Archival Appraisal: Theory and Practice

Barbara Craig

Archival Appraisal Theory and Practice

K · G · Saur

Barbara Craig

Archival Appraisal Theory and Practice

K · G · Saur München 2004

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.ddb.de. U Printed on acid-free paper © 2004 K. G . Saur Verlag GmbH, München All Rights Strictly Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publisher. Typesetting by Florence Production Ltd., Stoodleigh, Devon, Great Britain. Printed and Bound by Strauss Offsetdruck, Mörlenbach, Germany. ISBN 3 - 598 - 11538 - 5

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Contents

Acknowledgements

ix

Introduction

1

Chapter One: An overview of appraisal: What is it? Who does it? Why is it done? 1.1 Appraisal – choosing information to keep 1.2 Reasons for choice in personal appraisal 1.3 Physical person and corporate person 1.4 Perspectives of the organization or group 1.5 Why appraise? 1.6 What factors shape appraisal in organizations? 1.7 Information systems and records systems 1.8 Professionals who need to be knowledgeable about appraisal Chapter Two: Appraisal and archival appraisal in modern organizations – purpose, participants, roles and responsibilities 2.1 Managing records in an organization 2.2 Appraisal as an organizing concept for general management

7 7 10 12 12 14 15 17 18

23 23 28

vi

Contents 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7

Perspective on appraisal in an organization: the importance of points of view Role of the archivist in records appraisal in a company or other types of organization Archival programmes and institutions in their unique role Appraisal from the perspective of archival repositories Appraisal as a function in an archive programme or institution

Chapter Three: The many views on appraisal in archive programmes 3.1 Appraisal in the economy of archives 3.2 Orienting appraisal to its role in an archive programme 3.3 The special relation of appraisal to acquisitions 3.4 Acquisition in archives programmes and institutions – dependence and independence 3.5 Passive versus active implementation of acquisition mandates 3.6 Relationship to source affects appraisal 3.7 Coherent schemes to relate acquisition to appraisal 3.8 Appraisal in an electronic environment 3.9 Appraisal as test Chapter Four: Archival appraisal briefly reviewed in historical context 4.1 Appraisal in modern times 4.2 The archivist as advisor and preserver 4.3 Registries, decentralized records keeping and bureaucracies 4.4 The independent role of the archives 4.5 Archives as a reflection of society 4.6 Appraisal as a key archival activity, its links to acquisition, and the emergence of functional analysis and memory 4.7 Electronic records revitalize interest in appraisal

30 32 34 35 37

41 41 42 44 47 48 49 51 54 55

59 60 61 63 65 67

70 74

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Chapter Five: Practicing appraisal – common grounds and common problems 81 5.1 Agreements about appraisal 81 5.2 Important to develop and then articulate a theory of appraisal 82 5.3 A systematic, archive-directed appraisal is favoured as a strategy 86 5.4 Tools should be used and developed further as needed 92 5.5 Appraisal based solely on locating values in specific records is largely unworkable 94 5.6 Appraisal shaped by a group may better reflect values and support more rational, co-operative acquisitions 96 5.7 Re-appraisal, retro-appraisal, the idea of continuing appraisal, and collection assessment/ self-knowledge 98 5.8 Locating appraisal in the contexts of situation – the constraints on an ideal 99 5.9 The archivist’s internal context of appraisal work 103 5.10 The “situateness” of appraisal 106 Chapter Six: Architecture of responsible appraisal – a foundation and a framework 6.1 Our knowledge of appraisal 6.2 The components of an appraisal architecture sketched 6.3 Procedures express professional competence and obligations 6.4 Benefits of procedure 6.5 Choosing and accounting for choices

111 111 115 121 122 126

Chapter Seven: A brief general summary 129 7.1 Living with ambiguity and qualitative judgements 129 7.2 The common ground upon which appraisal rests – records and human actions 134

viii Contents An introductory study guide

139

Appendixes

161

Appendix 1

Some definitions with explanations

161

Appendix 2 Archival appraisal and the preservation of audio-visual records at Concordia University Archives, Montreal, Canada. By Nancy Marrelli. Illustration A: Selection for reformatting Illustration B: Sources of information

165 182 184

Appendix 3: CCA Acquisitions Planning Process (CCA Building a National Acquisition Strategy (1995) Adapted with modifications from James Lambert and Louis Côté “Les outils de travail en archivistique: la politique d’acquisition: pourquoi, comment, critères et examples” Archives 23/3 (Winter 1992): 7)

187

Appendix 4: Mandate of City of Toronto Archives. City of Toronto Bylaw No. 458–1999 “To authorize the acquisition of non-government records and collections of documents of historical value or interest for the City of Toronto Archives.”

189

Appendix 5: Acquisition policy and procedures, appraisal criteria, and glossary of terms for the City of Toronto Archives.

193

Appendix 6: Archives.

213

Index

Appraisal report form: City of Toronto

219

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Acknowledgements

I have been blessed with many stimulating conversations on the topic of appraisal and its many related issues with colleagues in archives and more recently with my students. My debt to them is large and cannot be fully acknowledged in the detail that each person deserves. The archival community may be small compared to other information professionals but its intellectual energy is intense. Despite its size, the community is still an extensive source of knowledge about records and archival practices. Informal professional discussions in the workplace are often as richly stimulating as the growing number of high quality papers and addresses at archives conferences. As a relatively young profession archivists are extraordinarily enthusiastic about learning and welcome new ideas to enrich their discourse. I have been privileged to participate in three advanced institutes on appraisal run by the Association of Canadian Archivists in 1999, 2000, and 2002. Terry Cook shared his vast experience and research on appraisal with me and the group – he will see the fruits of many discussions reflected in these pages, but of course, not in the fullness or detail they would warrant in a deeper, more advanced discussion of appraisal theory and archival theory. I have also learned from my colleagues on the InterPARES Task Force on Appraisal and especially thank Terry Eastwood (chair),

x Acknowledgements Normand Fortier (National Archives of Canada), Ken Hannigan (National Archives of Ireland), Phil Eppard (SUNY Albany), Mark Giguerre (National Archives of the United States), Peter Horsman and Agnes Jonkers (Netherlands Institute of Archival Education and Research) and Gigliola Fioravanti (Central Direction of Archives, Italy). Our many sessions were stimulating and for me always a time to learn of the nuances in traditions that collectively forge the larger enterprise of archives. An experts meeting in Winnipeg in 2001 provided me with an opportunity to talk about appraisal with John Roberts (National Archives of New Zealand), Gordon Dodds (Provincial Archives of Manitoba), Rick Brown (National Archives of Canada), Mark Greene (Western Heritage Centre, Wyoming), Bruce Breummer (Cargill Corporation) and Richard Cox (University of Pittsburgh). These meetings explored current ideas in appraisal – while the discussions at times were lively, the depth of real experience that currently is abroad in the community is impressive and the collective commitment to archives transcends differences that drive discussions and thought. I hope that similar sessions in the future will become a hothouse for research and writing on appraisal. Tom Nesmith, Brien Brothman, Frank Upward and Luciana Duranti have opened doors onto new or previously overlooked vistas that invite exploration. While I may have stepped across the threshold in places, I recognize fully that this is only a brief introductory foray, albeit one in which I have tried to abstract the essence of ideas and concepts. Nancy Marrelli at Concordia University Archives, and Mike Moir and Karen Teeple at the City of Toronto Archives provided information for appendixes. Finally, I want to thank many others for their help, both witting and unwitting, and for their forbearance with my preoccupations, especially Candace Loewen, Bernadine Dodge, Carolyn Heald, Jim Suderman, Anastasia Rodgers, Barry Cahill, Rick Klumpenhouwer, Joan Schwartz, Phil Eppard, and Peter Wosh.

