situation, linking up with local priorities and practices will, it is argued, also
result in more "common" colleagues identifying themselves with international
activities and, subsequently, encourage more archivists to get involved in inter
national co-operation.
It is clear that the realisation of this general demand calls for appropriate,
flexible structures. Such structures need not always to be professional ones. In
accord with the general tendency toward more international co-operation, and
the deepening and widening of existing patterns there will be also other institu
tions with the help of which archivists can carry out their international projects.
But also the only global professional non-governmental organisation of
archivists, ICA, if it wants to continue to play successfully its role in stimulating
and advancing professional archives and records administration, must respond
to the appeal for more attention to local or regional problems and archives prac
tice at various levels. In order to give room to initiatives colleagues from varying
cultural and educational backgrounds can identify with, a flexible and pluriform
organisation is needed which allows the establishment of task forces or project
groups for special purposes and is not paralysed by the need to harmonise every
one and everything.
Actually the Council has already made significant steps in this direction. In
Montreal 1992 committees and project groups with more specific objectives were
formed. As far as special branches of the profession are concerned, competence
should be the only criterion for appointment of members of these groups.
As to the necessary evaluation of activities I mentioned already the decision
taken by the Executive Committee. I am afraid it will be extremely difficult to
realise its intention to carry out evaluations on a regular basis because of the
simple fact that the effects of many activities are hardly measurable. On the
other hand, having no other guidance, anything should be done to learn from
the past. Considering the limited resources it will at least be necessary to decide
to implement projects only if they have been sufficiently described as to goals,
working methods, terms, controllability, financing, follow-up and evaluation.
With regard to the demand for regionalisation I allow myself only a short
remark. Everyone can see that things are developing rapidly in this direction,
both within and without our profession. As to international archival
co-operation, there will obviously more of the same: structures like bilateral
cultural agreements, city twinnings, or simple friendly neighbourliness. It was
rather provident of ICA to have created already in its earliest period the
possibility of establishing regional branches within its framework, thus offering
regional initiatives room for development in connection with the rest of the
organisation. I am quite sure a very important task is reserved for these regional
bodies if they will manage to find the necessary support. The Archivist's One
World is no monolith allowing only one single way of thinking and acting and
being administered from one centre. Of course, the centre will keep its
significance since there will continue to be tasks at the global level: e.g. promo
ting standardisation, global information networks and freedom of access.
Moreover it will have its hands full with being the professional adviser to supra
national bodies like Unesco, encouraging or supporting initiatives and counsel
ling less experienced bodies, and exerting its authority when good and necessary
developments are in danger of getting stuck. In these respects ICA has made
itself more than useful in the past.
Even when, in future, regional bodies and regional forms of co-operation, either
inside or outside ICA, will play more important parts than they do now, I think
world congresses will continue to be sensible enterprises. If organizing
committees manage to reduce the number of plenary sessions, offering series of
parallel meetings in order to give colleagues with various interests and back
grounds the opportunity to make their own choice for getting acquainted with
foreign experience or discussing views, and if leading ICA bodies are successful
in limiting formalities which obviously are not understood by the audience and
conceived as an annoyance, than these events can continue to be what they
should be: celebrations in honour of the fact that people with such a variety of
backgrounds can recognise each other as colleagues and can encounter as
friends through their common profession.
I just referred to the current phenomenon of people resorting to regional
cultures and traditional values as a glue for society in reaction to technology
forced unification and alignment. A global civilisation enabling individuals all
over the world to communicate and to be productive in an efficient way is
opposed to a variety of conglomerates of language, world-view and traditions
which we call cultures. Cultures offer individuals the hold they need in a
puzzling world and constitute a major part of their identity while showing in
what ways they distinguish themselves from other people. I think there are only
a few others, if any, who share the position in the middle of this conflict of
uniting and distinguishing systems which is characteristic for archivists.
We accepted the Roman god Janus as a patron of our profession.
Janus Bifrons, the god with two faces, is, according to Roman mythology,
watching over entrance and exit, looking into the past and at the same time into
the future. In a striking way Janus' head symbolises that archivists combine
caring for sources that have been written in the past with efforts directed at
providing future historical research with sources referring to our own time and
periods to come. Both strands of activities belong to what I would like to call: the
profession in a narrow sense. By this I mean practising archival theory, devising
methods for description, classification, and access, developing standards and
techniques. But our profession, in a broader sense, is bifrons (double faced) still
in another way. For this I refer to the beginning of my report when I introduced
to you my predecessor Johan Feith and the way in which he had made himself
useful to his fellow citizens: not as an archivist or information manager, but as
an expert in local history who by means of his speeches and publications contri
buted to local identity. In my own experience, too, much of the credibility and
status my own modest service enjoys is not due to its fine recommendations in
the field of registration and records management and even less to the measure in
which staff members contribute to the advancement of their specialism, but to
the fact that the city archives is doing a widely appreciated job as a historical
workshop in permanent collaboration with many local institutions and indivi
duals, both professionals and amateurs.
In order to perform these tasks in a proper way knowledge of and experience
in researching local history is crucial. In connection with this I am sure that to
many archivists the content of the holdings in their archives must mean much
more in their daily practice than theories about information management,
classification methods or even appraisal strategies. Nevertheless, only the latter
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