Australian Society of Archivists

View abstracts

Wendy M. Duff and Kent M. Haworth
Advancing Archival Description: A Model for Rationalising North Arnerican Descriptive Standards
This paper reviews North American and international initiatives to standardise archival descriptive practice. The authors also present ideas about integrating current work in this area in Canada and the US into a 'comprehensive model' for archival description, and suggest that 1his endeavour might be extended to include developments in the UK and Australia.

Barbara Reed
Metadata: Core Record or Core Business?
This article raises critical questions about the way we should be managing the metadata associated with records and recordkeeping processes in order to maintain records in their context through lime in complex and rapidly changing environments. It explores some current models for specifying record metadata, drawing on the outcomes of research projects and standards initiatives, and speculates about the usefulness of identifying a core set of record metadata, given the contingent nature of recordkeeping activity. In mapping the overlap between the metadata specified in the University of Pittsburgh and University of British Columbia projects, and the Australian Records Management Standard, the paper uncovers a possible 'core' set of record metadata. Analysis of that core reveals that it would essentially enable the description of the record as a passive object. This discovery leads to a questioning of the viability of passive approaches to records description and a proposal that the process of appraisal be reconceptualised. The paper goes on to outline the enormous challenges involved in managing meaning through time, focusing on issues associated with complex and inter-related cultural, functional and structural changes in organisations. It concludes by suggesting that it is critical to adopt an active and dynamic approach to specifying, attributing and managing the metadata associated with records and recordkeeping processes, one that takes into account the contingent nature of recordkeeping activities. This would in pail involve recordkeeping professionals in building on the outcomes of recent metadata-related initiatives at the same lime as they move beyond the boundaries set by those initiatives.

K Grady, D.McRostie and S. Papadopoulos
Hunters and Gatherers: From Research Practice to Records Practice
The article is about a Project undertaken by Records Services at the University of Melbourne where the staff profiled the recordkeeping practices of three academic departments focusing on the creation, management and storage of research records. The authors present background details and an analysis of the Project, focusing on the methodology, and provide a summary of the most important issues to emerge. The article includes selected extracts from the University of Melbourne Guidelines for the Management of Research Data and Records which resulted from the project.

Livia Iacovino
Teaching Law in Recordkeeping Courses: the Monash Experience
This article explores the integration of legal studies within a records continuum-based educational model, using lhe recordkeeping courses at Monash University as a case study. The teaching of law in recordkeeping programs at Monash was developed with reference to the records continuum which provides the conceptual framework for these courses. It has been further enhanced by research and curriculum development over the last two years. This article reports on the research undertaken by the author and details recent legal studies curriculum developments at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, with particular emphasis on professional postgraduate education.

Catherine Robinson
Records Control and Disposal Using Functional Analysis
This article describes how functional analysis may be used as the basis for a business classification scheme and thesaurus, and explores how it has been applied to records control and disposal products produced for the NSW Government, notably Keyword AAA: A Thesaurus of General Terms and the General Records Disposal Schedule for Administrative Records. The article concludes with a discussion of the benefits being drawn from functional analysis in the NSW context, including its application to archival description.

Jenni Davidson, Anne-Marie Schwirtlich and Bruce Smith
The Australian Society of Archivists' 1996 Membership Survey
The Survey of Members conducted by the Australian Society of Archivists was instituted in 1993, and the report which follows is based on the findings of the second survey conducted in June 1996. The response rate in 1996 showed a decline (from 43.5 % responding in 1993 to 36.55 % responding in 1996). The profile of a typical member responding did not vary in any significant way from that which emerged from the 1993 Survey.

 

Image

Quantity: