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Archivists and historians usually consider archives as repositories of historical sources and the archivist as a neutral custodian. Sociologists and anthropologists see "the archive" also as a system of collecting, categorizing, and exploiting memories. Archivists are hesitantly acknowledging their role in shaping memories. I advocate that archival fonds, archival documents, archival institutions, and archival systems contain tacit narratives which must be deconstructed in order to understand the meanings of archives.