Professor Emeritus Office: 321 St. Paul's College EDUCATION
e-mail: Thomas.Nesmith@umanitoba.ca
Phone: (204) 474-8559Ph.D., Carleton University
M.A., Queen's University
B.A., Queen's University
RESEARCH INTERESTS
The history of communication, documentary analysis, archival work, theory, and institutions, particularly as they relate to contemporary archival management issues and the role of communication and archiving in the formation of knowledge, memory, and societies.
RECENT PRESENTATIONS
“Living Archivally: Archives, Knowledge, and Society,” the Royal Society of Canada, 28 November 2020.
“Archives, Libraries, and the Reflections of Yuval Noah Harari on the ‘New Human Agenda’,” plenary address at the Philippines Librarians Association, Manila, 20 November 2018 also repeated by invitation as the “Public Lecture” sponsored by the School of Library and Information Studies, University of the Philippines, Manila, in celebration of Library and Information Services Month, 28 November 2018.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Tom Nesmith, Greg Bak and Joan Schwartz, eds. All Shook Up: The Archival Legacy of Terry Cook. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2020.
Tom Nesmith, “A Portrait of the Archivist as a Young Man: Terry Cook, A Life in Archives Begins,” in Tom Nesmith, Greg Bak and Joan Schwartz, eds. All Shook Up: The Archival Legacy of Terry Cook. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2020.
“Toward the Archival Stage in the History of Knowledge,” Archivaria 80 (Fall 2015).
"Principle of Provenance" in Luciana Duranti and Patricia Franks, eds., Encyclopedia of Archival Science (Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, Scarecrow Press, 2015).
"Archives (Institution)" in Luciana Duranti and Patricia Franks, eds., Encyclopedia of Archival Science (Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, Scarecrow Press, 2015).
“The Missing Piece: Towards New Partnerships with Users of Archives,” CITC Canadian Issues/Themes Canadiens : The Canadian Archives Summit: Towards a New Blueprint for Canada’s Recorded Memory (Special Edition, 2014). (A publication of the Association for Canadian Studies.)
“The Ox and the Virgin: Archives, Without the Boring Bits,” in Christine A. Butterill, ed., St. Paul’s College, University of Manitoba: Facing the New Millennium (Altona, MB: Friesens, 2016).
"Research in Archival Studies Takes a New Look at Archives," The Belltower 25 (2010), pp. 24-25.
"Documenting Appraisal as a Societal-Archival Process: Theory, Practice, and Ethics in the Wake of Helen Willla Samuels," in Terry Cook, ed., Controlling the Past: Documenting Society and Institutions -- Essays in Honor of Helen Willa Samuels (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2011)
“Archivists and Public Affairs: Toward a New Archival Public Programming,” in Cheryl Avery and Mona Holmlund, eds., Better off Forgetting? Essays on Archives, Public Policy, & Collective Memory (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010).
"Re-exploring the Continuum, Rediscovering Archives," Archives and Manuscripts, The Journal of the Australian Society of Archivists 36, no. 2 (November 2008).
“What is an Archival Education?” Journal of the Society of Archivists 28, no. 1 (April 2007).
“The Concept of Societal Provenance and Records of Nineteenth-Century Aboriginal–European Relations in Western Canada: Implications for Archival Theory and Practice,” Archival Science 6 (2006).
“Reopening Archives: Bringing New Contextualities into Archival Theory and Practice,” Archivaria 60 (Fall 2005).
“What’s History Got to Do With It?: Reconsidering the Place of Historical Knowledge in Archival Work,” Archivaria 57 (Spring 2004).
"Exploring Archives as Politics," South African Society of Archivists, Newsletter (July-September 2002).
"Seeing Archives: Postmodernism and the Changing Intellectual Place of Archives", The American Archivist 65, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2002).
"Still Fuzzy, But More Accurate: Some Thoughts on the 'Ghosts' of Archival Theory", Archivaria 47 (Spring 1999).
"Hugh Taylor's Contextual Idea for Archives and the Foundation of Graduate Education in Archival Studies" in Barbara Craig, ed., The Archival Imagination: Essays in Honour of Hugh A. Taylor (Ottawa: Association of Canadian Archivists, 1992).
COURSES TAUGHT
2017-2018
HIST 7372 History of Archiving and Archival Records (Fall term)
HIST 7390 Internship in Archival Studies2016-2017
HIST 3110 Archives, Societal Memory, and the Uses of the Past
HIST 4000 Introduction to Archives
HIST 7372 History of Archiving and Archival Records2015-2016
HIST 3110 Archives, Societal Memory, and the Uses of the Past
HIST 7372 History of Archiving and Archival Records2014-2015
HIST 4000 Introduction to Archives
HIST 7372 History of Archiving and Archival Records
HIST 7382 Archiving in the Digital Age (winter term)
HIST 7390 Internship in Archival Studies2013-2014
HIST 7372 History of Archiving and Archival Records