The concept of societal provenance and records of nineteenth-century Aboriginal–European relations in Western Canada: implications for archival theory and practice

Increasing interest amongst archivists in the history of records and archives leads to questions about how this historical knowledge may affect archival theory and practice. This article discusses its effect on the concept of provenance by suggesting that it indicates that records have what might be called a societal provenance. The article discusses some of the principal features of societal provenance and some implications for archival theory and practice of this concept. The article provides examples of the place of societal provenance in understanding Aboriginal-Euro-Canadian records by using the 1802–1803 birchbark journal of fur trader Jean Steinbruck, which has a provenance in fur trade society in northwestern Canada, and photographs from the late nineteeth century, which reflect a provenance in the new agrarian and urban society that ended fur trade society in the Canadian West.     

Public value creation through voluntary business to government information sharing enabled by digital infrastructure innovations: a framework for analysis

Public value creation is traditionally considered as the citizens' collective expectations with respect to government and public services. Recent e-government literature indicates that what exactly constitutes public value in digital government is still debated. Whereas previous research acknowledges aspects such as co-production and the orchestration role of government in the context of public value creation, there is only a limited understanding of how public value is created by the interactions between government and business actors, and the role digital technologies play in that process. Furthermore, so far, research into public value creation processes is limited to specific services that aim to meet a specific goal; for a more complete view, an integrative perspective is required to address the multiplicity of goals. Societal challenges including climate change, sustainability, and the transition towards circularity will require governments to play a crucial role. Businesses are also transforming their vision by adding societal goals to their economic objectives and contributing to these societal challenges. This necessitates even more the need to explicitly consider the role of business in public value creation processes. In this paper we argue that there is a need to understand public value creation as an interactive process, involving both government and business actors. In this process, voluntary information sharing enabled by digital infrastructures has the potential to contribute to the value creation processes, but the increased complexity of digital technologies obscures the effects they can have on value creation. Therefore, we develop a framework that allows to reason about public value creation as an interactive process, involving government and businesses, facilitated by voluntary information sharing. The framework also allows to reason about how the technological design choices of the underlying digital infrastructure influence this value creation process. For the framework development, we use an in-depth case study from the domain of international trade. We analyze the interactions between customs authorities and supply chain actors for jointly creating public value related to revenue collection, as well as safety and security of goods entering the European Union, using business data made available via a global blockchain-enabled infrastructure. In future research, the framework that we developed can be used to analyze more complex cases with additional public value aspects, such as sustainability and circularity.     

Creating information and records for development work: Working through the lens of information and records continuum models

Information studies characterize the beginning of information as creation, a point of origin. Adapting a continuum approach, this study focuses on the create dimension of the Information and Records Continuum models developed by Frank Upward and his colleagues (Upward, 2000). The context of this study is humanitarian aid and how the interactions of actors within the not-for-profit sector create information used to develop campaigns, design strategies for fundraising, and support beneficiaries, the recipients of aid. Semi-structured interviews and participatory observation were conducted in an international non-governmental organization working with vulnerable communities in Bangladesh. Applying the two continuum models provides insights into the development of aid workers' complex information ecosystem. Using the continuum models in analyzing the data for information and records creation suggest the potential use for these models to provide a theoretical framework in further information behavior studies.     

What can open innovation be used for and how does it create value?

Societies face difficult challenges which require responses that go beyond the innovation capability of most public sector organisations. Open approaches to public sector innovation that exploits digital technologies have been proposed for some years to close this gap, but our knowledge of the use and outcome of using open innovation in this context is limited. This research takes stock of the study and use of these approaches by investigating the purposes for which public sector organisations use open innovation, and how it creates value. The research question is answered through a systematic literature review and an analysis of publicly available data about the open innovation projects referred to in that literature.The research identifies five different purposes of using open innovation. It also suggests that public sector organisations primarily use open innovation to pursue one specific purpose: innovation in society. When using open innovation for this purpose, public sector organisations attempt to create value by improving citizens' quality of life and the quality of neighbourhoods. They do this primarily by co-specialising IT and other resources in society (e.g. the transportation system) and by using the outcome of this co-specialisation process to change citizen behaviour, capabilities and experiences (e.g. encouraging citizens to use the transportation system more efficiently or making citizens feel more safe when using the transportation system).This research indicates that open innovation is generally not used to open up public sector organisations or to give citizens more influence in public sector or democratic processes. The research also indicates that open innovation, until now, has primarily been used to solve minor problems, and not large scale wicked problems in society. The research suggests a framework for value creation from open innovation initiatives that pursues innovation in society. This framework might help public sector organisations increase value creation and solve wicked problems using open innovation, and might help researchers to focus future open innovation research on essential knowledge gaps.     

