Birds of a Feather: Some Fundamentals on the Archives–Ecology Paradigm

This article was originally published in ARCHIVARIA, The Journal of the Association of Canadian Archivists.This article reviews the concepts of preservation, conservation, and ecology in order to establish archival theory and practice, and environmental philosophy and protection as intellectually related domains, not merely analogous subjects. Moving beyond the organic metaphor peppered throughout the professional literature, it challenges archivists to look more widely at the parallel ideas and applications in archives and ecology that can influence and inform their decision-making process, and encourages archivists to move further away from the positivism that has directed much of their activities toward a more pluralistic paradigm evident in the biological and physical sciences. The outcome is a fundamental understanding of the theoretical intersection of archives and ecology coupled with models that can guide practical applications in appraisal and access for archives