to be as compatible as possible with existing best practices of records description
in this country, such as the series system. The conceptual framework of Chris
Hurley's Australian Common Practice Manual (ACPM) should be of inestimable
value in these efforts. At the end of the day, however, our overriding concern will
be to devise a standard that is fully compatible with the existing AS4390 and
with the spirit of the Monash Project. Compromises in other areas will almost
certainly be necessary to achieve these twin ends.
The Standard should also provide guidance on the creation, management and
presentation of the 'high level' or ambient metadata that is needed to manage
and comprehend records in domains other than that in which the records
originated. As Chris Hurley has said, this high-level metadata sits outside the
records and provides external validation and meaning.10
One view that has been expressed within the Australian Descriptive Standards
Committee is that the combination of local recordkeeping system discovery and
retrieval metadata and 'high-level' metadata could together serve the purposes
usually served by traditional archival descriptions. While this is an issue we still
need to think through properly, the new Standard could provide a standardised
means of constructing and presenting this combination of metadata. This
component of the Standard should also be able to be deployed in situations
where archivists have assumed control of records without having had any
influence over the manner in which the recordkeeping metadata was created
and maintained by the records creators.
We anticipate that it will take us about three years to produce the new Australian
Standard. Knowing the progressive nature of the Dutch Archival community and
its innate curiosity for the new and the novel, we in Australia crave your support
for and input into this initiative which, while probably overdue in the Australian
context, may nevertheless end up being so much better for the delay.
DE KWALITEIT VAN HET ARCHIEF EN HET ARCHIEFBEHEER
1» Hurley, p. 64.
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