People of the Stacks: ‘The Archivist’ Character in Fiction

Archives and archival professionals suffer from what may be termed as an “image problem” due to their general lack of exposure to the public. With their efforts being tucked away in various repositories, their fictional representatives become an important way to give people an idea of what they do. With the help of an article by Arlene Schmuland, two works of fiction, People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks from 2008 and The Archivist by Martha Cooley from 1998, are used to compare fictional archivists and the ways their differences may indicate a change in how their real-life counterparts are seen by the general public