Perhaps these ‘‘paradigms’’ are better styled as frameworks for thinking aboutarchives, or archival mindsets, ways of imagining archives and archiving. I want toexplore the shared memories that we have as archivists, our identity, our sense ofcommunity, as we increasingly interact with external communities in ourcontemporary society, both real physical communities in our neighbourhoods andcities, and online virtual communities with social media now reshaping our world,its governance, its communication and record-making patterns, and its identity-
How do we imagine ourselves? The quoted section continues on the next page. Cook guides readers through his four proposed paradigms in archival history with careful footing and an optimism which betrays his age but endears his endeavor. The question of imaging ourselves in the past, present, and future is one which the archive will answer, whether we like it or not. Even the very language of "ourselves" betrays the necessity of both looking closer at the meanings of words (metadata) and looking more expansively from diverse points of view. Whether we prefer paradigms or frameworks or mindsets, the task remains the same: Tackle the question of what it means to be human in this space-time. If something is archived, then there is a certain possibility of being remembered. If not, it will most likely be forgotten.