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Week 11:
7/31-8/6
Role of records
in society

The United Federation of Doll Clubs

http://ufdc.org/home/about-ufdc/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

This is the link to an interesting organization that is a museum for dolls. A friend of mine used to work there and that is how I first learned of it and visited a few times. As I was thinking about this week's assignment, I was reminded of this unique collection and thought about it in terms of archival practice. Besides collecting rare and unique dolls, they also capture documentation and stories surrounding dolls, doll play, doll collecting, and doll creation.

This fascinating sub-culture that is both mainstream and narrow, kept reminding me that an archival collection can be a lens for examining other cultural structures around it. That lens can minify or magnify being used both to put the archival material into a narrow channel of creators and practice as well as offering a perspective on the wider culture in which it exists. 

Having a collection like this allows us to ask questions like what is the function of toys in the lives of children? How do dolls shape social behavior and role modeling? What can they tell us about craft production artistry? Mass production of collectibles? How does their historical evolution fit into the current world of robotics, cyborgs and other anthropomorphic designs?

The Archive, The Musem and the Library (or the combination) really achieve the greatest value by bringing together collections of resources and amplifying the patterns that can only be discovered in the celebration of quantity and diversity of times spanned. This is true for documents, physical objects, and digital creations.

-B