Some personal archives may find their way into institutional archives, through donation by the family, and so may come to form part of our social memory – but how ‘safe’ is this material? Many institutional film archives, such as the British Film Institute archive have digitised parts of their collection to make the material more accessible to the public and for educational and research purposes – and have preserved the original celluloid material. However, other archives may have only digital copies of the film material they hold. Will the ‘thin images’ of incidental moments of day-to-day lived experience be weeded out from the public archive?
Laura U Marks’ comment seems relevant here: “The less important the film or tape (and by extension, its potential audience) was considered, the less likely that it will have been archived with care” (Marks, 2002, p. 169) – or, I suggest, be considered insignificant to the construction of our shared, socio-cultural history by a dutiful archivist who may remove the material.