For recordkeeping professionals, the records continuum provides a descriptive
term referring to:
establishing, managing and monitoring coherent regimes of integrated
recordkeeping and archiving processes
the capture, maintenance and delivery of records of social and business
activity that satisfy
business needs, social needs, cultural needs
for
essential, accessible, useable EVIDENCE
delivering recordkeeping frameworks that
facilitate governance
underpin accountability
constitute memory
construct identity
provide authoritative sources of value-added information.
To fulfil their mission recordkeeping professionals:
nurture accountable recordkeeping cultures
establish integrated recordkeeping and archival regimes to
determine what is essential evidence and how long it is of value
capture, manage and deliver evidence and its meaning over time
monitor and audit these regimes.
A unifying concept of records has underpinned the integration of the work of
records managers and archivists in Australia over many years, but it has been
given greater momentum by the specific challenge presented by electronic
records and the general experience of living through a major paradigm shift.
It is in the development of policies and strategies for electronic recordkeeping
around Australia, and the recent groundbreaking collaborative work in standard
setting that we see most clearly the characteristics of evolving continuum-based
professional practice.
The life cycle concept
Before beginning to explore further the continuum of recordkeeping responsibi
lities, I want to consider the life cycle concept and the way life cycle thinking
characterises the relationship between records managers and archivists and
defines their respective responsibilities in relation to recordkeeping. Table 1
provides an explanation of the life cycle concept and a number of different
versions of the life cycle model drawn from the writings of Frank Upward.
Table 1
THE LIFE CYCLE OF RECORDS
Introduction
DE PROFESSIE
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SUE MCKEMMISH YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW
A life cycle, in its origins in natural science, can be defined as the entire series of processes
constituting the life history of an organism. Individual examples share the same life history as
the species or genus to which they belong, within a repetitive pattern which is observable over
generations. A frog goes from embryo to tadpole to young frog to mature frog to dead frog, if it
goes through a full life cycle.
In the social sciences this model was picked up to explain the rituals in the human life cycle
involved in going, for example, from birth to initiation into adult society to marriage and to
death. Usually the stages identified have a strong association with rituals establishing rights
and responsibilities within a community. Like the natural science versions, the versions in
sociology provide a life to death generational pattern.
In recordkeeping a life cycle implies that there are recurring features over the generations of
records that can be described in specified stages. Its premise is that the stages are observable
over long periods of time for individual records throughout that period of time. The pattern
has to be repetitive and applicable to individual records. In some theories, discussed below,
there is a ritualistic aspect to the way the life cycle of records is discussed; in others there is an
implication that we are dealing with a natural life history.
Versions of the life cycle
'Natural' life history versions:
The records life cycle concept, at its most basic level in records management literature, involves
the processes for creation, maintenance, and disposal of records. More often than not use is
added, sometimes as a separate stage and sometimes in conjunction with maintenance.
Sometimes distribution is added. It is possible to include further stages by looking at the stages
a record is said to go through on its way to an archival institution, and once it is safely inside.
These are usually expressed to include identification and appraisal, acquisition, description,
maintenance and access. This style of expression is similar to the natural science model. All
record items -supposedly- go through the same cycle unless destruction cuts short the life of
the record.
An example of the full life history approach to the life cycle of records was the approach
formally set out by the US National Archives in the 1940s. It was developed as a way of
conceptualising records creation, maintenance and disposal processes in ways which coped
with the increasing bulk of the records that were being created, models for records manage
ment and archival administration were developed which broadly look like the following:
Records management archives administration
CREATE
MAINTAIN
RETRIEVE
DISPOSE APPRAISE
ACQUIRE
DOCUMENT
MAINTAIN
PROVIDE ACCESS
Within the United States National Archives approach the approval processes for records
"retention and disposal schedules" was one way the gap between the archival institution and
the creating agency could be bridged.
Social rituals versions:
The European version of the life cycle concentrates on rites of passage associated with the
physical relocation of records. For example the "three ages of archives" approach is based upon
the storage of active, semi-active and inactive records. Certain occurrences are expected to take
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