The ontological argument Terry Cook is making here, and throughout this article, is very important. It raises questions about the relation between objects - animate and inanimate - and their surroundings, the traces they produce, and the processes within which they are situated. How does one define a specific field or "object of study" when it is so deeply imbricated in another, or many others for that matter? While I agree in theory that her approach of macro-appraisals can serve to widen and enrich the scope of special collections, I would also argue that her position (and it top-down philosophy, as she puts it), produces a certain tension with the other reading we did this week - which advocates for the opposite approach; that is to say, a narrowing of collection development practices (of which appraising if of course a main step). While I know this article was written specifically with architecture in mind, I think it's fair to say it applies equally to other fields. The question then remains: How does one appropriately represent the "life world", as it were, of a particular field, while also working efficiently and within the bounds of reality? Furthermore, can one utilize a top-down approach to appraising and collection development without imposing a sort of prefigured idea of prospective research topics (as Cook argues against, yet, in my opinion, her position seems to confirm)? What is the balance between these two?

In this paragraph, as in many others throughout her paper, Yale highlights the secretive, proprietary nature of early modern record keeping; specifically in relation to the codification and expansion of state and imperial powers (so suggesting that limited access to archives was an important facet in the preservation of certain power structures, both internally and outwardly). While she is certainly correct in this assertion, I think it is also important to note that Venice, like other burgeoning powers of the early modern period, utilized excessive public ritual and pageantry as a means of promulgating constitutional values, reifying internal political hierarchies, and projecting its economic and military power onto the world stage. Such rituals, like that of the ducal procession, included the use of various objects and relics which supported a vision of the republic’s mythopoeic origin (related to the transfer and rediscovery of the body of St. Mark between the 9th and 11th centuries), and its consecrated mediterranean hegemony. I bring this up simply to pose a question about how these early modern states, as well as more contemporary powers, wield the archive (or parts of it) in public as a means of creating an outward and more easily translatable expression of power. What is the relationship between the secretive records of a state and these ritualized manifestations? How has this dynamic changed over time? How has it remained the same?