Page LogoThe Fictional World of Archives, Art Galleries and MuseumsPage Logo

NOTE (FEBRUARY 2009): A NEW VERSION OF THE FICTIONAL WORLD OF ARCHIVES, ART GALLERIES AND MUSEUMS IS UNDER DEVELOPMENT AT HTTP://FICTIONALARCHIVES.BLOGSPOT.COM


Contents

Introduction Novels and Their Authors Short Stories and Their Authors Films and TV Programs Games, Toys and Computer Software
Fictional Archivists and Curators "Pasta Prologue": Archival Humor Track Down More Fictional Archivists and Curators Real-World Archives, Art Galleries & Museums via Cyberspace Search Engine (Google Co-op)
Bibliography  Credits and Colophon      

NEW AS OF SEPTEMBER 8, 2005: Revenue raised through the Amazon.ca and Amazon.com affiliates programs helps support the recovery of Tulane University in New Orleans whose manuscripts librarian/archivist Leon Miller first hosted this Web site on my behalf. All external links on this page should open a new browser window.


Introduction

Archives, archivists, records managers, secret documents and lost manuscripts have been used as characters, settings and plot devices in many stories, novels, movies and TV shows, as well as jokes and cartoons. The tradition of fictionalizing archives extends back to Graeco-Roman times according to classicist Mary Lefkowitz. Today, archives, archivists and records are so important to fiction that this Web page was written to document as fully as possible their many representations found in popular culture. Inspiration for this Web page came from a 1995 discussion on the ARCHIVES electronic mailing list about fictional archives. Sources include submissions by archivists and others, as well as Arlene Schmuland's bibliography from her American Archivist article.

Beginning on November 7, 1999, this site started tracking fictional representations of art galleries and museums.

This site is under continual development, so bookmark it now and come back often.


book iconNOVELS AND THEIR AUTHORSbook icon


book iconSHORT STORIES AND THEIR AUTHORSbook icon


 

Clapboard iconFILMS AND TV PROGRAMS TV Set icon


GAMES, TOYS AND COMPUTER SOFTWARE


FICTIONAL ARCHIVISTS AND CURATORS


"PASTA PROLOGUE"*: ARCHIVAL AND GALLERY HUMORLaughing faces cartoon

*Originated by Professor Luciana Duranti, School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.


TRACK DOWN MORE FICTIONAL ARCHIVISTS AND CURATORS

Other Web-based search engines and navigational aids can be found through the Victoria Telecommunity Network (BC, Canada) Internet/WWW Information Services Page.


REAL-WORLD ARCHIVES, ART GALLERIES & MUSEUMS VIA CYBERSPACE

Visit some real archives through the Repositories of Primary Sources list maintained by Terry Abraham (University of Idaho). Other important site for archivists and researchers are:


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aldred, Tania, Burr, Gordon and Park, Eun. "Crossing a Librarian with a Historian: The Image of Reel Archivists." Archivaria no. 66 (Fall 2008): 57-93.

Bantock, Nick. Urgent 2nd Class: Creating Curious Collage, Dubious Documents, and Other Art from Ephemera. Vancouver, BC: Raincoast Books, 2004. Artist Nick Bantock, best known for his extraordinary Griffin & Sabine sextet of novels made up entirely of faux documents, explains in this book how he creates his visually stimulating pieces of art, including a category he calls "dubious documents" or imaginary historical records.

Benford, Gregory. Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia. New York: Avon Books, 1999; paperback reprint, New York: HarperCollins, 2000. The physicist and science fiction author expounds upon mankind's attempts to establish permanent or unknowable bridges between the present and the future. Science fiction novels are discussed. Except for "cave paintings" listed under monuments, there are no mentions of archives, art galleries or museums in the index! This is an important work for archivists and curators, nonetheless, because of lessons that can be learned from the four topics Benford has chosen to illustrate his thesis: protective measures for radioactive waste; deep-space probes bearing messages; species extinction; and global degradation.

Buckley, Karen. "'The Truth is in the Red Files': An Overview of Archives in Popular Culture." Archivaria no. 66 (Fall 2008): 95-123.

Cox, Richard J. "What Should the Fictional Archivist Look Like?", Reading Archives (Weblog), November 26, 2006. URL (viewed March 3, 2007): http://readingarchives.blogspot.com/2006/11/what-should-fictional-archivist-look.html. Professor Cox discusses his ideas about the portrayal of archives and archivists by fiction writers.

Gillis, Peter (1947-1999). "Of Plots, Secrets, Burrowers and Moles: Archives in Espionage Fiction." Archivaria no. 9 (Winter 1979-80): 3-13.

Keen, Suzanne. Romances of the Archive in Contemporary British Fiction. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press, 2003.

Lefkowitz, Mary. Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrist Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History. New York: BasicBooks, 1996. Read portions of this book online.

Schmuland, Arlene B. "The Archival Image in Fiction: An Analysis with an Annotated Bibliography." American Archivist 62, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 24-73. An abridged version of her thesis. The titles in her bibliography are listed in NOVELS AND THEIR AUTHORS and SHORT STORIES AND THEIR AUTHORS.

Schmuland, Arlene B. "The Image of Archives and Archivists: Fictional Perspectives." M.A. Thesis, Western Washington University, August, 1997. See the American Archivist citation above for a condensed version and updated list of fictional works.


Credits and Colophon

Created 1996.01.31 by David Mattison, a photo/film historian/bibliographer/Canadian Internet/Web content creator and retired archivist with the British Columbia Archives, Victoria, Canada, and Leon Miller, Manuscripts Librarian, Special Collections Division, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Thank you Lee for nearly two years of unflagging Web site support. I couldn't have done it without you! October 5, 1997

With Special Thanks To

  1. Pennington P. Ahlstrand for donating a number of books annotated and dog-eared with references to archivists.
  2. Arlene Schmuland for providing me with the American Archivist issue.
  3. Shelley Sweeney for donating a number of books with references to archivists.
  4. Karen Buckley and Tania Aldred, my co-presenters at the Association of Canadian Archivists 2007 Conference.
  5. Readers of the ARCAN-L and ARCHIVES mailing lists who have contributed many suggestions since 1996.

This site and its pages may be freely linked to but not duplicated in any fashion without the consent of David Mattison.

Web site hosted by the Victoria Telecommunity Network at .

Suggestions for The Fictional World of Archives, Art Galleries and Museums may be e-mailed to (d m a t t i s o n - AT - s h a w - DOT - c a). If you would like to submit a film, TV program, or published fictional representation of an archives or archivist, please follow the format in the Just Cause or The X-Files HTML (source document) files.

Clipart sourced and modified from the IMSI Masterclips and Corel collections.

Compiled by David Mattison; © 1996-2009. Text submissions copyrighted by their respective authors.