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Introduction

“Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable.” (T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, I, in Collected poems, 1909–1962. London: Faber and Faber, 1974. p. 189.) This volume introduces appraisal in the context of archival objectives as these have been articulated in English-language countries. The point of view from which appraisal is seen shapes the meaning of appraisal and the specific objectives for it in practice. For example, appraisal done from the point of view of a data administrator planning a migration strategy would be different in its emphasis and interests than the view of a records manager establishing retention periods for legal compliance. Each official who has responsibilities for records and information will do appraisal at one time or another in the course of his or her job. But each understands the concept in the light of his or her profession’s particular objectives in a business process. The text briefly discusses some of these different points of view to

2 Introduction provide a fuller picture of appraisal for archival purposes. This volume is, in fact, largely directed to appraisal for archival purposes – that is, the intellectual activity of weighing the relative value of records to decide which ones may be destroyed and why, and which ones must be kept and why – to serve the lasting interests of a larger community over a period of time. In an archival institution or archives programme, appraisal is most often associated with acquisition of materials to be kept by the archives for continuing reference over time as historical sources and resources that may be repurposed, duplicated or used by those who have need for them and interests that are served by them. However, appraisal also can be associated with the assumption or acquisition of responsibilities for records without an actual transfer of physical material taking place. In some cases it may be related to both, as we shall see. The appraisal – acquisition nexus is emphasized in the text. Its intention is to explore archival appraisal by concentrating on the uniquely archive objective of acquiring material to serve the goal of preserving authentic historical remains for continuing uses and reference in a distant future. The text also has practical as opposed to theoretical or philosophical objectives, although here and there these areas will be brought into the discussion to introduce the intellectual richness that is emerging in these areas and point to their potential to deepen our understanding of the sources we use for establishing the values we bring to appraisal. The objectives of this volume are to introduce the concept of appraisal – its foundations and presumptions – the purposes it serves in records and information management within organizations and in archives programmes, and its historical development, leading to a discussion of the points that are generally agreed today about doing archival appraisal. Along the way the text suggests some of the broad sources for seeking to find or to clarify the values that might support its application. It is not intended to be a manual, although the text does discuss methods and tools that have proven to be useful to a number of institutions in recent times and the distant past. Any specific method or tool is best understood, however, as one part of a larger

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appraisal strategy and acquisition programme in an archive. No one tool on its own constitutes a complete foundation or a framework for appraisal and acquisition. The book also endeavours, as far as is possible, to expose the underlying ideas or presumptions for appraisal in the context of making and keeping current records for business purposes and selecting material for archival purposes. It does not claim to be prescriptive and should not be viewed as such, nor does it aim to be either a full exposition or a comprehensive description and inventory of ideas or of practices. Rather it seeks to introduce the complexity of appraisal and its many tasks by exposing branches of its conceptual and historical roots. Appraisal is less an itinerary for a voyage and more a map of concepts for our use in planning many voyages. The inherent complexity of appraisal suggests caution when tempted to make absolute pronouncements. Appraisal may be done, by archivists or other records and information personnel, without its presumptions being declared or written. Some of these, once they are articulated, may not be shared by all appraisers, even those in the same institution. Differences in conditions or changes in situation logically call for special responses. The goals of appraisal may be circumscribed or, at the opposite extreme, they may be broad and inclusive, or they may be at odds with the goals that animated appraisal in other places and times. The methods for appraisal may be more or less developed or systematic and the archivists’ partners in action may be different. For these and many other valid reasons appraisal may lead to different decisions, depending on the institution in which it is done, the time and the circumstances of its doing. Nevertheless, this volume argues that appraisal should always be undertaken in a way that provides common points of reference for users today and tomorrow and for archivists who will assume responsibility for managing the records and the decisions made about them in the future. The goal of the text is to situate appraisal squarely within the realm of professional norms. It sketches the components of an appraisal architecture, and

4 Introduction it suggests things that need to be included – each is singly and severally guided by the imperative of making one’s choices understandable in every aspect by future generations. The volume does not focus on either special supports or media for records and communications, on particular problems such as case files, or on a type of archive, identified by its scope, theme or authority. Discussing appraisal without at the same time discussing media or the application of methods to particular types of records may appear at first sight to be problematical. We tend to classify archive organizations according to their subject focus (e.g. medical), nature of institutional placement (e.g. a public authority archive) or of sponsor (e.g. a company archive, a museum archive). Many large and medium archives, particularly in public authorities or universities, are divided by media and some repositories are devoted to material in only one particular form, for example, film and broadcast archives. They receive wide public exposure because their holdings frequently are used or repurposed, for example for television histories, documentaries, and dramas. However, while these differences among archives are important conditions, giving unique characteristics to their documents and practical considerations for the operation of the institution, their role in appraisal is to qualify specifics, not to determine fundamentals. The conceptual foundation for appraisal including clarity of purpose for it, inherent logic in the methods used to conduct appraisal, consistency in the procedures for it, and full accessible documentation of it should be aspects that are common to all archives, now or in the future, regardless of their particular focus or concentration. Clarity of purpose for appraisal, logic and method in the procedures for it, and accessible, consistent documentation of its decisions and rationales together constitute a foundation for appraisal. These things should be shared in common by all archives doing appraisal. They are a responsible way of acting that unites the profession and transcends the many real and legitimate differences among specific institutions, the laws that govern them, the culture that supports them, and the records they acquire and keep for future uses.

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Archival appraisal is sometimes equated to monetary appraisal. This type of appraisal is undertaken specifically to determine the fair price for materials within a market where buyers and sellers establish objective values based on currency or some other means of exchange. Monetary appraisal is not discussed in detail in this volume. The Introductory Study Guide provides references to some useful sources for information about the market for archives and manuscripts. The diversity of appraisal methods and practices in the literature appear as a fractured and incoherent mélange – scattered across a wide field like the random shapes of glass in a kaleidoscope. However, one aim of this volume is to expose the reasons for this diversity and then to demonstrate an underlying design, sometimes shared in aims, at other times in similar points of view, or in shared traditions and culture. The routes to and from this common ground may differ. But there are some signposts and guides en route which are generally agreed must be in place. These points of agreement underscore a common discourse, even if the language varies from place to place. The final chapters draw many threads together into an appraisal architecture that this volume sees as being largely shaped by policies and procedures. Both appraisal and acquisition architectures rest on fundamental areas of general agreement about the components of appraisal, and the process of doing it and documenting it for future accountability. Direction is provided to some examples of working appraisal here and there in the Key Readings and the Introductory Study Guide. While no international standard for appraisal exists at the time of writing (June 2003), common elements are now in place that establish the outline of a framework within which standards may be developed in the future. The literature on appraisal in English is substantial and its production shows no sign of diminishing in the future. This literature can seem unwieldy to the novice appraiser or student of the subject. References are handled in two ways in an effort to introduce the reader to the subjects progressively. A brief list of Key Readings or other sources are gathered at the end of each chapter

6 Introduction to direct readers to basic sources for the topics in that chapter. These have been selected to introduce readers to fundamental ideas in an area or topic. The Introductory Study Guide that follows the text is a more advanced supplement to the Key Readings. It is intended to draw the reader further into many areas that are engaging scholars today and are on the frontiers of the archival exploration – the Introductory Study Guide is not exhaustive, but suggestive. The Study Guide is arranged by the chapters in the text and within, by the topics that are covered in those chapters. Every effort has been made to verify references to electronic resources just before publication. However, websites can be unstable in content and location. The reader should bear this in mind. Each section of a chapter is identified by a sub-head or title where ever possible. A list of resources keyed to the divisions of the chapter’s text guide basic reading on the subject. The select glossary in Appendix 1 provides explanations of terms and their related concepts as these are used in the text. Appendix 2, by archivist Nancy Marrelli and her staff, reviews the link between appraisal and preservation of audio-visual materials. It includes a grid for assessing values, and discusses the rationale and procedures for the responsible appraisal of audio-visual records at Concordia University Archives in Montreal, Canada. Appendixes 3, 4, 5, and 6 contain useful examples, policies and procedures selected from archives. A schematic view of relationships in acquisition (from the Canadian Council of Archives) is included; an acquisition mandate, policy and procedures, appraisal criteria and glossary of terms, and an appraisal report format, are all from the City of Toronto Archives.

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CHAPTER ONE

An overview of appraisal: What is it? Who does it? Why is it done?

“Everyone is his or her own appraiser.”

