Appraisal in archives - theories, issues, and practicalities. Where are we today?
Professor Barbara Craig, University of Toronto
Biographical note: Before joining University of Toronto, Faculty
of Information Studies, Professor Craig was University Archivist and
Head, Archives and Special Collections at York University. Professor
Craig's interests lie in the integration of institutions with their
archives and with broader issues of documentation and cultural memory.
She has published widely on the history of record-keeping, on the
history of medicine and on archive theory. Recent projects include:
Office ecologies in the British Civil Service pre 1950; Authenticity of
electronic records in experimental environments with the InterPARES II
project; Confidentiality of medical records in archival environments;
Archival appraisal as experienced by practitioners in Canada; and
Historians' use of digitized and digital resourses. She has been Chair
of the Ontario Council of Archives, the Canadian Council of Archives
Preservation Committee, an officer of the Association of Canadian
Archivists in many capacities and a Director of the Ontario Women's
History Network. In 1991 she received the W. Kaye Lamb Prize for her
contributions to archive theory. Her recent publications include
Archival Appraisal (K.G Saur 2004), Historians' use of archival
sources: promises and pitfalls of the digital age. (with Wendy Duff and
Joan Cherry) Public Historian (Spring 2004). Professor Craig organized
the First International Conference on the History of Records and
Archives (I-CHORA) which was held in Toronto in 2003.
The impact of appraisal theory on practices at The National Archives.
Dr Helen Mercer, The National Archives
Paper abstract: This paper takes up some of the questions asked
by Caroline Williams in her recent article in Archivaria Studying
Reality: The Application of Theory in an Aspect of UK Practice. It asks
why theories are and are not taken up in general and discusses the
specific concerns that practitioners have with appraisal theory.
Secondly, it outlines in more detail why TNA saw the Canadian
macro-appraisal model as offering a useful steer through current
challenges, and ways in which TNA tweaked the model. This is discussed
in relation to who should appraise, the outcomes of appraisal, and how
records should be appraised. Finally, the paper assesses where TNA
currently stands with regard to the Canadian model of policy, strategy, methodology, criteria and looks at possible ways
forward.
Biographical note: Dr Helen Mercer became Appraisal Policy
Manager for The National Archives in 2002. She had joined TNA in 1999 as
a client manager for HM Treasury and its associated agencies, involved
in the selection of records for permanent preservation. She started her
career as a school history teacher in a South London comprehensive.
After 6 years she embarked on her PhD in an area of modern British
business history. She then lectured for several years at Leeds Unversity
and the London School of Economics. She has published widely on
business history and the history of government-business relations.
Documentation Strategy Revisited.
Peter Horsman, Netherlands Archiefschool
Paper abstract: The ISO 15489 standard for records- and
information management chapter 9 starts with determining documents to be
captured (9.1), and determining how long to retain records (9.2). Do
these clauses illustrate the illusion of the makeability of the
archive? Selection precedes archiving. Not less illustrative is clause
7.1 (a) determining what records should be created in each business
process and what information needs to be included in each record. The
objective is: records are created, received and used in the conduct of
business activities. To support the continuing conduct of business,
comply with the regulatory environment, and provide necessary
accountability, organizations should create and maintain authentic,
reliable and useable records...
A comparable positivist notion underlay in the 1990s the Netherlands
PIVOT project, that the reader of the archive should be able to
reconstruct in main lines governmental acting. PIVOT also strove to
implement selection according to business rules at the moment of
creation.
Similarly documentation strategies suggest the possibility of
documenting a society, based on criteria, agreements, procedures. But do
we have reason for such an optimism? Isn't the reality different? Are
archivists, museum curators and librarions able to develop such criteria, let alone to implement them?
Archival repositories nowadays may contain archives appraised by
archivists, based on agreed upon criteria, pre-supposed values, and
following archival procedures. Most repositories also contain archives
created and transferred well before formal appraisal methods were
implemented. That is not too say that those archives are complete. On
various occasions records were lost by destruction, theft, fire, or
simply rotted away in neglect. Which have been the circumstances and
factors of such a natural selection and survival of the fittest. Do such
archives provide a less reliable documentation of the past than
archives appraised and selected by qualified archivists?
Research in archival appraisal and selection should not only include the
construction of the ideal documentary heritage for future generations,
but also the reality as it has been come to us. Three domains of
research might be worked out:
The first is a reconstruction of the process of natural selection, without formal regulation. Why the archive exists as it is.
The second is the application of criteria on comparable archives but in
different archival environments: are criteria always applied in the same
way? Which are the contextual influences that determine appraisal and
selection?
The third then would be the appraisal and selection of the archive in
process of becoming. What will be the effect of new legislation on
public access? Who decides which documents will be made public, and will
only those records survive in the archive? What will be the effect of
new technologies and workprocesses based on chains of activities across
organisations and sharing information rather than on filing by distinct
records creators?
Biographical note: Peter Horsman works currently with the
Archiefschool, the Netherlands Institute for Archival Education and
Research, where he is responsible for the research programme. He started
his archival career in 1975 at the municipal archives of Dordrecht. He
worked from 1981 until 1998 with the Netherlands States Archives, in
particular involved in automation policies. From 1991 to 1997 he was
director of the State Archives Information Policies Department. His
special fields of interest include access to archives, digital longevity
and history of recordkeeping systems. He worked as a consultant for the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, for which he
designed an electronic records management system. For the Dutch
government he has been involved in e-mail policies, functional
requirements for recordkeeping, metadata schema, as well as functional
specifications for records management applications. On appraisal he gave
papers in Oslo, Washington, Whitehorse, and Tampere. With Eric Ketelaar
and Theo Thomassen he edited a new edition of the Manual of Arrangement
and Description of Archives by Muller, Feith and Fruin. An abridged
translation of their introduction has been published in the reprinted
English edition and in the American Archivist. He published in
Archivaria on the principle of provenance and the development of local
recordkeeping in a Dutch town.
Archival collections in a museum context: their development and use.
Dr Margarette Lincoln, National Maritime Museum
Paper abstract: 98 per cent of the National Maritime Museum's 2.5
million items (or so) are archival. We collect more archival
collections than anything else, many of which are donated. This paper
will outline the Museum's current collecting policy and methodology, the
appeal of our archival collections to certain groups of users, and some
key issues related to archival cataloguing and public access to
archives.
Biographical note: Dr Margarette Lincoln is Director of Research
and Planning at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and Visiting
Fellow at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She has published
widely in eighteenth-century studies. Recent books include Representing
the Navy: British Sea Power 1750-1815 (Ashgate 2002), and the catalogue
for the Museum's special exhibition, Nelson & Napoléon, which she
edited in 2005. Her latest book, Naval Wives and Mistresses 1745-1815, a
study of naval women and their social position within the context of
Britain's growing imperial power, will be published in 2007.
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