The Great Archives Contest.  

First Prize, a set of Eight Award Winning Wines from the Pinnacle Ridge Winery (which I see out my office window every day) and you select the eight bottles from their 2013 Award Winners. www.pinridge.com  If you check out their web site you will see this is a valuable prize.  The wine is outstanding. Each of the Top 10 winners will also receive a Late Harvest Vidal Blanc or a Riesling depending on their availability.

Second Prize is a a box of six Filet Mignon Steaks shipped direct from Omaha Steaks.

Third Prize is the joy of having your submittal included in the List I will publish or place on the FIRELOCK Website for all eternity or at least until I cease to exist. All work will be accredited to the individual submitter. I will create a hard copy Newsletter as well and mail it to the people who submit.

Rules for Entry:  

1) Submit to this Listserve your Concept of what represents the greatest archives in the world. Any record (other than oral records) collection can be considered. Paintings and Sculpture are not a record for this contest.  It is the written documents that offer some tremendous value to the world. Define the top items in the collection.
2) Define the value. For example if you selected the American Medical Associations Archive (does it exist?) of all the great medical advancements in terms of care, drug treatments and you want to define the value in relief from human suffering, extended life span and quality of life; that is a valid defense.
3) For this contest; an archives consist of (dare say “Vital”) records that have been selected for permanent preservation based on criteria that their enduring cultural, intrinsic, historical, or evidentiary value. Archival records are not typically published in book format and are unique as a collection and in this contest must be of great value.
4) All thesis work must be your own original work and you may include references with footnotes but no more than two. I expect that those who submit are expert witnesses and your opinion alone is the value to the discussion as you have absorbed a life time of knowledge and can display it here. I have always valued the opinions of this Listserve and this will be an intellectual display of that knowledge base.
5) Archivists may also join this contest.
6) Contest will close on September 30th.

So submit your entry to the List on what I will then combine them into the “The World’s Twenty Five Greatest Archival Collections.” You can submit your thesis directly to [log in to unmask] as described in  #4 above.  That way no one can build on your research.  It is first come first serve on the capturing title to an archive. 

In the article about the Hess War Records, they describe as: “perhaps the most important wartime archive to ever be offered for private sale.”  Really? If it is worth only $750,000 then it is not even close. But it did start me thinking about what is the greatest collection of records in the world?  Does volume equate to value?

I have vaults that house collections in the billions. I have been told Batch Records are the most valuable because of the horrific effect of infinite litigation and huge payouts to litigants. Would a vault full of Pay to Bearer Bonds be the most valuable? 

The Holy Grail of course is the "Holy Grail” and the "Arc of the Covenant” are great artifacts; but NARA misplaced those.  I personally think the Arc was stolen by Alabama because they seem to be the only unbeatable thing lately.

Many believe that the Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt was the greatest in its time but was lost or destroyed or burned depending on who the historian is.  In current times, it could be the Library of Congress. But others would scoff and say The Vatican Apostolic Library with ancient scrolls, codices, pre-cursor Biblical documents, the earliest Bible writings. (I am pretty sure they have the Alchemists formula for turning lead into Gold.)

The Internet has different presentations of lists but they are done from one person’s point of view and most are not records managers and archivists.  This will be an expert opinion list.

Even if you don’t think your offering is the #1 it may still place it in the top 25 list. 

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts should be in the running as they fund Town Hall Records Preservation Projects all over the state and protect more records than any other state and surely they are significant to the history of the U.S.  If I was awarding a Town an award Waltham would be in the mix as they built and entire records archive and cover a unique swatch of Americana.

I can’t wait to see what this August Body of records managers deem the world’s best. History awaits............

I think this is relevant as the value of records collections defines the value of the records management function. It was the governance of past records managers that allowed archives to evolve. 


Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
[log in to unmask]
(610)  756-4440    Fax (610)  756-4134
WWW.FIRELOCK.COM

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