The records continuum model The records continuum model provides a useful framework for the exploration of the continuum of responsibilities that relate to recordkeeping. (Note that copy right and all rights in the following presentation of the model is held by Frank Upward.) Evidential axis Dimension 1 CREATE Dimension 2 CAPTURE Functions its Activities Identity axis Transactional axis Dimension 4 PLURALISE Dimension 3 ORGANISE Recordkeeping axis Figure 1 The model provides a way of conceptualising the records continuum, of thinking about recordkeeping in our organisations and in our society. The model: identifies key evidential, recordkeeping and contextual features of the continuum and places them in relationship to each other represents the multidimensional nature of the recordkeeping function maps the evidential, recordkeeping and contextual features of the continuum against the dimensions of the recordkeeping function is itself placed in a broader socio-legal and technological environment. A dimensional reading of the continuum The continuum is holistic yet multidimensional -like a band of light, it can be 'refracted', separated out into its constituent layers. Table 3 provides a dimen sional reading of the continuum model. Table 3: THE DIMENSIONS OF THE RECORDS CONTINUUMS 1D Create The dimensions of the continuum are not time-based. Records are both current and historical from the moment of their creation. By definition they are 'frozen' in time, fixed in a documentary form and linked to their context of creation. They are thus time and space bound, perpetually connected to events in the past. Yet they are also disembedded, carried forward through time and space, and re-presented in the contexts of their use. As characterised in Table 2, records continuum thinking and practice focuses on logical records and their relationships with other records and their contexts of creation and use. Thus the model is a map of a dynamic, virtual place -a place of 'logical, or virtual or multiple realities'- and it always has been, even in the paper world. When we're thinking in fourth dimensional ways, we're concerned with: identifying or inventing social and cultural mandates for essential evidence to function as collective memory establishing recordkeeping regimes that can carry records beyond the life of an an organisation or person developing knowledge bases and classification schemes that represent the broadest structural and functional contexts of recordkeeping DE PROFESSIE Cglleetive-M® ational/ Organis Mer aory Representational Organisation Actbr(s) institution Purposes iit(s) XArchivajy Document Archive Archives 202 SUE MCKEMMISH YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW The first dimension encompasses the actors who carry out the act (decisions, communications, acts), the acts themselves, the documents which record the acts, and the trace, the representation of the acts. 20 Capture The second dimension encompasses the personal and corporate recordkeeping systems which capture documents in context in ways which support their capacity to act as evidence of the social and business activities of the units responsible for the activities. One way to think about ID and 2D might be as the implementation dimensions where the players might be desktop operators and managers, and recordkeeping professionals with opera tional roles. When operating in these dimensions, we're concerned with taking the trace and ensuring that it can function as evidence. 3D Organise The third dimension encompasses the organisation of recordkeeping processes. It is concerned with the manner in which a corporate body or individual defines its recordkeeping regime and in so doing constitutes/forms the archive as memory of its business or social functions. 40 Pluralise The fourth dimension concerns the manner in which the archives are brought into an encompassing (ambient) framework in order to provide a collective social, historical and cultural memory of the institutionalised social purposes and roles of individuals and corporate bodies. 3D and 4D can be thought of as the control, regulation, standardisation and auditing dimen sions -where recordkeeping professionals with steering roles operate. In the third dimension, we are concerned with 'insider' issues to do with forming, managing and providing access to the corporate memory. In the fourth dimension, we're essentially on the 'outside' looking in, concerned with the constitution of collective memory in a way that crosses organisational and jurisdictional boundaries. 203

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Jaarboeken Stichting Archiefpublicaties | 1999 | | pagina 103