community’s collective memory are a vital part of maintaining links with that common past.