Memory at stake – Swedish private archives in a changing landscape

Private archival institutions collect records from churches, trade unions, companies, associations and any other non-government organisations. Organisations and associations have played an important role in Swedish public life during the twentieth century, being agents in the process of democratisation and societal change leading to the modern welfare state. Citizens' influence on politics and administration has to a large extent been channelled through organisations of various kinds. During the second half of the last century, a nationwide network of so-called popular movement archives emerged, initiated by the records creating organisations themselves. These institutions are important complements to the public archives, covering other spheres of society and contributing to preserve the history of everyday life, and political and social development. However, the traditional forms of stable rule-based organisations with structured records creation are dissolving, and being replaced with more loosely connected and continuously changing communities working in an online environment. Furthermore, the last decades have witnessed the emergence of digital information, and most private institutions lack the technological infrastructure and knowledge to receive digital records for long-term preservation. This study explores the developments and current status of popular movement archives in Sweden, and the challenges they are facing, in order to outline a scenario for future development and consequences for future societal memory.     

The Mindful Museum

Abstract The convergence of global issues—ranging from climate change to the erosion of cultural diversity—has created a watershed of opportunity or an unprecedented crisis for museums. The contemporary museum business model based on consumption, entertainment and ancillary education is increasingly unsustainable and irrelevant in this context. This article explores the concept of a more responsible museum and the need for a heightened sense of social, environmental and economic stewardship as the foundation for a sustainable future, in a time of profound social and environmental change for society at large. Obstacles to organizational effectiveness are discussed, as are methods for enhancing greater organizational awareness of societal issues. Examples of progressive museum practice are also presented by way of illustration. The possible consequences of inaction suggest the need for museums to transform their culture‐and‐industry business model into one of a locally‐embedded problem‐solver, in tune with the challenges and aspirations of their communities.     

Librarians at the Bounds of Rationality: How Bounded Rationality Can Help Us Help Others

“Bounded rationality” is a concept used in the social sciences to help identify and predict how individuals make decisions. An offshoot of rational choice theory, bounded rationality accounts for the fact that completely rational decisions are not feasible in practice and states that individuals use heuristics, or rules based on past experiences and information, to make decisions. The disciplinary home of bounded rationality is behavioral economics, but this concept is becoming more popular in other branches of the social sciences to help explain and predict human behavior. We can benefit from looking at librarianship from the perspective of bounded rationality, which has been done infrequently in our professional literature. Bounded rationality can explain how our users create heuristic shortcuts to simplify the decision-making process and deal with the multitude of choices and information available. If we can understand and harness these heuristics, we will better understand how our users make decisions and better determine how we can assist them. Moreover, librarians could also be said to make decisions using bounded rationality. Tasks such as collection development and the reference interview involve the use of heuristics on our part to process all the information we have available to us. Becoming aware of this process can provide for a more mindful and efficient way of making choices. This concept article will describe bounded rationality, apply bounded rationality to aspects of library service, and discuss the possible use of the concept as an assessment tool for our services.     

档案规范控制理论与国际应用案例研究

档案规范控制是档案知识管理的重要内容,关系到档案资源体系与利用体系等的建设。本文分别从档案专业视角与概念逻辑视角解析了档案规范控制的概念,并分析了档案规范记录嵌入集成式与专门独立式检索系统典型应用案例,最终为我国档案规范控制的标准化及其标准体系构建提出了多项建议,如包括：构建我国档案规范记录概念模型;制定我国档案规范记录需求规范;制定我国档案规范记录著录规则;制定我国档案规范记录编码标准,加强规范记录的共享,并推进档案规范记录的本体应用等。     

The trust continuum in the information age: a Canadian perspective

This paper examines the role of trust in the information continuum. It argues that in the context of Canadian federal government records, an analogous ??trust continuum?? is a useful model for analysing the relationships that exist between creator, archives and user in the information-abundant environment. The paper borrows from sociological theory to posit that creator, archives and user are bound together in a complex expert system that facilitates trust and mitigates risk in a broad societal context and contends that these interactions are shaped at the macro level by a dominant public discourse of accountability. These points are illustrated through three recent examples at Library and Archives Canada. First, the relationship between Canadian society and the archives is explored by interrogating the concept of relevance and assessing the feasibility of managing a pan-Canadian collection via a national network of knowledge institutions. Then, the role of trust between the archives and the creator in the management of government digital information resources is examined in light of the recently issued Directive on Recordkeeping, and in the context of LAC??s Trusted Digital Repository. Finally, Commissions of Inquiry??and the Indian Specific Claims Commission in particular??demonstrate both the power of archival records in repairing trust between a society and its government and the iterative nature of the relationship between the user and the archives.     