1.1

Appraisal – choosing information to keep

The American historian Carl Becker famously observed that everyone was his/her own historian. We can claim equally that every person is his/her own appraiser too. The paraphrase of Becker’s famous dictum drives to the heart of appraisal. Appraisal, in essence, is not something practised by a few initiates – it is something that each of us does, largely intuitively, guided by needs that only the individual fully understands. We choose to keep documents largely to make sense of our place in the world – in the family, in a profession, and over a life’s course. Documents are often used to support our memories, to recall verbatim the testaments we would need to take some time to memorize, such as the details of a contract or the minutes of meetings. Documents also may be seen by others as independently confirming our claims and as a result be generally accepted as valid proof. In this way certain documents may help defend us against arbitrary actions by the state or other powerful authority. Or documents may be kept strictly as personal keepsakes,

8 An overview of appraisal mementos of people, places and events in the past that stimulate a richer remembrance, even nostalgia. But just how do we select, when do we do it and what are the reasons for choosing only some things and ignoring or disposing of the rest? To return to Carl Becker, he argued that everyone makes sense of his or her place today, in the present by locating it in the stream of time so that we can act in the future knowing what has happened in the past – in our personal lives in families and as we are part of larger communities, such as a church, profession, or nation. We can extend Becker’s arguments to include the means and ways that this sensible history is formed. All of us then choose things to keep, including documents, as part of making sense of ourselves in a place, in our responsibilities and rights, and in the time we experience. In other words, we decide what is important and we do this for ourselves alone. In making this decision we act as appraisers – we decide what to keep, for what reasons, and for how long. The power to choose for ourselves and the job of making choices is ours alone. We value documents and their information, much like we value the other “stuff” of our lives, quite naturally, as part of our life’s course. This appraisal may not always be done regularly or according to some system but nonetheless we do it. Winnowing our accumulated documents is so commonplace, and frequently unstructured, that we do not often think about any of the larger reasons for it beyond some immediate need, nor do we spend much time reflecting in depth either on why we choose or on how we do it. Nevertheless, we do not need to look far to find common types of appraisal that we all make and to see the reasons for our choices. Necessity is one motivation for making documents and equally for keeping them. As citizens and taxpayers, we need documents to survive in societies that are governed by rules. If we do not have a birth certificate or a health card or the receipts from an expense that we want to deduct from our taxes, we would be seriously inconvenienced and may be denied services that are owed to us. Physicians and accountants, even professional astrologers, also rely on documents, for example, to account for billable time to a client or to prove due

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diligence in practices that may be controlled by licensing bodies and boards of ethics. But on another level, the processes of valuing that go on in appraisal are guided by less obvious needs whose claims are strong even if they are less tangible in purpose. Selective shaping of our remembered past is often supported by physical, tangible documents, helping us to recall, peacefully and at leisure, the events we cherish or people we knew. Documents as triggers may also recall embarrassments or misfortune – these will probably not survive if we want to purge memory and forget. The criteria each of us uses in keeping and destroying ties us to records of our life and shows new generations what we valued enough to record and keep. Once we have made a decision and selected things for a reason or reasons, most of us will keep these for some time as part of our personal baggage in life. Documents and other tangible information-bearing objects contribute to the tissue of memory we weave from many other sources, including beliefs we share with our communities: these are anchored by our common experiences in education at work and in our leisure pursuits. Together all of these tangible and experiential sources shape and enrich us. For many people, occasional reference to the special things we have accumulated throughout life provides a keener sense of the events that moulded us and our participation in larger gatherings, celebrations, and rituals. Each of us is tied to the world and to remembrance in some way by documents and records. They are things that establish our personal and professional identities, our rights and responsibilities as citizens and practitioners; they are a means of remembering the past and conversely of wiping the past away by forgetting about it and deleting its traces. Records are part of our emotional life, our personal psychology, and our life with others as citizens, professionals, and volunteers. They are a tangible means of shaping our memory and recollections, of bolstering our claims or refuting accusations and in the end, they are the only “real” or tangible documents about the lives we experienced, that we pass on to succeeding generations. Their ability to survive as markers of identity beyond the span of a mortal life gives the dead a voice in the future.

10 An overview of appraisal

1.2

Reasons for choice in personal appraisal

The practical reasons for keeping some things and the sentimental or nostalgic power exerted by other things, participate in our decisions to keep or discard documents and information, more or less on an equal basis. They are often mixed and our appraisals rarely conform to the procedural logic that guides the processes of an organization or justifies the selections of bureaucrats. Remembering and forgetting, as these are mirrored in the acts of keeping and discarding, are socially conditioned. We remember and forget, just as we keep and discard in a rhythm of life and work every day. As we know from experience, keeping or discarding stuff is also conditioned by indecision. We postpone that final selection of material memories because we may be still unsure about their possible uses in the future. We also postpone because we are keenly aware that by destroying something we take a final act which cannot be recalled. Decision is balanced by indecision: both mould appraisal. A compelling reason for choosing is to prevent a glut of meaningless, chaotic information. The personal weighing and valuing of our own materials – in other words, the processes of appraisal – goes on daily, as we put aside for later review or discard immediately things as diverse as e-mail messages, hand-written notes, batches of old income tax materials, bank statements, cheque book stubs, letters, faxes, and photographs. The luxury of time for appraisal, the comfortable tension between decision and indecision, is frequently determined by the space we have to keep our paper “stuff”. Space and time will be the first casualties of our growing reliance on the computer. Magnetic disks and other electronic media make it imperative that we appraise quickly. The more we rely on electronic communications, the greater will be the urgency to appraise. Rather than allowing us to order and keep everything, digital records are notoriously fragile. Magnetic signals are easily corrupted and today’s popular software is soon obsolete as changes are made and products are “updated” to attract repeat business. In a few years we will be unable to read and use most of today’s records unless we make the effort to see

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that they survive. This imperative applies with equal force to organizations as it does to people. It seems that even the personal activities of our leisure moments, now and in the future, must be done at greater speed. There are also practical reasons why we appraise. For example, when we move house or office we really think carefully about what we need to take. Space is costly and packing a chore. At these times we often reorient ourselves to the life behind and ahead. One way we adjust is by winnowing what has accumulated, including documents. We also choose to create a gift or memorial, perhaps a family album for grandparents or photographs of an important anniversary celebration. Life’s turning points are often the reason – and the opportunity – for choosing what to keep and what to let go. Another very practical reason is to be sure that we have all the right information and records to ensure our “survival” in society. The practical reasons for appraisal can be very compelling. We need records to satisfy tax departments and to comply with laws. Without acceptable poof or evidence, our claims may not be recognized however right or just they may be. The prudent person must have a keen eye on the practical in selecting records to keep. But other values are important too. Most of us like to have things that we know are unfailing triggers for pleasant memories. Photographs and home movies or videos often serve this purpose very well. But we also keep personal letters, greeting cards and other souvenirs collected along the way. These give us a sense of our place in life, in the family, and in a community. Often they are reminders of the stories we want to share with the family or a future generation. Many people have a profound need to see themselves and their memory made as concrete as possible in records and documents, words, sights, and sounds. It is human to want to leave a record of ourselves to tell the future – once, we were here too! Sooner or later every person does a form of appraisal, deciding what they need and want to be keep, and what, by contrast, may be discarded, or neglected. Rational needs and emotional motives shape personal appraisal in about equal parts: these are leavened by our natural inclinations to

12 An overview of appraisal suspend closure and by changes in circumstance as the result of unpredictable events.

1.3

Physical person and corporate person

Organizations have similar needs to those of people as individuals in society: they need documents and records to do business and account for it, and to carry identity and memory into the future to serve the group and its changing members. But appraisal done by organizations needs to be carefully thought out to serve each corporation’s purposes. While personal appraisal may appear to be unsystematic, even shambolic, that appearance masks a group of related logical assessments, each firmly grounded in personal needs and knowledge, supported by privileged instant access to them and to an understanding of their personal meaning. Personal appraisal is done according to criteria, but these are ones understood from the inside and are rarely articulated. As a result, it is not a simple matter for either the criteria or the process of assessment to be translated into equivalents for an institution. An organized enterprise or association may be a person in law, but it is not a physical person with a unique psychology known immediately and incorrigibly to itself. Appraisal of information and records in organizations must be placed, therefore, on a foundation which establishes criteria, processes, and procedures. These allow the organization to make its choices from the many legitimate perspectives of the corporate person engaged in a complex enterprise. These perspectives must be articulated before they can be applied in appraisal, or in other words, before organizations undertake activities and processes to decide what is needed for the future and why it is required or may be needed for continuing reference and support.

1.4

Perspectives of the organization or group

Quite clearly, large organizations would soon be in troubled waters if choices for keeping records were made by individuals

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according to their personal perspectives. Just as we are mindful of our civic responsibilities and liabilities when we assess needs for information, and ponder what we would like to remember, organizations will have similar considerations in appraisal, seeking to protect their rights, keeping clear evidence of what is owed to them, assessing their liabilities as corporate citizens, and protecting themselves as far as is possible from business and legal risks. Some of the same questions are asked – what do we need to make and keep? What does the law require us to do? What should be chosen for the archives and why? When is the best time to make these choices? How can we give information a meaning for our successors? These questions are universal but the answers, timing, and reasons for choice can vary from group to group and organization to organization. Variations are shaped by local situations, both in place and in time. In an organization, all of the matters that must be considered in appraisal are complicated further by the size of the group and the resources assigned to support the job. A number of people, branches, and divisions must be involved in appraisal. There may be conflicting requirements. The values to be reflected in appraisal can be hidden or be assumptions that have not been articulated clearly for discussion. Financial and human resources may not be adequate for doing a thorough appraisal. The corporate will may not be strong enough to persevere in what can seem to be not only a difficult task but also an expensive one. Without an obvious compelling need inaction may seem to be a natural option. Fate may take a controlling hand and even be welcomed as a silent partner. Nevertheless, however tempting it may be to delay the cost and effort of conscious appraisal, there is a greater risk if fate is invited to take an official role in the life of the organization and in shaping its memory. There are a number of practical reasons why the organization needs to be consciously managing its documents and records, from the point of capturing or making and keeping records, through to purging or archiving them. Each activity rests on a basic foundation established by the conscious weighting of values in an appraisal.

