Australian Society of Archivists

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Frank Upward
Structuring the Records Continuum - Part Two: Structuration Theory and Recordkeeping
In the previous issue of Archives and Manuscripts I presented the first part of this two part exploration. It dealt with some possible meanings for Post' in the term post-custodial.' For archivists, considerations of custody are becoming more complex because of changing social, technical and legal considerations. These changes include those occurring in relation to access and the need to document electronic business communications reliably. Our actions, as archivists, in turn become more complex as we attempt to establish continuity of custody in electronic recordkeeping environments. In this part, I continue the case for emphasising the processes of archiving in both our theory and practice. The archives as a functional structure has dominated twentieth century archival discourse and institutional ordering, but we are going through a period of transformation. The structuration theory of Anthony Giddens is used to show that them are very different ways of theorising about our professional activities than have so far been attempted within the archival profession. Giddens' theory, at the very least, provides a useful device for gaining insights into the nature of theory and its relationship with practice. The most effective use of theory is as a way of seeing issues. When seen through the prism of structuration theory, the forming processes of the virtual archives are made apparent.

Helen Samuels
Drinking from the Fire Hose: Documenting Education at MIT
The article reports on a project to document a mechanical engineering design class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The author uses this experience to consider what is an adequate documentation of teaching and learning and how this documentary evidence can be used to study the educational process.

Jan Riley
Integrating Archival Programs into the Core Business of the Independent School
This article is based on case studies of archival practice and the role of archives in four independent schools undertaken as part of a Master's program at Monash University. It analyses the extent to which the archival programs support the schools' business needs, reports on the one-dimensional views held by members of the school community about the role of the programs, and concludes that they tend to be marginal to the core business of educating students. Taking the records continuum as its conceptual framework, the article argues that the future viability of archival programs in independent schools will depend on their relevance to the schools' business functions, and that school and archival goals will best be achieved by integrating archival programs with business and current recordkeeping processes. It suggests strategic directions for the reengineering and marketing of school archival programs in order that recordkeeping in schools can better support transactional, evidence, accountability and memory purposes contemporaneously and over time.

Stephen Yorke
Management of Petroleum Data Records in the Custody of Australian Archives
There has been substantial debate recently in the archival community on custodial issues related to records in electronic media. A major issue is whether archival institutions should take electronic records into their custody or rather rely on the creating agency to fulfil all necessary management, servicing, preservation, and access requirements. The Purpose of this paper is not to discuss the merits or otherwise of such a distributed custody policy. Rather, it is to describe the problem associated with archival management of a significant volume of a particular type of electronic record. With the benefit of experience and recent developments in technology, many of the problem described in this paper could have been avoided or resolved sooner. In a sense, the situation described could be used to support arguments for or against archival institutions accepting custody of electronic records.

Review Articles

David Roberts
Proposing a Commonwealth Information Management Framework

Margaret Hedstrom
Applications of the Pittsburgh Functional Requirements for Evidence in Recordkeeping: A Review of Testing and Implementation

 

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