Discussion forum: Federal records and archives

Ten years of experience in working with Federal records and archives has shown me that many Federal employees, as well as those using Federal records and archives, do not fully understand the terms “permanent records” and “archives,” nor can they, most often, provide an adequate definition of a Federal record. This article will try to clarify what Federal records, permanent records, and archives are. It addresses who creates and maintains them, who determines which records become archives, and some of the legal issues relating to records and access to them.     

Afterword: in and out of the archives

This Afterword to the papers in the ARCS special issue on Knowledge Cultures assesses the historical approach contained in most of the essays in light of current concerns in archival science and among contemporary scholars in the field.     

Mirroring governance: archives,inventories and political knowledge in early modern Switzerland and Europe

The comparative study of archival inventories in early modern Switzerland reveals that three major regimes of inventorying logic emerged from the late fifteenth to the early eighteenth century. Early inventories constructed as lists gave way first to ideal-topographical inventories that relied on a double mapping of conceptual spaces against archival space and inventory pages, succeeded eventually by taxonomic inventories oriented around an active state apparatus and its needs. Synchronic and diachronic comparisons that focus on major reorganizations have proven effective in illustrating the scope and effectiveness of each of the successive regimes. A similar approach applied to major inventory projects across early modern Europe may identify further systems for making accumulating documents accessible to rulers, and may also allow us to trace genealogies of inventory practice regimes as they appeared in different regions, at different scales, and in diverse political contexts.

From abbey to archive: managing texts and records in early modern England

This article investigates the long-term transformations in England’s documentary storage regime wrought by the Reformation. Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries famously resulted in the dispersal and destruction of many medieval texts and records, but he and his successors sponsored efforts to retrieve lost materials, which they then used in the formation of ecclesiastical policy. Elizabethan counselors expanded the scope of this project, applying their expertise in gathering records to secular issues and assiduously preserving their own documents. During James I’s reign, the Earl of Salisbury’s patronage gave new authority to the State Paper Office, encouraging the consolidation of a centralizing archive that integrated earlier methods of collection, preservation, and indexing in its operation and construction. The article thus offers an analytic trajectory tying the practices of Reformation to the development of expanding national archives in the seventeenth century.     

实施档案管理信息化的前期规划与设计

档案管理信息化即是指运用以信息技术为代表的新技术对档案信息进行管理和利用.近几年来,一些条件较好的档案馆和部门已经着手实施将现代信息技术运用于档案的管理与利用之中,甚至一些技术力量雄厚的档案部门已将有关的档案信息送上了"信息高速公路",成为了全球信息网络中的一个接点,这不能不说是档案管理迈向现代化的一个好的开端.     

Managing presidential records and archives in Tanzania

Presidential archives play a key role in preserving and making all historical materials from presidential administration available in one place, for research purposes and raising public awareness of the burdens of presidential decisions. This article seeks to develop a policy framework for managing presidential records in Tanzania. It employs interviews, focus group discussions and documentary reviews as data collection instruments. The article establishes that management of presidential records, apart from the Founders of the Nation initiative, is not clearly regulated by existing laws and policies. The article, therefore, recommends that the Tanzanian Government pay more attention to preserving presidential records, as they contain useful and sensitive information.     

Analyzing archives and finding facts: use and users of digital data records

This article focuses on use and users of data from the NARA (National Archives and Records Administration), U.S. Who is using archival electronic records, and why are they using them? It describes the changes in use and consequently user groups over the last 30 years. The changes in use are related to the evolution of reference services for electronic records at NARA, as well as to growth in the types of electronic records accessioned by NARA. The first user group consisted mainly of researchers with a social science background, who usually expected to handle the data themselves. The user community expanded when electronic records with personal value, like casualty records, were transferred to NARA, and broadened yet again when a selection of NARA’s electronic records became available online. Archivists trying to develop user services for electronic records will find that the needs and expectations of fact or information seeking data users are different from those of researchers using and analyzing data files.     

Making history: The sitting modern president and the national archives

Tradition, law, and the model of the modern Presidential library cement the close institutional ties which bind the nation's chief executive and the chief recordkeeper, a relationship which comes into flourish in the post-presidency. Although existing statute addresses limited formal interaction between an incumbent administration and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), in fact, the day-to-day relationship has evolved to incorporate diverse and expanding activities, particularly under President Bill Clinton. These functions anticipate the eventual transfer of records management responsibility from the Executive Office of the President to NARA upon the conclusion of each administration, and the agency's future role in administering a president's library. In this essay, the current administration's liaison to the National Archives surveys the contemporaneous relationship between NARA and sitting modern Presidents, with emphasis on the Clinton White House.     

