Burns emerges from this study withtion. Archives have often been figurephors construct archives as optical dof the past. In Burns' memorable phrmirrors than like chessboards."25 In ordto be alert to the formal language, pr(in this case, both notaries and "ordinwhich those writing (or represented inachieve
I think this alternative, less glamorous view of archives "less like mirrors than like chessboards" really gets at what Yale has been writing about so far in this essay. Archives and the work that archivists do seem to often get either underplayed or misinterpreted. Some of the specific ends achieved, like the duality of record keeping in 1940's Germany referenced in the Yale's introduction, indicate that archives are not just optical devices. This quote is a very simple but effective way of describing archives and I will keep it in mind.