All are invited to participate in the new LAAC Book Club, where LA-area archivists and friends read and discuss publications exploring all matters archives. Books will be selected every 4-6 weeks by the group, and may cover topics such as archival theory and practice, historical understandings, current issues and trends in information science, informational technologies, etc....we’re open!

The group will meet on Monday, March 9, from 6:30-8 pm at Canter’s Restaurant. Participants to the Book Club will be capped at 12. Please email laacollective@gmail.com to reserve a spot.

The first book selection is The Allure of the Archives by Arlette Farge

Description: Arlette Farge’s Le Goût de l’archive is widely regarded as a historiographical classic. While combing through two-hundred-year-old judicial records from the Archives of the Bastille, historian Farge was struck by the extraordinarily intimate portrayal they provided of the lives of the poor in pre-Revolutionary France, especially women. She was seduced by the sensuality of old manuscripts and by the revelatory power of voices otherwise lost. In The Allure of the Archives, she conveys the exhilaration of uncovering hidden secrets and the thrill of venturing into new dimensions of the past.

"A little gem of a book. A diamond, perhaps, given both its clarity and the finesse with which it’s been cut and set. It is an unmistakable classic: one of the great memoirs of the silent, day-to-day drama of research . . . Adamantine: sharp, brilliant, perfect, and created to last."—Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed (Scott McLemee Inside Higher Ed)

Can’t make the meeting, but would still like to chat about the book? Send us an email or tweet #LAACBC. We’ll post discussion notes online after the meeting.