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the traditional archival assumption of a one-to-one relationship between the record and its creating administration was no longer valid.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

Periodiekviewer Koninklijke Vereniging van Archivarissen

Jaarboeken Stichting Archiefpublicaties | 1999 | | pagina 30