Memory, records, history: the Records of the Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste

This paper examines the implications of the context of creation on the current and potential future uses of the records produced by the Comissao de Acolhimento, Verdade e Reconciliacao de Timor-Leste (Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation, or CAVR). Given that the CAVR relied heavily on the testimony of the East Timorese people in its investigations that addressed a 25-year period, this paper considers the nature of memory and the role it played in creating and shaping the CAVR records. It also addresses the potential influences of the CAVR records, particularly the final report, Chega!, in shaping what will be known about this period by the Timorese people. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential role of the CAVR records in contributing to the history of Timor-Leste. Although truth commissions are a problematic form of truth telling, with significant implications for the writing of history, the records of the CAVR are an invaluable source of information for Timorese history. If future users can recognize the CAVR records as the products of the context of their creation, these records will have a critical role to play in the development of history within Timor-Leste.     

People,records and power: what archives can learn from WikiLeaks 1

The 2012 International Council on Archives congress theme of ‘Trust. Archives Supporting Good Governance and Accountability’ invited exploration of the nexus between recordkeeping and holding powerful people and organisations to account. By comparing the formation, management and use of a set of records under currently accepted frameworks for recordkeeping in Australia with the formation, management and use of the WikiLeaks Cablegate archive, we can examine how effectively archives and recordkeeping professionals today are meeting their stated goal of upholding accountability, while ensuring the creation of an inclusive societal memory. By analysing these two cases from the point of view of recordkeeping activities supporting appraisal, access, use, trust and authenticity, it is then possible to draw conclusions about lessons that recordkeepers should be learning from WikiLeaks and the changing nature of information generally, if we are to remain relevant and useful as a profession.     

Care Leavers’ records: a case for a Repurposed Archive Continuum Model

The historical records created by Australian child welfare agencies were never intended to be released to the children after they left ‘care’. They were administrative records that were compiled for the agencies’ own use, not to meet the needs of the children or their adult selves. What happened after records were released to Care Leavers and reused by them is not what the agencies intended to happen. The author argues that this cannot be adequately mapped onto the Records Continuum Model and proposes a Repurposed Archive Continuum Model to represent the processes involved when Care Leavers are attempting to access their records.     

Tattoo information creation: Towards a holistic understanding of tattoo information experience

The tattoo information experience reveals possibilities to explore how tattoo images are created as things, what actions lead to the creation of a tattoo image, who is considered a creator of a tattoo image, and how different personal, social and cultural contexts influence creation of information through the tattoo acquisition experience. Based on the findings from nine interviews, the process of tattoo information creation was conceptualized encompassing all stages of the tattoo experience: from the moment the first idea of getting a tattoo emerges to sharing of information about a tattoo. Participants' stories about their tattoo experiences were used to develop a framework of four key phases of tattoo information creation: conceptualizing, verbalizing, visualizing, and pluralizing. These phases occur between four anchors identified in the participants' stories: anticipation, identification, ideation, and creation. This framework can be used to assist future empirical and theoretical research on tattoo information experience.     

A societal provenance analysis of the First World War service records held at the National Archives of Australia

ABSTRACT

This article offers a societal provenance analysis of the First World War personal service records held at the National Archives of Australia as Commonwealth Records Series B2455. It describes the communities of people and communities of records with which the series has its origins. Since creation, the records have enabled intricate interactions between individuals, families, government agencies and communities. They have facilitated personal, local, and national processes of grieving and commemoration, and bridged spatial, temporal and emotional distances. They have contributed to national projects such as the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial, and the provision of pensions and support for veterans and their families. Their use by historians continues to shape our understanding of the history of the war. Access to the records helps build new personal identities, and new online communities of users. It is suggested that all these interactions are part of the history of the records we now have. The losses in the records, the gaps and silences, are also identified.