archival theorists after Jenkinson and Schellenberg have concentrated on the
thorny problems of appraisal or electronic records, Peter Scott focused on
description. The traditional archival model for description, as articulated by the
Dutch trio, and only slightly adapted or somewhat modified by, respectively,
Jenkinson and Schellenberg, assumed a mono-hierarchical and thus mono-
provenancial administrative and records environment, and these theorists
designed their descriptive concepts and tools accordingly. Scott's fundamental
insight was that the traditional archival assumption of a one-to-one relationship
between the record and its creating administration was no longer valid. He also
demonstrated clearly that administrations themselves were no longer mono-hier
archical in structure or function, but ever-changing, complex dynamisms, as
were their record-keeping systems. He therefore developed the Australian series
system approach as a means for describing multiple interrelationships between
numerous creators and numerous series of records, wherever they may be on the
continuum of records administration: in the office(s) of creation, in the office
of current control, or in the archives. To Scott's own focus on interrelating
records and their immediate creator(s) is now being tested in Australia the
addition of other multiple relationships based on formal functions and the
larger ambient provenance contexts beyond those of the immediate creator.63
All these interrelationships are not fixed one-to-one linkages, as in most archival
descriptive approaches (despite some cross-referencing), but rather exist as
many-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many relationships: between many
series and one creator, between many creators and one series, between many
creators and many series, between creators and other creators, between series
and other series, and between series and creators to functions, and the reverse.
In effect, Scott shifted the entire [39] archival description enterprise from a
static cataloguing mode to a dynamic system of multiple interrelationships.
Unfortunately, the misconception exists that the Australian series system is
simply a very minimalist version of Jenkinson's archive group or Schellenberg's
record group or the European fonds d'archives.64 This misconception masks
Scott's truly revolutionary changes to archival description and indeed archival
theory generally. Scott's essential contribution was to break through (rather
than simply modify) not just the descriptive strait-jacket of the Schellenbergian
record group, but the whole mindset of the "physicality" of archives upon which
most archival thinking since the Dutch Manual had implicitly been based.
In this way, as is finally being acknowledged, Peter Scott is the founder of the
"postcustodial" revolution in world archival thinking.65 Although he worked in
a paper world, his insights are now especially relevant for archivists facing
electronic records, where -just as in Scott's system- the physicality of the record
has little importance compared to its multi-relational contexts of creation and
contemporary use.
In recent years, Australian archivists have developed a second useful contri
bution to the archival discourse and another significant revitalization of prove
nance thinking about the context and character of archives. Reacting to several
major public scandals, in which important records were lost or intentionally
destroyed, Australian archival educators Sue McKemmish and Frank Upward
have written with much sophistication about the concept of "accountability"
throughout the records continuum -a notion that certainly has been long
prevalent in Europe, especially France, and accepted by many archivists, but
rarely articulated with the sustained power of the Australians.66 Consciously
based on Jenkinson's central dictums and on Canadian articulations of a neo-
provenance creed, and especially on the insights of visiting American theorist
David Bearman, McKemmish and Upward assert that the Schellenbergian
distinction between "records" and "archives" as the purview of, respectively,
records managers and archivists distracts from their common, unifying purpose
as "archival documents" at any point in their life, which they see as a common
continuum rather than separate, distinct cycles. McKemmish and Upward
observe correctly that information technology professionals too often are con
cerned only with the efficient access and use of information, and lose sight of
the essential qualities of "integrity, completeness, accuracy and reliability" that
information must also have if it is to serve as evidence of actions for anyone:
creators, sponsors, citizens, or later archival researchers. Such evidentiary quali
ties of archival documents form, in short, a basis for the institution's internal
accountability and for a wider public accountability essential for any democracy
where leaders and institutions are required to account to the people for their
actions. Unless institutions can thus be held accountable, which includes being
accountable for ensuring that these qualities of "recordness" are [40] present in
their record-keeping systems, then any efficient access gained to information
will be meaningless, for current and archival users alike.67
Australian colleague Glenda Acland has crystallized the issue by telling
archivists to manage records rather than relics.68 Needless to say, the Australian
Jenkinsonians do not follow their master's stance as passive keepers and
custodians of records, but rather see archivists as active interveners, even
auditors, in the archival document continuum.69 The Australian articulation
anew of the evidentiary character of archival documents within an
accountability framework is very important, because it combines archival
ARCHIEFWETENSCHAP
63 See Chris Hurley, "What, If Anything, Is A Function," Archives and Manuscripts 21 (November 1993), pp.
208-20; and his "Ambient Functions: Abandoned Children to Zoos," Archivaria 40 (Fall 1995), pp. 21-39.
64 The best summary of the fonds concept is by one of the leading archival thinkers of Europe: see Michel
Duchein, "Theoretical Principles and Practical Problems of Respect des fonds in Archival Science,"
Archivaria 16 (Summer 1983), pp. 64-82 (originally 1977). For these maximalist-minimalist distinctions,
see Cook, "Concept of the Archival Fonds," pp. 54-57.
65 Indeed, the rethinking of descriptive paradigms for archives in a postcustodial framework by North
Americans is explicitly due to Scott's inspiration: see Max J. Evans, "Authority Control: An Alternative to
the Record Group Concept," American Archivist 49 (Summer 1986), pp. 251-53, 256, 259, and passim
Bearman and Lytle, "Power of the Principle of Provenance," p. 20; and Cook, "Concept of the Archival
Fonds," pp. 52, 67-68. Scott's large influence in his own country helps explain the Australian leadership in
much postcustodial thinking, especially regarding revitalized records management and descriptive practice.
For postcustodial thinking generally, and references to other postcustodial work, see Cook, "Electronic
56
TERRY COOK WHAT IS PAST IS PROLOGUE
Records, Paper Minds: The Revolution in Information Management and Archives in the Postcustodial and
Postmodernist Era."
66 For the Australian interpretation and implementation of the records continuum instead of the life cycle
approach, see many of the authors (especially Frank Upward) in McKemmish and Piggott, Records
Continuum. For France, and its long-standing "pré-archivage" work within the government ministries
which also reflects the continuum concept, see Jean Favier, ed., La Pratique archivistique francaise (Paris,
1993). The Canadian case has been stated in Atherton, "From Life Cycle to Continuum."
67 McKemmish and Upward, Archival Documents, pp. 1, 22, and passim.
68 Glenda Acland, "Managing the Record Rather Than the Relic," pp. 57-63. She has been one of the key
movers towards an accountability framework; see her testimony to government bodies cited in
McKemmish and Upward, Archival Documents, pp. 13-15.
69 See the revealing title of Acland's "Archivist Keeper, Undertaker or Auditor?," in which she argues for the
last role.
57