ABSTRACT
Let it be recorded that in the year 1985, at a time of unprecedented information generation and computerized information access, one of the best-kept secrets of information management— without intending to be—concerns the religious archive as reference resource. Several factors no doubt contribute to the near anonymity of the archives of most religious organizations: the lack of research tools available to the interested researcher, management policies that perhaps place more stress on preservation and conservation than on the creative use of records, and most importantly, a mutual absence of familiarity on the part of the inquirer as to what resources may be found in religious archives and on the part of the archivist as to the nature of current research interests and needs. As part of the larger human problem of the distribution of goods, whether economic, cultural, artistic, recreational, or spiritual, the information gap continues to widen despite the fact that more and more of the precious commodity is being generated and accessed each day. This essay takes a small step toward arresting the imbalance; it describes religious archives in general and the archives of women religious in particular, with respect to their reference resources, and illustrates those resources by drawing upon the documents of one religious organization, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, in reference to two specific areas of historical research: women’s issues and the changing perception of women religious.
