geert-jan van bussel the theoretical framework for the 'archive-as-is' an organization oriented view on archives - part ii (Environmental) Context (6), the second archival principle, is a 'new' principle. It is comparable to the 'ambience function' introduced by Chris Hurley (1995). Its object is not the archive, but the environmental circumstances that give the archive meaning and that allow for its interpretation. It defines and captures the sur rounding influences of the archive in metadata. It is an 'outside' phenomenon 'even if it conditions meaning and, in time, its interpretation' (Duranti, 1997b, p. 217). This context captures metadata about the organizational, personal, and social environments of the archive, the environment the organization directly experiences and that modifies its responses (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978, p. 72-74). It also concerns the organizational structure, the business process hierarchy, and the legal and regulatory environment in which the archive is generated. Eric Ketelaar (2000b) adds social-cultural influences from the wider organizational environment to that mix. His views are closely related to the sensemaking theories of Karl Weick (1979, 1995) and Brenda Dervin (2003). To capture a representation of these influences in metadata is, however, extremely complex. No one disputes the contextuality of archives. But the boundaries of the principe of provenance have been stretched to include environmental context, neglecting the fact that the object of provenance is the archive, its internal structure of relationships, and its lineage. Its object is not the environment of the archive that allows for sensemaking. Michetti (2016, p. 59), thus, is incorrect in stating that the arrangement or archives according to their provenance preserves their 'context, hence [their] meaning'. It preserves their source, internal structure, and lineage, but not their context. The building blocks for the understanding and interpretation of archives are their environmental influences, their environmental context, in a very simplified way captured within archival metadata (Van Bussel, 2016). Context is an axiom. But it has never been considered a principle within archival science, although an archive (and the records within it) without a context is a meaningless aggregation of data that cannot realize the organizational or cultural objectives archives are constructed or used for. I am applying the context principle(s) of Frege (1980 (1884)) and Wittgenstein (1961 (1922)) to archives and define the rule that an archive (and the records within them) can only have meaning within their environmental, surrounding influences. The principle of context expresses, thus, the rule, in short, to never ask for the meaning of an archive (or its records) in isolation, but only in its context. That context is what EIM needs to capture in metadata to ensure that archives can contribute to the realization of organizational objectives (Van Bussel, 2016). The context dimension of a record is guided by the context principle of the archive in supplementing the situational context of a record with the environmental context of the archive. Both contexts help in reconstructing the situations that generate(d) records and the organizational, personal, cultural, economic, and/or social circumstances that determine(d) creation, management, and preservation of archives. Situations and surrounding archival influences are captured in a simplified way in metadata. 4.3.3. The five requirements for information access (C) Almost twenty-five years ago, Michael Buckland (1991, p. 77) stated that 'access emerges as a recurrent theme' within information science, but information access is hardly conceptualized. In archival science, there is work done about the access to archives. It concentrates on access permissions, freedom of information, legal restrictions, and the arrangement of archives (Kozak, 2015; Thomassen et al, 2001). There are no overall concepts of information access in archival science. In information science, however, two theories modelling the concept of information access have been developed. Both theories have contributed to the understanding of its dimensions. None of these theories have explained what the facets, or require ments of access are (McCreadie and Rice, 1999; Burnett et al, 2008). Kay Mathiesen (2014) recognized five facets of access, largely corresponding to the five requirements of information access I have defined. Information access for users has to be realized regardless of technology, language, disability, or personal capabilities. Its importance is growing in an age of an expanding digital universe, expanding legal frameworks and organizational accountability, and changing notions of privacy, economy, literacy, and daily life. Because of its complexity, it can 'be a burden' (Mason, 1986, p. 10-11). I recognize five requirements for information access that together define if (potential) users have access to archives and records. This first requirement is findability (7). It concerns the possibility an individual has to discover where records are created, published, kept, stored, or preserved. Finding something refers to locating something in a known space. So, finding records is not a search problem (which attempts to locate something in unknown spaces), but an EIM problem (Baker, 2013). Findability is an essential part of both social and organizational information architectures. These architectures try to ensure that users can find records easily in spaces where complexity, information overload, and unfamiliarity hamper findability (Resmini and Rosati, 2007). Such architecture is necessary because the inter-subjectivity between the person or organization that created and/or organized archives and records and the persons looking for the content of those archives and records complicates finding them (Berlin et al, 1993; Narayan and Olsson, 2013). Information architectures try to realize cognitive and informational continuity between different environments. That way, users do not have to shift constantly between different, often colliding patterns of information structuring (Resmini and Rosati, 2007). Finding-aids are of the utmost importance for users to find the archives and records they need. The second requirement is availability (8). Even if archives and records are 'findable' (the potential user knows where they can be found), that does not mean they can be retrieved and be made 'available' at a certain moment in time. There may be barriers that could make obtaining records difficult or, even, impossible. There may be legal ownership restrictions that do not allow their availability. Archives may be deemed confidential by the organization that preserves it. Records may have been irreparably destroyed or may have disappeared. They may be in a repository that is hosted behind a pay wall. The ICTs needed to obtain them may not be available. Even if ICTs are available, it is not unlikely, especially when trying to retrieve 'older' records, that software cannot decipher the data formats originally used. Archives and records may archives in liquid times 54 55

Periodiekviewer Koninklijke Vereniging van Archivarissen

Jaarboeken Stichting Archiefpublicaties | 2017 | | pagina 29