Reference, Access, and Outreach: An Evolved Landscape, 1936-2011 (Session 406)

Reference, access, and outreach are conceptually and functionally tied together in ways that were largely unexamined and unarticulated in the mid-1930s. In the second decade of the twenty-first century, archivists see these entities not only from a custodial perspective, but also as central to both repository identity and how the broad spectrum of society understands and supports archival work. The evolution of each of these functions and the cumulative impact of their interaction is discussed.