Tangible Data Catalogue
Julianna Amelia Santolucito
“The nature of archival research is in flux; we need to see and touch objects and documents; now we often merely view the same material on a computer screen.” A quote from Susan Howe’s Spontaneous Particulars: The Telepathy of the Archives, speaks lengths to why I believe the preservation and continuation of physical archives is a vital necessity. With the rise of technologies that have brought a convenience to how we access information, its occasional uncertainties and disappearances of information should be noted.
Tangible Data Catalogue is a compilation of all the archives currently residing in the United States of America. Acting as a yellow pages of sorts, its main purpose is to function as a resource for anyone interested in visiting and relishing in all things archival. Archives play a distinguished and specific role in how we view both the past and present, and I believe there is something to be said about how the sensory experience of reliving history, data, and art plays a role in how it affects and inspires us. Striving to go beyond just acting as a resource, I hope that this gathering of the limited amount of physical archives in this country will inspire others to go and have an experience with reconnecting to information in a way that engages all of our sensory inputs.