Abstract
Historical materials as well as the museums and archives that preserve them have an altruistic aspect. At the Future of Humanity Research Center, terms like "margins," "vessels," and "corridors" have been mentioned as analogies for the systems in which altruism resides. However, these analogies do not convey the nuance of the fragility which is peculiar to historical materials. In order to explore a new analogy of altruism, this paper refers to Francis Bacon to describe historical materials as "seedlings," places of preservation as "nursery gardens", and historical descriptions as "gardens". Typical cases to show the fragility of the historical materials are records that convey "negative history" such as weapons development, environmental pollution, and research misconduct. As an example of missing records, the author discusses the war experiences of people related to the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Based on the author's experience, the following three patterns to trace missing records are introduced: (a) objects left behind when they should have been erased, (b) objects left behind inconspicuously, and (c) objects that have been rewritten. These case studies confirm the validity of the analogy of "preserving seedlings in a nursery and waiting for gardens to be built" for the preservation of historical materials. Finally, the author introduces her practice in preserving the "seedlings" of records for the future, during the activities of a course of "Transdisciplinary studies: Getting familiar with Tokyo Tech campuses".