14 An overview of appraisal

1.5

Why appraise?

Just as personal choices may be driven primarily by practical matters, such as the space available to keep records and the time one has to choose, organizational choices also may be driven by contingency and not by principle and system. But they should not be. These decisions have an impact on the organization, on its robustness as a corporation which knows itself and what it has done and what information and records it has/not destroyed. Documents and consistent procedures allow the corporation to defend itself should suit be brought against it. The keeping and discarding of information and records are complementary activities: they are two sides of the same coin. If these decisions are delayed or left to hang, uncontrolled loss or inconsistent accumulations will result and the organization may be at unnecessary risk, in litigation or from the destructive effects of a disastrous event. For example, boxes of paper records removed from active files may accumulate in storage without controls on contents and ownership. Ultimately nothing can be found and no space remains for additions in the future. The job of appraisal to choose what to keep or destroy not only is now a necessity but also may be extremely urgent if an issue or problem can only be solved by reference to the proofs that are in storage. Similarly, electronic records that are neglected may accumulate errors, go astray on personal hard disks, and become unreadable and unmigrateable into newer systems. Poor control may also encourage personal criteria to thrive in determining what the corporation keeps as its records. In these circumstances the organization is vulnerable to actions for discovery because records may not adequately serve corporate purposes and ensure its survival. Many organizations employ professionals to manage corporate records, including the many types of appraisal that are part of an effective and complete regime. In essence, these records managers assume the corporate responsibility for advising on choices and then implementing the decisions. Nevertheless, the outcomes of their work may differ between organizations and

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even within the same organization at different times in its life. The reasons explaining these differences are largely found by placing them clearly within the context in which the options were deliberated and the decisions or choices were made. For this reason alone, the purposes of appraisal, its procedures and processes, should be clearly articulated and carefully documented – documents are especially helpful in making the reasons for decisions understandable to future officers.

1.6

What factors shape appraisal in organizations?

Well-managed systems for records keeping for current uses and for future reference are informed by conscious appraisals. Records are a responsibility of all organizations, whether they are public authority bodies, business enterprises or voluntary associations for some social or cultural purpose. Information transfer to the future, whether that be tomorrow, next week, next month, next year or the next century, is a responsibility that can not be shirked – it is akin to a national debt: it can not be dismissed or ignored. No organizations any more than a person can infinitely pile up random information for the future. How this spectre of randomness, with all its attendant risks, is avoided is a question that may be answered in many different ways. Professionals whose education has focused on records keeping principles and techniques and those who have experience in managing records will use many sources to guide their practices. Laws clearly are important warrants for records keeping and appraisal, in some cases prescribing what must be kept and for how long. A principle that extends laws and regulations to incorporate a public duty to a larger community or group is the idea of accountability. It embraces laws, but also allows room for considering an organization’s customs, its unique traditions and special needs – perhaps to shareholders or communities in a locality where business activities may have long-term impact, such as in mining or chemical manufacturing. A healthy organization is one that knows itself and has access to

16 An overview of appraisal its own past. Appraisal for keeping records will build reliable sources of knowledge, for policy continuity, for the market advantages that these may provide and for community accountability that can be probed and proven. While laws, regulations, and other warrants for records keeping, such as those found in the professional norms of physicians and accountants, are important guides for the information professional managing records, it is the organization’s business activities and the structures of its recorded communications that collectively point to the trail of paper and magnetic bits that will be required for robust accountability. Every organization consumes quantities of information and uses many types of record to do its work and to ensure its health and survival over the long term; but every organization equally needs a deeper understanding of itself, of the ways it works and the functions it has – how does the group deliberate options? How does it take decisions? How does it communicate decisions and information to its community and clients? Self-knowledge about the ways that work and business are manifested in records, and by contrast, what parts are not recorded but rather are exchanged orally, is indispensable to the organization and especially for the information professional. For example, this knowledge is required to ensure what is private and privileged remains so. Organizations must protect the privacy of their clients and officers, and they should be protecting proprietary information that may be prized by others. Self knowledge also allows groups to alter or amend their practices, for example, to capture and record more information than was done in the past, either to make its protection easier or to promote better access to it. Recorded information is the only independent way organizations have to evaluate and audit work and the performance of employees. Business evaluations and other kinds of statistics and analyses are only possible on the basis of agreed records kept continuously and managed systematically. The essential point is that business processes not only use records and information, but also need their support if they are to be robust. Business and corporate health are best

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accomplished by carefully structured records and systems whose information architecture and retention is shaped by an appraisal of the functions and values records articulate and the purposes they serve. The systematic capture and responsible disposition of proprietary records of an organization’s business processes must meet internal needs, recognize legal requirements, and conform to social warrants. Business health, efficiency, and historical prudence urge that records appraisal be integrated with the regular corporate processes of governance and doing business. Corporate responsibility for itself in records is always there; but unless it is recognized officially, the management of records may be inconsistent and the records system a liability rather than thee corporate strength it should be.

1.7

Information systems and records systems

Readers need to be aware of the distinction that archivists make between “records” systems and those that provide “information” – these may look alike but nonetheless they have structural differences that are important. Systems that are designed to provide information normally do not have tangible links between the creator of the information or records, their subsequent users, and a business process, function or transaction that is persistently part of the record and link records to each other and to actions in the world. The change in language, from “record” to “information” points to a difference in concept that is frequently reflected in the design of systems. This difference is important to understand because it may affect the capacity of records keepers, including archivists, to ensure that records retain authentic links to actions, commitments, and to changes in the records over time. An information system frequently is not designed to track access to it, changes to its data contents over time, or the uses and users of it. Records systems, by contrast, are designed specifically for these purposes, to anchor action in records by tracking their creation, transmission, receipt, uses, storage, and destruction. Many information systems are

18 An overview of appraisal unable to track information in a way that allows changes in its content and structure to be audited post facto. An organization’s needs for records systems and for information systems must be distinguished if each is to work successfully. A library catalogue, for example, is a sophisticated information system with controlled points of access to it by author, title, and subject. Catalogues may provide further analyses of information sources depending on their design. Catalogues for rare books, for example, may provide detailed information about publishers and the particular structure of each item. A library patron soon develops skill at searching the catalogue for the information and books they require. Most library catalogues are frequently updated to include new acquisitions. However, the catalogue does not document either the processes of acquisition or the costs of processing except by implication. Acquisition decisions are made by a collections specialist acting alone or with the benefit of advice from others given orally or in writing. Acquisition recommendations and decisions, the purchasing of resources and books, the payments for these, and the costs of cataloguing, are tracked, authorized and reported in the library’s many series of business records. While an auditor can follow the trail of decisions, purchases, and expenditures in these records it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to rebuild the library’s catalogue or information system from them. The business records and the ordering and payment systems, provide time/date/authority and decision stamps to the actions and have different purposes than the catalogue. A record is a type of information with very special characteristics. This simple example is a clear illustration of the difference between the purpose and, consequently, the construction, of a records and an information system.

