"Scenes from an Archive: The Work of Aligning Interests of Business Organizations and Historians"

A fundamental problem facing the business history community is ensuring the preservation of
and securing access to reliable and complete documentation describing the activities of
business organizations. This is so at least in part because the interests the sources of such
documents (business organizations) have interests often distinct from those engaged in
historical research. For a research library like Hagley, a substantial part of collections
development is the work of aligning these two sets of often disparate interests.
Not content to be relegated to a role as Corporate America’s undertaker, Hagley’s efforts
include working with living business organizations, necessarily bringing their interests into
alignment with those of historical researchers. This work is itself historically contingent and
reveals ways in which, at different historical moments, cooperation can flower.
This paper will discuss several episodes in Hagley’s collections development that shed light on
this alignment work. Inevitably, Hagley and its staff has its own interests that also factor into its
actions and decisions—its alignment work. The sum of the episodes presented here underscore
that our knowledge of the corporate past is held jointly and by courtesy. This nature can
present opportunities for engagement and collaboration.