Case Study: Sorting Your Collection Into Chunks

Stevens, Tyler

Mímisson, K., & Ólafsson, D. (Eds.). (2025). Objects in the Archives: Modern Material Culture and Heritage in the North (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003350293

Runarsdottir, A. (2025). "In pursuit of modernity? On collecting and aesthetics in Iceland." Objects in the Archives: Modern Material Culture and Heritage in the North (1st ed.) 85-99. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003350293

Summary: Objects in the Archives is a collection of articles written by a team of historians, archaeologists, and archivists examining several collections which have been gathered by the National Archives of Iceland. Mímisson and his team's primary claim is that there exists a unique relationship between humans and the things which they gather; things possess a certain agency which transforms and informs the personality and identity of people they're around.

In the article by Runarsdottir, "In pursuit of modernity?" she examines this relationship while breaking down the National Archives' first collection, which was gathered by its first national antiquarian, Matthias Þórðarson. By breaking the collection down into chunks and assessing it in the context of Þórðarson's past, Runarsdottir examines the value judgements made in determining what should be kept and observed that many of his choices included items which aligned Iceland culture with Western modernist values. As an example, she notes that 18% of his collected artifacts were "costumes or clothing," with preference towards womenswear and finer clothing with beautiful embroidery over everyday clothing (which would have been passed down and worn down to their bare threads, but could have reasonably been collected) and claims that this was an intentional preservation choice made by Þórðarson to inform his message that Iceland should be considered as a respectable Western nation.

Evaluation: Our focus on collections development in this class is primarily in the discipline of librarianship. While this essay focuses primarily on collections in a museum context, Runarsdottir provides an excellent example of breaking down a comprehensive inventory of a multi-media collection into chunks as she evaluates the original collector's value judgements. She assesses the collection as a whole and identifies chunks which were considered significant, such as costumes and clothing (a general chunk). Runarsdottir further identifies specialized chunks like womenswear within costumes and clothing. The comprehensive breakdown alone makes this article valuable for our study of these concepts. This further connects to the larger anthology's hypothesis to elaborate on humanity's unique relationship with the objects around them by demonstrating how we use objects to project identity and define culture. Likewise, library collections have similar agency impact identity and define culture. It may be useful for us to consider books and collection chunks as possessing similar agency as Runarsdottir describes: being able to inform and transform using more than just the text on their pages. I will go further into this in a future blog post on 3 Keys to Collection Development.