1.8 Professionals who need to be knowledgeable about appraisal Appraisal may be the intellectually challenging part of managing records, but it should not be solely a cerebral activity undertaken

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in isolation. It needs to reflect the vision of the organization, particularly its mission and goals. Appraisal feeds decisions about records and information that will have an impact on the organization because these will inevitably privilege certain points of view about the business and close off other possibilities. It must be informed by a social awareness, especially of group behaviours, and it must be shaped by clearly articulated perspectives. Appraisal must have a “view from somewhere”. This point of view will necessarily skew the valuation to privilege the needs and views that are inherent in that perspective. Lawyers will see records from the point of view of the law; accountants from their interests in assets, profits, losses, and cash flows. Appraisal, by definition, is not value free: in fact, it seeks to apply values not to deny them. Nevertheless, appraisal can be, and probably always should be, transparent, especially in declaring the point of view from which it is undertaken. Appraisal should be undertaken inclusively rather than exclusively, involving those whose voices must be heard. It must be a responsibility that is recognized, catered for, and integrated with the organization. Since the aim of appraisal is to give people and groups a voice in the future through their records, appraisal decisions need to be recorded, to give appraisers working in the present an equally clear voice in which to speak to the future. Many people in modern organizations have “appraisal” or valuing tasks as part of their work activities. A data manager, for example, values information and makes decisions, or recommends decisions, from the perspective of an expert on technical matters. The legal counsel, the chief accounting officer, and line managers actively appraise, from the vantage point of their particular needs, requirements and responsibilities. In fact, all corporate officers and especially information and records professionals need to be aware of the many needs of the organization when they exercise their particular responsibilities for corporate records and information. The perspective of each officer and function has a role to play in appraisal: it is the responsibility of the records professional to integrate these perspectives into a working synthesis. Appraisal

20 An overview of appraisal by a records professional is done particularly on the basis of special knowledge: First is a detailed knowledge of information and records, their properties, uses, and characteristics. This is usually acquired in education, through experience, and by research. Secondly, the records professional will have a deep knowledge of the business needs of the organization for records and the legal requirements and general expectations of society for accountability. In many organizations, specialists in information and records and will have appraisal – at least the power to recommend retention and disposal policies and practices – as part of their official responsibilities. The archivist is also an information professional. But his or her focus is usually narrower, being shaped by the imperative of historical continuity for an organization or group, and his or her view is directed always to the needs of people to understand their past in a future time. This focus and view shapes their appraisal of records to determine which ones should be protected or preserved for the long term. The archivist’s special expertise derives from his or her knowledge of the organization’s current and past ways of working, acting, knowing, and remembering. This knowledge is acquired often by painstaking research to develop a historical understanding. Moreover, the archivist usually has a central perspective on the organization as a whole and its long-term responsibilities, to a past that needs to be protected, and to unknown people and officers who will work in the future. Their interests in knowing what transpired and why must be well served too. These archival interests are not divorced from the organization, but are central to its life in time. The professional archivist is well suited by these interests to advise on appraisal and disposal to meet effectively proven needs for records and for building a useful corporate memory. The emphasis of this text is on appraisal as it is understood by archivists and as it is undertaken for archival purposes. However, an important qualification needs to be made at this point. No process is infallible: no rule-making will embrace fully the complexity and diversity of needs for records in the future whose purposes and questions cannot be known before hand.

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Therefore, this text recommends methods and ideas for consideration, not for obedience. Its aim is to support procedural clarity, to promote a better understanding of the professional contexts for appraisal, including its history, and to encourage professional responsibility by making the reasons for choices clear to contemporaries and to the future. The following chapters relate appraisal to archives objectives specifically but also to records and information work more generally. They discuss some of the major ideas about the purpose of appraisal, about why we need to appraise and how to do it. Since the focus of this volume is on archival appraisal it is within this perspective that the special roles of others in the process are considered. The text assumes the special relevance of appraisal to the archives mission, to acquisitions, and its centrality in all other functions.

Key Readings: Carl Lotus Becker, Everyman his own historian; essays on history and politics. (New York, 1935) Sue McKemmish “Evidence of Me” Archives and Manuscripts 24/1 (May 1996): 28–46. Verne Harris, “Postmodernism and archival appraisal: Seven theses”, South African Archives Journal, 40 (1998): 48–50. J. Van Maanen and B. T. Pentland “Cops and Auditors: the Rhetoric of records.” In S. B. Sitkin and Robert J. Bies (eds.,) The legalistic Organization (Thousand Oaks, Ca., 1995): 53–90. James O’Toole, “The symbolic significance of archives”, American Archivist 56 (Spring, 1993): F. R. Scott “On Saying Goodbye to my Room in Chancellor Day Hall” reproduced in Archivaria 16 (Summer 1983): 62–63. From The Collected poems of F.R. Scott (Toronto, 1981) Kenneth E. Foote, “To remember and to Forget: Archives, memory and culture.” American Archivist 53 (Summer 1990): 378–93. Kornegay, V. (1996). “Short-term memories: A death in the Information Age.” The Information Society 12, 439–440. Sue McKemmish, “Recordkeeping, Accountability and Continuity: The Australian Reality.” in Archival documents. Providing account-

22 An overview of appraisal ability through recordkeeping. Sue McKemmish and Frank Upward, eds., (Melbourne 1993): 9–26. Stephen Little, Paul Quintas, et al (eds.,) Managing Knowledge: An essential reader. (London, 2002) David Bearman, “Record-keeping systems” Archivaria 36 (Autumn 1993): 16–36. Archives New Zealand. “Compliance Regime: Final Report” (November 2001) Dietel, J. Edwin. “Improving Corporate Performance Through Records Audits” The Information Management Journal 34 (April 2000): 18–26.

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CHAPTER TWO

Appraisal and archival appraisal in modern organizations – purpose, participants, roles and responsibilities

“. . . the process of deciding which records should be retained . . . is fraught with . . . guess work and uncertainty. How can the process be refined [to give] the decision maker . . . confidence in . . . his or her judgement?” Mary F. Robek, Gerald F. Brown and David O. Stephens Information and records management 4th edition (New York, 1995) : 56.

2.1

Managing records in an organization

Since all of us appraise according to our own practical and psychological needs, it might seem to be a short step, at least conceptually, to map these needs and their requirements for records to the life of a typical organization or social group that has some institutional form. The motivations for keeping some type of tangible record are largely the same: as proof of membership, as support for claims and rights, and as avenues for travelling through memory into the past. However, just as some people are better managers of their personal material, some organizations are more adept than others at controlling information

24 Appraisal and archival appraisal in modern organizations and records. Indeed, while the parallels between personal and organizational appraisal are good ones to bear in mind, it is the mix of reasons for keeping records that people and organizations share, not the details of working practical methods for making choices and carrying them out. Most organizations, even small groups, such as volunteers for a one-time or continuing community service, that rely largely on oral communications to do their work, arrange themselves into some order for the sake of regularity and convenience in their business. Whims are poor directors for making profits or for achieving social goals. The orderliness of procedures is indispensable for large organizations and businesses that have many employees or members, complex activities, and significant financial obligations and responsibilities. Communication, information, and accountability unite in records and it is the order and system in their arrangement that provides dependable support and authoritative information. In any organization, whether it is small or large, whether it makes maximal or minimal use of information technologies in its business activities, there is a time or an event which tips the balance from the side of ad hoc practices to that of a conscious policy for controlling records to serve organizational purposes in a planned way. Ultimately, information management and records keeping must be shaped by human intent as opposed to the invisible hand of some fatality. Administration needs order and system in its records and information to make these useful rather than the burden they can become if ad-hoc practice is the rule. Records have a special value: properly made and kept according to policy and standards they can go a long way as legally accepted proof of compliance with laws and regulations. Moreover, they will reveal patterns of behaviour and are often the first things sought by lawyers in instances of litigation. Proper behaviours are best proved by keeping good records in well-managed systems. The opposite is also often the case – poor records may suggest suspicious behaviour and be construed as a sign of improper activities and guilt. In most jurisdictions, the laws governing corporations contain basic records-making requirements for duly constituted

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corporate bodies, whether organized for profit or not. But beyond these specifications, information unique to the group is shared, communicated, confirmed, and supported by tangible, formal records: they colonize all functions, processes, and activities. Despite the overall appearance of order in the business arrangements of organizations, they do not seem to have an inherent predisposition to rational and systematic behaviour in managing their records or information. Corporations, just like individuals, have unique cultures and recognizable styles of communication, traditions built through social interaction and sustained in continuous personal mentoring – in other words, they have individual proprietary ways of getting on in the world. Universities, for example, have well-established traditions of self-governance and are protective of an individual’s and the collective’s academic freedoms: these are reflected in collegial direction and decision-making, especially for academic goals, and often in tribunals for discipline. Universities value free expression of opinions and seek open communications with their members. Governments, by contrast, are more often structured hierarchically and have special, often rigid procedures for administrative and financial processes. Governance and policy direction are preserves of elected officials and changes to laws are deliberated by public bodies such as assemblies or legislatures. The civil service is organized to administer legislation evenly and completely. By contrast, voluntary societies and social action groups are organized often with a minimum of administrative structure and a flat hierarchy. These more fluid arrangements allow maximum independence to people dealing with problems or situations on the front line. Business enterprises may have unique structures and functions related to their activities and styles of working that may run the full range from the structured to the informal. The organization’s purpose will also have its effects. A retail business will not necessarily have much in common with a mining company or with consulting geological surveyors. Generally speaking, however, corporations are

