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Archives & Manuscripts Vol 31 No 2, Nov 2003
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Eric Ketelaar
Being Digital in People’s Archives
Being Digital entails for archives more than preserving and providing digital documents: it presents a techno-cultural challenge to connect archives with people. Archives will be redesigned as a public sphere where individual, organisational and collective memories and stories are experienced, exchanged, and enriched. To achieve this, a goal-oriented entrepreneurial shift to new products and services is necessary. Strategies should not be restricted to merely digitising what archives-as-a-place already do.
Paola Casini
European Governance, Citizens’ Rights of Access to Documents and the Role of Archives
This article intends to provide an historical framework to the development of the concept of European Governance and its attempt to reach European citizens through information policies and communication strategies. In recent years the European Union has produced a great number of legal texts and treaties on the issues of governance, transparency and access to documents.
Craig Britten
Sex and Politics: The Eros Foundation Archives
Providing a home for a sex industry archives in a university can be seen as giving tacit or overt approval or legitimisation to the industry. It is important to be able to explain and justify its existence to critics within and without the University.
Alison Venn
Using Medical Records in Epidemiological Research
Issues relating to the ownership, privacy, security and access to health records are central to epidemiological research. Research ethics guidelines and privacy legislation make provision for researchers to access identified helth data in recognition of the important public health benefits that can be gained. In practice, however, different stakeholders’ expectations about access to medical records can threaten the feasibility of some types of research. Two case studies are presented that describe research into the long-term effects of controversial hormone treatments. These illustrate how high public expectations of the safety and effectiveness of medical interventions can compete with interest in the confidentiality of individual medical records.
