Australian Society of Archivists

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Chris Hurley
Recordkeeping, Document Destruction, and the Law (Heiner, Enron and McCabe)
Documents are routinely destroyed for legitimate purposes as part of routine housekeeping. In several notable cases, it has been found that the step from document destruction to obstruction of justice may be all too brief. This article explains the distinction between archival law on disposal and the requirements, of the law in relation to document retention and destruction in cases where legal action or investigations might be pending, and explores the implications for the role of the recordkeeper of the findings of the recent cases. It concludes by addressing the question 'What should the recordkeeper do?' in the light of these findings.

Stephen Mutch
Public Policy Revolt: Saving the 2001 Australian Census
The Australian government legislated in 2000 to overturn the long-standing practice of destroying original household census returns after extracting statistical information from them. The Census Information Legislation Amendment Act 2000 allowed citizens to choose in the 2001 Census whether their personal details would be preserved on microfilm for future research purposes, after an embargo of 99 years to satisfy privacy considerations. For those who chose the information retention option, their personal information has become part of the Census Time Capsule Project This change in government policy occurred as a result of a campaign conducted by family historians, who were able to enlist key parliamentary support to lobby for a parliamentary inquiry. It was through the vehicle of this parliamentary inquiry that decisive, bipartisan political support was won for preserving the census, against some strong departmental opposition.

Alan Ventress
Archives and the Centenary of Federation ? Did They Rate?
This article provides a descriptive overview, concentrating mainly on New South Wales, of archival and related projects that grew out of the Centenary of Federation in 2001 and briefly outlines some of these projects and the impact of the Centenary of Federation on archives. It is not a comprehensive listing of all in Australia, rather a snapshot of some of the endeavours which helped raise the profile of archives in the wider community, especially in NSW. Overall the Centenary of Federation had a positive effect on archives. In New South Wales the Centenary of Federation Committee's grant program for preservation of archival and cultural materials indicates a requirement for the establishment of a permanent grants mechanism for archival materials.

Diana Dack
Encoded Archival Description in the National Library of Australia
This article describes the implementation of EAD al the National Librarv. Issues such as the availability of suitable software, retrospective conversion of existing finding aids, staffing, and the use of EAD encoded finding aids to support access to digitised manuscript collections arc discussed.

Carmel McInerny
Implementation of Encoded Archival Description at the Australian War Memorial: A Case Study
Over the last three years the Australian War. Memorial has been creating Encoded Archival Description (EAD) finding aids for its private records and ephemera collections. There has been a steady output of coded documents created for both newly processed collections and for older collections with existing Ending aids. Successful implementation can he attributed to the development of a focused business case, the relatively small size of the collection, available resources in terms of knowledgeable and enthusiastic staff and a compatible technical infrastructure. Lessons learnt along the way include the desirability of securing support from all technical staff, a willingness to experiment, knowing that perfection may not be achieved immediately, and a leap of faith in the future of presentation technology to capitalise on the encoding.

Toby Burrows
Using Encoded Archival Description with Manuscript Collections: The Guide to Australian Literary Manuscripts
The Guide to Australian Literary Manuscripts is a web service which provides access to the contents of literary manuscript collections in Australian libraries. This article looks at the methodologies employed in developing the Guide, especially in relation to the use of Encoded Archival Description (EAD) as its metadata standard. The future of EAD, arid of the Guide, in the Australian information infrastructure is also discussed.

Catherine Nicholls and Jon-Paul Williams
Identifying Roadkill on the Information Superhighway: A Website Appraisal Case Study
The University of Melbourne Web Archiving Working Group (WAWG) is the driving force behind developing a web archiving strategy for the University. The case study presented below outlines the initial steps and processes that have been undertaken in this project. Records Management Program (RMP) staff have taken the front seat in driving the development of selection criteria for web archiving. This article shares the key outcomes and findings of this process and as well as discussing future directions for the WAWG

Review article

Brien Brothman
Making Up People: The State, Records and Bureaucracy in Jose Saramago's All the Names
'Making Up People” examines Nobel Prize-winning novelist Jose Saramago's novel All the Names. It examines Saramago's views on the concepts of individuality, selfhood and privacy and how they take shape within the contexts of bureaucratic life and state recordkeeping. The article also reports on a number of recent historical works that have attempted to avert the modern archival and historical impulse to reduce subjectivity to an epiphenomena of larger social narratives, historical contexts, and state recordkeeping information systems.

 

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