26 Appraisal and archival appraisal in modern organizations assumed to be fully competent and are responsible for behaving legally. They also must account for their use of money and resources to directors and shareholders. Organizations, regardless of their type of business, share with individuals all the responsibilities of citizenship. Knowledgeable managers agree that an organization which has in place explicit procedures and assigned responsibilities for records that are audited for compliance and amendments, as for any other area of business activity, has a more robust constitution than those with a laissez-faire attitude to their records keeping practices. The benefits are even more evident in the emergent world of digital records and communications. The potential of information technologies to make connections among data that could not be done economically in the past have provided exciting opportunities to business and government. But, at the same time, they have created a more wary public, concerned about unauthorized use of information or its reuse for purposes other than those contemplated when the information was collected. In the past twenty years, guidelines from business groups and new statutes and regulations have placed greater controls on collecting and using information about individuals. In addition to the concerns about proper management from a legal point of view, recent examples of disasters, such as the devastating hurricanes and flood of the late 1990s, wars in the Balkans and terrorist actions, notably the World Trade Centre disaster in September 2001, underscore the practical value of taking precautions to ensure that a business has guarantees of continuity in its records should unexpected events pose a threat. In the event of disaster, or of alleged fraud, or a legal challenge, the rightful actions and behaviour of an organization – in short, its multiple accountabilities – are solidly proved in records. The real value of controls over making and keeping records lies in the power it gives to managers. Today, organizations are acutely aware of risk, either in their businesses’ environment or from unexpected failure in their infrastructure or knowledge base. Foreseeing and minimizing these risks are clearly uppermost in the minds of many officers. A regime of accountability,

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extended from decisions through multiple points of action to making records of them for proof and reference, to be used in either nearer or further time, is a coherent strategy of protection against many foreseeable and currently unknown risks. However, there are a number of yardsticks by which to measure accountability. Each alone or in combination with the others can be used by an organization to build different views of accountability and to expose its many layers – for proof, for evidence, for information, and for history. These measures will include many of the same factors which shape an individual’s valuing of information and records – they will be seen within the context of available resources; they will be valued based on experience; they will address practical needs; and they will recognize, to a greater or lesser degree, the importance of a healthy memory. But organizations need more than agreement on principle to guide the actions of its employees and officers as individual actors, however well meant. It is in the nature of organizations that they carry on their business, that they “do things”, according to procedures and processes. Many are acknowledged and agreed informally. These are incorporated by acculturation, to become part of the knowledge of the group and how it works that members assimilate in experience. Customary ways of working in a group, the acknowledged methods of decisionmaking, and the bounds on independent action are important parts of organizational knowing that are internalized by employees through their experience to become an implicit part of an organization’s habits and its culture. Officers will develop shorthands for working and communicating based on getting the job done as smoothly as possible. Nevertheless, habits have a formal image or reflection in the procedures and processes that are fixed, for example, in a manual that guides action according to policies, standards, and procedures that apply to everyone. Activities as diverse as the hiring of personnel, the control of quality in services and products, and the reporting of profit and loss are examples of the things most often addressed formally, in procedure manuals, operational standards, and business accounting guidelines. In any human activity, fate or the

28 Appraisal and archival appraisal in modern organizations unplanned always has a role: the aim of procedure is to minimize its chaotic impact and protect the future of the organization by securing a complete and rational record of its activities, rights, and liabilities.

2.2 Appraisal as an organizing concept for general management Appraisal of information and records, that is their valuation for the purposes of capture, keeping, control, and disposal, is an elemental responsibility for an organization, establishing control over undertakings made in its name and preparing solid ground for continuing accountability within the organization over time. Where the connection between business sustainability and reliable sources of knowledge to authentic records of an organization’s actions has not been fully appreciated, and the corporate responsibility neither consciously assigned nor collectively assumed by the group, all kinds of risk are elevated and the potential for disruptions, from minor misunderstanding to catastrophic events, is high. The responsibility for this work may reside in any one of a number of units in an organization, such as the chief knowledge officer, internal audit unit, or records and information management service (RIMS). It may be most usefully placed with an officer(s) whose first responsibility is as a records or information manager. This officer, or in the case of a larger organization, a functional unit and its officers, takes the lead in developing policies, standards, and practices for managing information and records in the organization. In the course of their work, RIMS personnel will develop partnerships with all units in the organization. Effective working relationships with information technology units or specialists are especially needed today. This connection becomes particularly important when the records specialist recognizes the importance of establishing systems consciously designed to ensure that it keeps records that are reliable and authentic. Many RIMS units will also develop working

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relationships with internal auditors because both want to ensure compliance with access and privacy directives. Yet whatever the nature of the special or unique arrangements in individual organizations, all RIMS officers focus on records and their ties to the organization’s business processes and continuing memory. In all records and information work, appraisal is the foundational activity that helps clarify the value of records to the organization: what records are needed by individual offices and units; what each contributes to the organization’s overall mission; and how long these must be available to satisfy known users. However, the role of valuing through the activities of a formal appraisal is not always clearly seen and may be imperfectly catered for in business procedures. For example, organizations with a decentralized structure, perhaps to allow for maximum innovation or to permit full scope for voluntary response to community needs, may extend the logic of decentralization to records. In these situations, the capture, control, and disposal of files may be jobs done ad hoc by a number of different people, according to the directions each has received and the skills and knowledge each has of the organization. These records systems are shaped by habitual uses alone. Nevertheless, experiences in litigation and disinterested operations research reinforce one another in demonstrating that ad hoc activity and reactions to events are not effective, efficient or prudent, especially in our twenty-first century world of global interests and intricate local connections. People everywhere are increasingly sensitive to the possible intrusions on their privacy that may come in the wake of electronic information technologies, however innocently or inadvertently these breaches happen. A prudent organization will recognize public concerns by protecting the personal information they acquire. In many jurisdictions, demonstrated care is required by laws and regulations that apply to organizations in the public and private sectors. Moreover, all organizations are more focused on accountability generally, to their governors or shareholders, or to the public at large, for actions they taken today and for those taken in the past. For large organizations, especially business and government,

30 Appraisal and archival appraisal in modern organizations the cycle of planning which controls all key business activities, needs to be extended to embrace business information and records, especially since these are essential blocks for proving compliances and building a stable base of knowledge.

2.3 Perspective on appraisal in an organization: the importance of points of view Whoever manages records will also be doing appraisal, whether it is one person, such as a chief information officer, or a secretariat or a committee, such as an information resources management committee or strategic planning executive. The appraisals that are integrated to their many records management tasks have distinct perspectives and rest on assumptions. Points of view and assumptions may or may not be recognized by those who are involved, either as the responsible officer or as a knowledgeable informant. For example, lawyers and accountants will have points of view and share assumptions with their communities – they use records for certain purposes and trust them to provide reliable and quality information. These many points of view and assumptions may not be articulated, for example, in recommended procedures. In situations where the many perspectives on records and assumptions about their uses have not been addressed, either informally in discussions or formally in guidelines, these need to be uncovered and then declared so they inform a total appraisal and the decisions on records taken as a result. Appraisal has many roles in a records-keeping environment. One way to help see these many uses is to relate appraisal, or to map its course, to the continuum model for records, first articulated some years ago by Jay Atherton, of the National Archives of Canada, and later more fully developed by Australian Frank Upward and favoured as a conceptual vision for records-keeping by many organizations and archives in Australia. In Upward’s three-dimensional schema (dimensions, axes, and co-ordinates), actions leading to records initiate a potential value for the

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records, visualized in the model as four distinct axes, those of identity, record keeping, transaction, and evidence. An action or event generates a record which is seen in a succession of views about it and uses for it. Each axis gives appraisal a different lens through which to view the record. The value of this model is its graphic view of appraisal as a group of similar types of evaluative exercises, or even as a succession of similar types of evaluative exercises, each one undertaken from a distinct perspective. No one view is more correct or important than another since each one is clear and distinct according to the lens that is used. The point of view taken on the purpose and values of records establishes the exclusive boundaries of each individual universe. A very different view of appraisal is provided by the activity models developed by the InterPARES I Task Force on Appraisal. Unlike the continuum model where the perspective is global, from that of a third person viewing a universe from the outside, the InterPARES I model is from the exclusive perspective of the unit charged with the function of preserving records for the long term or, in short, an archive, and has an implied first person point of view. The model is of activities that comprise the task of selecting records for preservation and not of the total components of a universe. The union of all aspects of keeping records, from policy advice through design of systems to the control over ultimate disposal, has been imperfectly recognized in the policies and actual workings of many organizations despite the compelling logic that models suggest by their nature as clear abstractions. There are few examples of successful programmes uniting all of the ideal aspects in a real world working situation. However, the separation of records system design from appraisal seems clearly to be counterproductive in electronic records environments which do not have either the stability of paper systems or the natural controls of access and confidentiality conferred by keys, cabinets, spaces, and guards. Appraisal, as the broad function of valuing of specific activities and duties in an organization and their related needs for records, is needed early in the life of a

32 Appraisal and archival appraisal in modern organizations records system, to ensure due regard for laws and regulations and as input to plans for preserving information and records that are required to be authentic and reliable for the long term. The needs of history and of public accountability seem likely to merge in the future.

