The Archives Story: Part I

Back in March I had a phone conversation with a friend and former Wisconsin graduate student who had done his dissertation research a few years earlier in India. After discussing careers, family, and politics he asked me "So, do you have any good archive stories?"

I admitted somewhat sheepishly that I had no such story. And as time went by I began to feel more self-conscious about it. A good archives story is part of what makes a graduate student's year in the field such a rite of passage. It's the research equivalent of the war story. I would be a failure if I came back from Thailand with solid research data, a strong sense of the local cultural and political scene, and a case of amoebic dysentery. What if one day I found myself standing in the halls of Appalachian State with a group of colleagues all telling about their run-ins with foreign bureaucracies or amazing discoveries of never-before-seen documents. I would have to sit there in silence, shut out of the historian's 'Band of Brothers' forever.

As it turned out my anxieties were for naught. A couple months after our conversation, I found my great archives story. Only it didn't happen in the archives...

In May, I took a break from my regular research routine to visit the Thai parliamentary library. I was looking for the official transcripts of a parliamentary debate that occured in 1946 after France announced it would block Thailand's admission to the United Nations unless the Thai agreed to return the four territories they acquired from French Indochina in 1941. The Thai parliament met in October of that year to decide what course of action to take.

Not surprisingly, the security at parliament is much tighter than any library I had yet visited. The entrances and inner courtyard are guarded by soldiers in full combat fatigues holding automatic weapons. I had to register at a 'police station' before I could go inside. The officers looked at my application, identification, and National Research Council badge before making the oh-so-arbitrary decision of whether or not to let me inside. Fortunately, on this occassion, the fates smiled on me and this policeman granted me access. After running my bags through the x-ray machines I walked into the building and headed for the library. The security detail clipped a pink plastic badge to my shir lapel, identifying me as a foreign researcher.

The day got even better when I discovered that the library actually had the transcipts I sought. Thai management of historical records is spotty at best. Even when you know what you're looking for you never know if it will be available. The processes of microfilming and digitization are decades behind in Thailand, so often when something happens to an original document, it's just gone - it can't be reproduced. So I was thrilled to hear that debate transcipts from 1941-1946 had managed to avoid destruction and were still available to researchers.

After studying the records and marking the appropriate passages, I walked up to the counter to inquire about how to make photocopies and received the following response:

"Oh, I'm sorry...we don't copy documents here at the parlimanetary library."

"I see. How can I make photocopies of what I need?"

"There's a copy center just a few blocks from here. You'll have to take the volumes over there and pay them to copy it for you."

This last response was so shocking I had trouble believing she had actually said it. They were going to let me take these irreplacable volumes, possibly the only copies in existence, out of the library? They would allow some copy-shop worker with oily, greasy hands to slam page after page down on a copier? It seemed unfathomable. In France you could be shot by firing quad for such an offense. Still, I tried to hold it together...

"How do I find the copy store?"

"There's a queue of motorcycle taxis just outside the gate. Just ask them for a ride to the nearest copy shop."

Not only would I be leaving the premises with these priceless books, I'd be carrying them on the back of a motorcycle dodging through mid-day Bangkok traffic. What were they thinking?

I did my best not to betray my incredulity. As a researcher you don't ever want to question something the bureaucracy has decided in your favor. They had granted me permission to get what I needed. If they ever realized what a terrible policy that was, they could just as easily reconsider and that would be the end of my chance to get the information I needed. As nonchalantly as possible, I gathered up the books in my arms and quickly hurried out the door. But my mind was full of suspicion. Nothing in Thailand was this easy. There had to be a hidden pitfall in the near future.

I just couldn't see it yet.