Iria Oriol Rotaeche
Archives, Information and Society
Grading:
● Five assignments (25%).
● Mid-term exam (25%). - 20 Oct
● Individual essay on a topic of choice (50%). - 21 Dec
WEEK 1: Introduction, History and Concepts
LECTURE
INTRODUCTION
Differences BTW: libraries, museums and archives
- Libraries: Provide access to the world’s published knowledge > Access to information
- Museums: Exhibit/value unique, collectible, or representative objects > Cultural understanding.
- Archives: Make available documentary materials (records) of long-term value (essential evidence) to the
organization or public that the archives serve > Ensure the accountability of records.
All: Identify, acquire and preserve their materials and research on/with them.
Archive: The word archives refers to the permanently valuable records—such as letters, reports, accounts, minute
books, draft and final manuscripts, and photographs—of people, businesses, and government. These records are kept
because they have continuing value to the creating agency and to other potential users. They are the documentary evidence
of past events. They are the facts we use to interpret and understand history.
Functions of archives
In general: Shared (or collective) memory of people, organisations and societies.
More specific:
- Accountability and evidence
- Cultural and historic
- Control
- Justice
- Knowledge / science
- Emotion / symbolic function
Structure: Physical relationship btw documents.
Logical Structure: “Ideal” hierarchical ordering:
1. Document: Evidence for a single act.
2. File: Evidence of multiple acts related
to the same process/entity.
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3. Series: Multiple homogeneous files.
4. Record group: Multiple possibly
interrelated series covering different
functions of the same
organization/office.
5. Archive: Identified by an
organization/office with specific
responsibilities.
Context of archives
Set of elements that influence the creation of records and that are essential to endow records with
meaning to sustain the value of the records.
Context of creation:
Circumstantial -- Technology used
Direct -- mandate of creator
Physical context -- how it is held
Inventories and finding Aids
The purpose is to find information by relying on the archive as a system context, provenance, creator, processes,
original order, etc.
Most basic finding aid: The inventory
A list of items, as they are organized. It can be done at different
logical levels. Usually that of the individual record (costly) or that of higher archival units (e.g., a folder
or a register).
Other finding aids: catalogs, indexes, lists.
What can be the object of an aid: archival units, contents, entities, etc.
Custodial History (Ownership)
Authenticity Reliability and Originality
We are meant to view the material in an archive as authentic and reliable.
•Evidence and accountability
•However, a copy, while not authentic, can be an authentic copy. It can also be reliable.
•A record can also be authentic and original though not reliable.
Provenance
Provenance goes hand in hand with authenticity and context: records of the same provenance stay together.
“In the physical arrangement of records, provenance means the creator and/or the components of the creator,
which can be individuals, corporate bodies or families. In arranging records from multiple origins,
the principle of provenance essentially dictates that records from different creators are separated and
records from the same creator are collocated… In the internal arrangement of records from the same creator,
especially large complex organisations, the principle of provenance further dictates that records from different
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components of the same creator are separated and records from the same component of the creator
are collocated”
HISTORY OF ARCHIVES
Middle Ages
Great dispersal of records with the end of the Roman Empire;
Records/documents from public authorities were collected and “treasured” to guarantee rights.
Crucial role of religious institutions. Public authorities of reference include the emperor and the
pope, as well as local authorities. Private records increasingly depended on
notaries: persons which were recognized by a public authority to
register private acts and keep them in their own archives. Archives as a system develop only very
late, beforehand we mostly reason about individual records documenting specific acts
(e.g., the granting of a privilege).
The French Revolution and Napoleon
Decree of June 24, 1794 (7 Messidor II):
- Establishes the first nation-wide public archives administration
- Recognizes the importance of historical records
- Establishes the principle of the accessibility of archives to the public: “Every citizen is
entitled to ask in every depository [..] for the production of the documents it contains.”
Good to clarify:
- Actual centralization and central control were negotiated afterwards for decades
- Need further amplified by the very end of so many early modern
states/administrations during the Napoleonic years
- Originally meant to provide for the need of privates in need to guarantee their rights
(not for, say, historical research)
The growing archival needs of 19th century states
The enthusiasm for historical archives was put into perspective by the growing need of
19th century states. Increasingly, records had to be transferred from functioning institutions to
long-term archiving.
Issues:
- Physical transfer
- Appraisal (i.e., assessment and
selection, if any)
- Arrangement and description
- Opening to the public for research
The historical method
Differently from Medieval archival collections which dominated the focus of early archivists and
historians, more modern archives were proper
systems. Archivists started to realize that a librarian solution to arrangement and description, one
based on classifications and collections of individual items, did not work for archives.
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New principles:
- Respect of provenance (keep records from the same archive together)
- Respect of original order (keep records in their original arrangement, allegedly reflecting the
logic of sedimentation)
- Finding aids: inventory (mostly barebone, in original order) vs catalogues (according to some other
principle, possibly delving into the contents).
Sir Hilary Jenkinson - The creator determines the selection
[A document may be said to belong to the class of Archives is one which]
was drawn up or used in the course of an administrative or executive transaction(whether public or
private) of which itself formed a part; and subsequently preserved in their own custody for their own
information by the person or persons responsible for that transaction and their legitimate successors.
Margaret Cross Norton - Archivists as custodians at service of the people.
Focus on archivist as administrator, not historian, reflecting a shift from preservation to selection
(US context).
Records Continuum
This theory based on postmodernism, sees no difference between records and archives; all records
exist in a continuum, meaning that documents are dynamic, not static.
Records and archives are differentiated. Archives are the records that are chosen for historical
preservation from all the records created by an organization. In that sense, all archives are
records, but not all records are archives. The records continuum theory questions why we separate them,
as all records have the potential to go back and forth between being historically relevant or not.
Postmodern Archives
Every interaction, intervention, interrogation, and interpretation by creator, users, and archivist
is an activation of the record. Each activation leaves fingerprints which are attributes to the
archive’s infinite meaning. All these activations are acts of co-creatorship determining the record’s
meaning.
Post and non-Custodial
“The post-custodial approach calls for the archivist to rise above being a mere custodian of records
and take on more of a role as records and record-keeping consultants and access brokers within their
organisations.”
“The non-custodial approach reflects a growing reality for many archivists that there will never be
sufficient technological, fiscal, or human resources to take physical custody of archival electronic
records and that the records should instead remain within the record-keeping system and
environment where they were created, but be subject to archival requirements and supervision.”