2.4 Role of the archivist in records appraisal in a company or other types of organization The archivist in an organization, or the officer with archival responsibilities (whatever his or her title) should have a distinct role(s) in the appraisal of records and information. We can best see these possible components in abstract: Hybrid roles, combining aspects of each one will be far more normal in real situations. Nevertheless, it is useful to indicate the possible components of an archives role to help see each one more clearly. In addition to line responsibilities for particular aspects of records making and keeping, the archivist may have an advisory or counselling role. The “counsellor” coaches others, advises on matters of principle and on process and procedures for making records in the business. In addition to the role of counsellor, the archivist may have a special responsibility as an auditor, focusing on efficient knowledge resource management and auditing units for compliance with rules and best practices for records. This information audit function may assume a high profile in organizations seeking to ensure their policy and practice are in line with directives which protect people and their personal information. A sympathetic inspector or auditor can go a long way in securing the records function in organizations, especially in those that are committed to responsible records keeping to serve themselves and the larger community. The archivist may also be an arbitrator or change manager, building and rebuilding agreements to accommodate changes in business processes while protecting essential requirements for useable records. In some situations, the archivist may be the only records specialist: he or she will be an important source for information

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and knowledge on proven business needs for records when systems are rethought or redesigned, or where records are proposed for destruction or neglected in the wake of novel demands or changes. Ultimately, the most important role of the archivist as a records professional is to design procedures of appraisal which allow assumptions to be articulated. Once these are uncovered they will inform better the decisions that are made about the capture, classification, storage, and access to records and the information they contain. Many discussion papers may be needed before general agreement is reached. Uncovering and articulating assumptions is the first contribution of the RIMS professional to appraisal and it is a foundation for the identity of any group or to the mission of an organization. Traditionally, archivists have been most widely recognized in their meta-organizational role, that of corporate memorialist. This role is perhaps the most difficult to establish or nurture, but it provides the scope for a more independent creativity. In organizations that pay little attention to molding their history, it is the archivist, as records professional, who takes the lead in building the evidence for that history. Ideally, the archivist of every organization would have a recognized voice in determining what parts of the corporate memory should not be lost. Indeed the unique contribution of the archivist is to recommend what records must continue into the future to ensure the memory and identity of the group – or more precisely, to ensure that there is sufficient evidence for a truthful identity which each generation will construct out of the records which remain as memorials. The further and additional contribution of the archivist, and of the archive function, is to ensure that records continue as authentic evidence. In organizations where appraisal is undertaken by many persons, but with different foci – for example, by a technology specialist, an information manager, a records manager, and a knowledge counsellor – it is the archivist, from among all of these professionals, whose role best fits them to understand overall issues of compliance, records scheduling, and long-term archiving. The archivist may be an effective

34 Appraisal and archival appraisal in modern organizations auditor of all these unique roles and programmes, especially from their long view and total understanding of the organization. Or, as a participant in these functions, archivists may better exercise their own unique contribution as the arbiters of an organization’s memory, and consequently of society’s unfolding knowledge of itself. It is in their historically well-established role of shaping sources for historical reference that archivists walk a tightrope between a responsibility to society and responsibility to the organization. The needs of both can be served and respected and are not necessarily in conflict, as might be assumed facilely; however, the tension between serving the present and the future takes considerable experience to develop.

2.5 Archival programmes and institutions in their unique role Archivists, in their special role as builders of society’s unfolding memory in documents and records, are employed in Englishspeaking countries most often in public authority institutions. These may be called archives, as in the National Archives of Canada or the National Archives of Australia, or they may be called records offices, as in the Public Records Office in the United Kingdom, or in some places they may be part of historical societies or joined to the special collections unit of the university library. Appraisal in these archival organizations does not always have only one role. The archivist may have several functions each requiring distinct perspectives. For example, in many national archives, archivists are advisors on records policy and procedures for their parent organization. Similar roles but more informally established may be part of the archives function in a company. Most often the archivist concentrates solely on building historical resources by selecting records for preservation into the future. Advising on current and historical records can be combined in one archival programme and there

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are many examples of this union, especially in government and in universities. Archivists have traditionally undertaken appraisal to select records to be kept for historical purposes by assessing established records and systems which have been long in use and are at a transitional or terminal point in their active life. This vantage point, looking from the present to the past, seems likely to continue, especially for the appraisal of records from individuals or groups in the private sector. It is not common for archival organizations to take an active part in managing records for the daily uses of their donors. However, it will increasingly be more common for archivists to be part of larger information units in organizations rather than being employed in only cultural institutions dedicated to serving historical records. As employment opportunities expand for professionals from information studies programmes at colleges and universities, more archivists in the future will have larger roles in the design of systems and the architecture of records for many different types of organization. Appraisal may then be done much earlier in the life of a system and before substantial records accumulate. Archivists who acquire records and documents from private persons in the future may become important sources of experience and expertise on procedure for electronic records for individuals who lack knowledge and have no time to rethink their habits built on a trust in paper.

2.6 Appraisal from the perspective of archival repositories Modern archival repositories emerged over the past three hundred or so years as special cultural institutions charged with preserving historical records and serving the users of them. The energies of these young institutions were initially devoted to addressing the problem of disordered accumulation and bulk in hard-copy records. Solving the many problems associated with imperfectly controlled and widely scattered accumulations

36 Appraisal and archival appraisal in modern organizations required considerable effort and energy. While early archivists always had latent interests in the management of current records, the demands of their own work with historical records took precedence. The special work of managing records in the office were assumed by others who developed expertise in classifying, filing, registration, and internal controls over retrieval for use. In situations where current and historical records were divided for administration and by the interests they served, appraisal became a front-end archival function, linking current records with an assessment of their value for the long term. Appraisal from the archives perspective involved assessments, procedures, and declarations aimed at isolating the valuable records so that measures could be taken to preserve them. As a consequence, archival appraisal became intimately associated with the many tasks that surround acquiring historical information resources destined to be kept for continuing, often indefinite periods of time. Archival appraisal, shaped by the archivist’s unique role, is distinguished from the appraisal activities of other information professionals, such as records managers or librarians, by its purpose, ultimate goal, and vantage point – the latter being related to the first two. Public authority archives and archival programmes, and those for non-governmental organizations, for-profit business, and other types of organized groups in the private sector may be located in different parts of the organization, but they share uniquely archival vantage points. Four distinct aspects of this view are of particular importance for appraisal overall. First is the position of the archives vis-à-vis the flow of time: each will have a well-developed sense of its location in the stream of time and how this will affect appraisal, especially its timing. Secondly, is the position of the archive visà-vis the creators or producers of the records and documents that are the objects of its interests. Thirdly, is the archive’s position vis-à-vis the objects of its interests, the records and information pertient to its mandate. Fourthly, the archive’s position vis-à-vis the group that is seen to be the main users of the archive – what group or groups does the archive serve? What

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interests or in whose interests was it established in the first instance? All of these vantage points will contribute things that shape archival appraisal.

2.7 Appraisal as a function in an archive programme or institution The idea of consciously selecting only some records and information-rich materials for keeping over the longer term, and its opposite, of consciously destroying or deleting certain materials at some point of time, was first articulated by archivists seeking ways to deal responsibly with the records that were sent to them for care by officials in government offices. As the recipients of records, but with no official voice in their selection, archivists were soon led to consider the ways that their emerging archival perspective could be inserted into procedures for making decisions about the keeping of records for the long term. Fundamentally, the ideals of protection and preservation shaped the archive’s understanding of its responsibilities as custodian of material – these ideals have a history extending into the ancient world. Newer methods for preserving records, using a regulatory framework to locate responsibility with many units and officers in an organization, rather than relying only on acquisition to concentrate information artefacts in one physical location and repository, still aim to express the basic requirement to preserve and protect. While selections have always been made by any archive or records office – some done ad hoc, some compelled by situation, and some made according to a plan based on principles – a consciously directed appraisal arose in response to practical needs in new institutions. Practical appraisal developed in the workplace long before it was discussed theoretically. Moreover, as the number and variety of repositories for historical records increased, each one with a somewhat different mandate and arrangements for work, practical appraisal was articulated in distinct ways according to the special needs of each workplace.

