Time is very important to all of us, but it is not often we get to think very deeply about what it will mean in the future, or for archiving. In the article, Verner and Ross talked about the poetics of various ideas, including the idea of the poetics of colonization of America. I was wondering if in a hundred, a thousand, or 5,000 years from now will these categorizations stick? Will they mean the same thing to people, or will they re-invent the past? 

With the advent of technology, the terminology is changing faster everyday, and it is hard to keep up. Today’s labels may become yesterday’s card catalogues. Whoever is controlling the catalogue/archive will get to decide what to keep or edit, or even delete. Even the words we leave behind may be changed or interpreted as something far beyond what we meant or dreamed. I wonder if this will lead to digital ‘tugs of war’ between archivers who want to leave their fingerprints on what we write to also leave their own marks and ideas. I do fear for what could be lost, but also hopeful for what could be accomplished with the vast amount of data that will be collected. Every archiver may emphasize some subjects over others, it is interesting to speculate how every decade these trends could change based on popular opinion or global events. 

In a sense, the archiver has the chance to shape history with human hands and their choices. We will need to evolve along with the technology created and interact with it now that the Pandora’s box has been opened. Human history is full of chaos and questions, some of which we can answer, some that are debated, and some giant holes that may never be filled in. Will the people thousands of years from now be able to look back and see things clearer than we can? Can we predict what will happen based on the past and present, or will the truth of the future never come to light in our lifetimes?