试论现代档案馆与公共人力资源管理

现代档案馆要求高素质的人才.公共人力资源管理理念和方法应用于现代档案馆,有助于应对社会对高素质人力资源的竞争和档案馆工作目标的实现,对现代档案馆具有重要的作用.现代档案馆公共人力资源管理的内容是多方面的.物的人化现象、竞争上岗的中庸化及忽视职业资格证书是管理过程中易出现的问题.     

谈区县建立文件中心

一、区县建立文件中心是社会发展的需求 很多人在文件与档案的概念和文件生命周期理论等问题上有不同的看法,我认为不论文件还是档案都是文件运行的不同阶段,只是不同阶段有不同的管理方式.     

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.     

浅谈档案文献的编纂规模

档案文献编纂规模是指国家在一定时期内(通常为一年)编纂公布档案文献的总量,它在总体上反映了一个国家一定时期档案文献编纂公布的状况.编纂规模的构成从编纂单位看,既包括档案界内部(各级各类档案馆、档案室)编纂公布的档案文献,也包括档案系统之外的社会上其它部门和个人如中央文献研究室、各级党史部门、军事部门、历史研究部门、经济部门、科技部门、博物馆、纪念馆、高等学校等编纂公布的档案文献;从编纂公布形式和途径上看,既包括出版部门出版的传统的书籍形式的档案文献,也包括报刊、杂志、电台、电视台等途径公布的单篇、组合档案文献及声像档案文献等.     

文档一体化理论依据新探

文件生命周期理论是文档一体化的理论依据吗? 在文件生命周期理论的研究中,关于其对于我国档案学理论与实践的适应性,是一个争论不休的焦点问题.相比较之下,对于利用文件生命周期理论来指导文档一体化管理的研究与实践,基本上已形成共识,而且认为这是档案管理工作实践发展的趋势.[1]文件生命周期理论成为文档一体化的理论依据.     

Reclaiming erased lives: archives,records and memories in post-war Bosnia and the Bosnian diaspora

In this paper, based on conventional and digital ethnography, I first identify three dominant research areas relating to the issues of destruction, use and abuse of archives and records in post-war Bosnia, and discuss their legal, political and ethical dimensions. I then go on to present two ethnographies describing how survivors of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and genocide in Bosnia and in the Bosnian refugee diaspora perceive, experience and deal with missing personal records and material evidence of their histories, as well as how they (re)create their own archives and memories, and in the process reassert their ‘erased’ identities in both real and cyber space. This paper also describes how contemporary technologies—including biomedical technology and information and communication technology—impact the reconstruction of individual and collective identities in shattered Bosnian families and communities in the aftermath of genocide. The ethnographies described point to the novel contribution that these technologies have made to re-humanising both those who perished and the survivors of the war in Bosnia.     

我国现代档案教育的先驱——毛坤先生

武昌文华图书馆学专科学校(简称文华图专),是我国现代档案教育的发源地,这是不争的事实.但是站在源头的那些辛勤的开拓者,我国现代档案教育的先驱们,他们的名字,在我们档案界,现今却鲜为人知,他们的知名度远在档案界之外.像在图书馆界备受推崇的徐家麟先生、毛坤先生、汪应文先生等等一批学者,他们就是文华图专最早一批从事档案教育的先行者,他们对我国的档案教育,曾经作出过有益的贡献,我们不应忘记他们.我这里所要介绍的,便是他们中的毛坤先生.     

The records of memory, the archives of identity: celebrations, texts and archival sensibilities

Using a variety of examples of non-traditional archives, the article explores the concept of cultural archives that embraces dynamic events such as commemorations, monuments, and other community-based representations. The paradigm of the postcolonial archive is considered and analyzed as a potential model for such a living cultural archive.     

开展编研是档案馆的一项重要工作

最近,偶与友人交谈,说到档案馆的编研工作,他竟然主张,档案馆不需要搞什么编研,做好收集、整理、编目、开放就可以了,拿出档案让人家研究去嘛！听了这番高论,惊愕之余,不禁想到,这是关乎档案馆如何发展的一个重大问题。设想一下,不搞编研工作的档案馆,会是什么...