UCLA professor of information studies Anne Gilliland says that understanding the history of archival science is critical to understanding where the field is going. In her new book, "Conceptualizing 21st Century Archives," (Chicago: Society of American Archivists. 2014) Gilliland looks back at practices of archives—often as instruments of economic or political control. In doing so, she delineates the knowledge that today's information professionals can glean from archival traditions spanning thousands of years, and the use of that knowledge to advance technology and sociocultural change in the field.