Institutionalized Memory

Extracts from Attila Marton's study Social Memory Institutions in the Digital Age about 'institutionalized memory':

Memory was structured in places that required the knowledge of the topography from parts of the orator. In this sense, the museion was the worldly counterpart to the imagined memory palace. Constructed as walkable spaces, the key was the rationale according to which the items themselves were ordered. Weinberger (2007) refers to this setup as the first-order of order or the order of the things themselves, which still can be found in most public libraries and museum exhibitions today.

The differentiation of books into a communication medium rather than a memory device co-evolved with the emergence of libraries as autonomous organizations dedicated to the collection of print media.

The beginning of an internal differentiation of libraries into public libraries as opposed to national and research libraries can be observed in those times (18th century). It is also the beginning of the shift from memory to information – from past tradition to future exploits (Connerton 1990).

The opening of memory institutions as educational facilities for the wider public marks the era of the modern library and museum accompanied by the professionalization of their caretakers from the mid 19th century on.

Esposito (2002:183-286) refers to this paradigm as “culture as memory” or “modern memory.” An explanation as to why culture organizes social memory would be too much of a distraction at this point [...] Instead, the dissertation will focus on, what Weinberger (2007) calls, the second-order of order. The prime example is the card catalogue constructed according to abstract criteria of categorization and order – according to a logic (“kata logos” in Ancient Greek) that is applicable to an infinite knowledge space mediated by communication media and cultural artefacts. In this sense, the card catalogue embodies a higher level of abstraction in social memory. The items themselves are forgotten. It is the rules of the catalogue that are being remembered. The order of the things themselves is abandoned and replaced by the professional order of representations of things or, so-called, surrogates. Taking books as an example, their content is forgotten and filtered by the descriptive categories that fit onto a catalogue card.