Reflections on preserving association records

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the recorded history of information associations, focusing especially on the Association for Information Science and Technology. Discussions with the archivists of three other professional associations about their beginnings, services, and funding provide the framework. While there are firm legal guidelines for keeping association records, there are no firm guidelines that specifically describe how to archive association records for historical purposes. Association records—including correspondence, votes, and addresses that are not held in formal publications—can reveal how and when decisions were made. Making these records available in archives is invaluable to historians. The authors’ views and opinions are based on what they have learned during the last several years of the active engagement of the Association for Information Science and Technology’s History Committee (HC) and curator, and the hope is that this article will be useful for other associations as they curate their own archives.