I donât like wading into Ao3 debates, but I want to give my professional opinion on Ao3 with regard to archives vs. libraries.
I am a professional librarian (MSLS) and I have worked in both archives and public libraries and a lot of the confusion and concern I see surrounding Ao3 is a fundamental misunderstanding of How Archives Work.
An archive is a collection related to a subject. That subject often a person but sometimes a field or concept or project. And the purpose of an archive is to keep everything. And I mean everything. I was going to say âshort of biohazardsâ but since I know thereâs a sealed R. Crumb Devil Gal chocolate bar in the UNC Chapel Hill archives, we really do mean everything.
When a collection of materialsâwhich are usually unique and original and can be photos, manuscripts, letters, recordings (audio and/or visual), notes and notebooks, objects, published books, whateverâon and/or from the subject arrive at the archive, they are examined, preserved for longevity, accessioned and cataloged (added to the archiveâs records), and added to the archive. You measure collections in linear feet. As in, once itâs all preserved and boxed and secure, you note how many feet of shelf space it takes up. And some of y'all on Ao3 have a lot of linear feet to your name (and Iâm proud of you).
This is an archive: it is designed to preserve the original materials related to a subject. That is its purpose. Archives are how we have the original scroll manuscript of On the Road, for example, or the Lomax recordings of American folksongs, or Tijuana Bibles, or James Joyceâs loveletters to Nora.
Now you, a member of the public, can access some archives. Some are easier to access than others. The one I worked in was open to the public; good luck getting into the British Archives without a good reason.
So now apply this to Ao3âwhich is an archive both in name and in purpose. It is intended to preserve fan-created content long term. And this means everything, whether you personally like the materials or not. It is a repository for as much as possible.
And the âwhether you personally like the materials or notâ is important, hence why I mentioned Jimâs loveletters and Tijuana Bibles in particular. (RIP Jim, you would have loved pegging.)
If itâs made by fans and it exists, we should keep it to document the history and progression of fandom. That is the point. We have lost enough materials related to the subject of fans of media and we donât need to lose any more.
The fact of the matter is that Ao3 is only one facet of the OTW, which preserves other fan-related materials (convention booklets and zines, for example). Somehow Ao3, an archive on the subject of fanfiction, has been divorced from the rest of the project, mostly by way of âpurity cultureâ and panic over âdangerousâ fiction.
The fact that you can go through an archive and find interesting information is the other side of archives. No, they shouldnât be like the bankerâs box of old letters stuffed in my closet. Yes, they should be organized and as accessible as is appropriate for the state of the materials.
Itâs really, really cool to find stuff in an archive, Iâm not even going to lie. I have done it before and I will do it again. And yet there are other items in an archive that I might not want or need or be interested in at allâbut theyâre still there. Thatâs the cataloging and accessioning: to keep up with whatâs there, to stay âon topicâ with collecting, and to be able to find things in that archive. Bless the tag wranglers who are doing the cataloging at Ao3.
The pearl clutching seems to come from 1. the creation of âdangerousâ fanworks and 2. public access to those âdangerousâ fanworks. These are issues of âpurity cultureâ and opinions on censorship and should not involve Ao3.
Ao3, under the umbrella of the OTW, is a documentation and preservation project first and foremost.
