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
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