In the chapter “Book History from the Archival Record,” Katherine Bode and Roger Osborne emphasize that archives form the foundation of book research, but are not neutral places. The following quote stands out in particular: “Archival records are not only incomplete and mediated by various levels of archival intervention; they are also subjective. The records of individuals and institutions are strongly influenced by the beliefs, perspectives, values, interests, and aims of those who produce them.” This quote sums up a crucial insight. Archives do not tell an objective story. Various institutions, such as publishers, librarians, collectors, and historians, create them. They are therefore an expression of decisions, preferences, and power relations. For example, those who archive something also influence what is forgotten or should be forgotten.

This dominant influence has far-reaching consequences, because when we understand how literature is created and disseminated, we must also bear in mind that the traces we find in archives are not random, but selective. One example would be authors’ letters, which are carefully preserved, and documents from small printing houses or readers, which are often lost. So we mainly absorb filtered knowledge. This knowledge is accessible through the perspectives of those who have decided what is “worth preserving.”

Bode and Osborne show that this subjectivity is not simply a mistake, but part of the historical process. Both see archives as constructions of cultural memory. They say something not only about books, but above all about society. In this sense, archives themselves are sources of cultural ideology.

I find the idea of implying the digital age particularly relevant here. Although digital archives appear limitless and objective, and everything is available and searchable, selection processes once again play an important role. Thus, historical truth never arises simply from data or documents, but from interpretation, contextualization, and the awareness that every source bears a human signature.