Course: How to Collect, Arrange, Maintain, and Promote a Bahá’í Archive (2020)
Faculty: Roger Dahl, Sue Rishworth, Lois Walker
This course taught me that organizing archives is a lot of work, but it is also a lot of fun. It is a puzzle crying out to be solved, and people and their history crying out to be heard and remembered. I have always felt that history is a precious thing that can so easily be lost unless people step up to save it.
I knew nothing about archiving prior to this course and now I have basic skills to manage archives with, and more confidence. I also learned that it is no great mystery how to do this, but is a very logical procedure.
Going forward, I can and will continue to organize archives for other communities in my cluster. I also plan to prepare presentations that I can give to my cluster about the importance of an archive; what is involved in organizing one; what kinds of things are important to save; the pride that a community can feel of its own past; how every member of the community has the privilege and responsibility to contribute to the archives; and the ways that other individuals can carry on this rewarding experience of being an archivist.