38 Appraisal and archival appraisal in modern organizations The linking of appraisal to acquisitions of material nurtured a larger process whereby archivists defined themselves as distinct from managers of current records and historical researchers and began to take control of their own practices as a group. The explosion of records produced by bureaucracies especially those of large business and government, made the need for regular controls over what was acquired for continuing reference a practical imperative. Appraisal was part of this thrust; that it was placed differently in different traditions only underscored the importance of the function itself. The emergence of appraisal to become a key function in archival repositories charged with keeping historical records for the long term was stimulated by the small size of archives, especially in relation to the volume of potential acquisitions. The practical limits on space and funds meant that these institutions had to get the maximum use out of their resources: these were and are always seen to be inadequate to meet perceived needs. Appraisal was an active way to deal with the archives’ marginality in organizations and the few resources these institutions had at their disposal. This link between appraisal and acquisition remains a strong bond in an archive programme whether it physically acquires information artefacts for custody and care or whether it discharges the responsibility of protection by other means and does not assume physical custody in one place or repository. The relationship of appraisal to acquisition is, as a result, a key one to explore, because the development of the relationship shaped archive history and in the future will animate revisions to its traditional organizational and social role.

Key Readings: Mary F. Robek, Gerald F. Brown and David O. Stephens, “Why records management? Ten business reasons” in Information and Records management 4th edition. (New York, 1995): 8–11. Victoria Lemieux, “Applying Mintzberg’s theories on organizational configuration to archival appraisal” Archivaria 46 (Fall 1998) 32–85.

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<www.irmt.org> and <www.archives.gov> are two sites with considerable information about strategies for managing records for accountability within a government context. The literature on managing records is large and shaped by the regulatory environment in which organizations have responsibilities under the law. More general are the conceptual discussion of risk and the method of risk analysis, business resumption preparedness and standards for recordskeeping. Susan Healey “ISO 15489 Records Management – its development and significance.” Records Management Journal, 11/13 (December 2001): 133–142. Frank Upward, “Structuring the records continuum part one: postcustodial principles and properties” Archives and Manuscripts 24/2 (November 1996): 268–285. S.J.A. Flynn, “The records continuum model in context and its implications for Archival Practice.” Journal of the Society of Archivists 22/1 (April 2001): 79–93. Jay Atherton, “From life cycle to continuum: some thoughts on the records management-archives relationship.” Archivaria 21 (Winter 1985–86): 43–51. for the models of the Task Force on Appraisal. Glenda Acland, “Archivists: keepers, undertakers or auditor”, Debates and Discourses: Selected Australian Writings on Archival Theory, 1951–1990. Peter Biskup (ed.) (Canberra, 1995): 218–224. James O’Toole, “On the idea of permanence” American Archivist 52 (Winter 1989): 11–25. Luciana Duranti, “The odyssey of the records manager”. Part II: From the Middle Ages to Modern Times.” Records Management Quarterly 23 (October 1989): 3–11. Roy Schaeffer, “From craft to profession: the evolution of archival education and theory in North America.” Archivaria 37 (Spring 1994): 21–34.

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CHAPTER THREE

The many views on appraisal in archive programmes

“The selection of records for archival retention is the most basic archival activity.” (Frank Boles, Archival appraisal, New York, 1991) “Archivists are responsible for the identification and care of the small percentage of all records created which are deemed to be of continuing value.” Barbara Reed, “Appraisal and disposal” in Keeping archives, 2nd edition, 157.

3.1

Appraisal in the economy of archives

An archival institution can be defined as a programme or unit of a larger organization, or as a separate institution whose prime and most often sole mission is the pursuit of archival objectives. Whether the archives’ function is charged to only one unit of a multiple unit organization or is, by contrast, the main purpose of the institution itself, the function must have sufficient financial and structural resources to do its work. The archive should have an organizational infrastructure, including approved policies and procedures for its functions, and personnel whose education and

42 The many views on appraisal in archive programmes training equips them to undertake their archive’s mandated responsibilities according to the standards of the profession and with due acknowledgement to the needs of the institution’s sponsor. In short, the archive needs both a foundation for its work and a reasonable guarantee of continuity: programmes should not be started on a whim. They should be established only after careful consideration of their role and responsibilities. Once programmes are underway, these should not be stopped without equal thought and consideration for the future of their responsibilities and the documents that have been acquired already. The archival institution or programme has a special role: it acquires records and documents that will be sources of evidence for future reference and research into the past. Mapping the ties of documents to the diversity of functions, actions, events, and people is the common function of all archive institutions and programmes. Their goals, the details of each mandate, and the special focus of a programme may differ – indeed probably will differ – largely as a result of the sanctions that brought them into being in the first instance, their specific objectives, and the resources and support, formal and informal, they can count on.

3.2 Orienting appraisal to its role in an archive programme Appraisal in an archive programme or institution is not done by archivists according to their own lights; rather, it is guided by their organization’s goals. While this imperative may seem to reduce the scope for individual contributions, in actual practice it has the opposite effect, focusing individual energies to develop a specialist’s knowledge and to integrate this expertise into appraisal and other services for records and their users. Indeed, appraisal cannot be done well either quickly or superficially based on educated guesses, and it is probably not possible to reduce it to a series of technical tasks guided by criteria that apply to all – that would not be appraisal but a denial of it. Archival appraisal, whatever method(s) is used to do it, is always tied uniquely to the specific arrangements of each insti-

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tution. Its mandate and acquisition policies will initially orient appraisal to its functional boundaries, the larger institution it serves or the topic it seeks to recognize. These details make appraisal recognizable as an activity that is at home uniquely to that institution or programme. The scope for acquisitions of a national archive obviously will be quite different than a specialist repository, such as the Western Manuscripts Division and Contemporary Medical Archives Centre of the Wellcome Institution for the History and Understanding of Medicine. The mandate of an archive and its acquisition policies will also be shaped by such things as the resources it has and the flow of work in the institution. Mandates, acquisition policies, working priorities, and resources, all in their turn, will have an impact on appraisal – its direction, scope, timing, methods, and the actual concrete procedures that guide officers in their work. Appraisal, like any other function and activity, must fit into the institution’s total responsibilities. It cannot be successfully isolated either from the archives’ preservation capabilities and resources or from description and intellectual controls on records and their contents, from public services or from any of its other mandated activities. The complexity of an archive’s business, regardless of its size, emphasizes that appraisal needs to have a conceptual clarity to integrate its tasks more fully with the archives’ total responsibilities, across time and from one generation of professional to the next. Any ideal appraisal or model of it is skewed, inevitably, by the concrete circumstances in which an appraisal is undertaken. For example, an archive with one professional will develop work flows for appraisal and its other responsibilities that will very likely be quite different than the programme of an organization that has several professional employees with distinct expertise. Larger repositories may be able to develop an appraisal programme that has a continuity that cannot be achieved in a smaller operation. Just as an acquisition mandate and the organization’s programme of service need to be focused realistically with human and other resources clearly in mind, appraisal, too, must be tuned to the realities of each working situation.

44 The many views on appraisal in archive programmes Although many discuss appraisal and write about it as if it were an independent activity, the truth of most practical situations is quite the opposite. Appraisal happens often and at many points where it may not be directly addressed. A form of appraisal is implicitly integrated with many other functions in the archives. For example, it is done every time descriptions of records are prepared, however unconscious the assessment of value may be, and it informs reference services – it is impossible to suggest sources or lines of investigation without actually making an implicit appraisal decision on the worth or value of the sources proposed, especially as these relate to the question posed by the users. Sometimes appraisals are done on the fly, perhaps on the loading dock when materials previously identified as being important upon closer examination are found to be in such poor shape that they can not responsibly be taken in nor properly kept. Judgements that have an element of appraisal are made every day and most institutions will have criteria to guide archivists, guidelines, for example, on the extent of damage deemed acceptable in the light of the institution’s current and anticipated resources and capabilities. But most often the function of appraisal has particular clarity as an explicit assessment that is done before responsibilities for materials are assumed, before resources are applied to preserving records and before these are made available for use by readers.

3.3 The special relation of appraisal to acquisitions The “business activity” of an archival organization or programme is to preserve records or personal papers with all the qualities that they had when they were originally created and subsequently used. For some archival programmes, this goal may take the archivist, as records professional, into wider realms of their organization, to participate in policy development for records and records systems and to assist in auditing for compliance with policy and standards that are in place. Many archivists

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will find that they are more and more called upon to participate in setting benchmarks for records in systems and for their eventual migration to other software and hardware platforms. While some critical aspects of preserving the burden of documents into the future may be manifest in standards-setting and audit, for most archival programmes their goal will always be to “acquire” records physically in some way. It is in association with acquisition and/or the responsibilities that are assumed to be integral to the notion of acquisition, that appraisal assumes its pivotal role. The acquisition mandate of each archival institution or programme provides appraisers with their frame of reference. It defines, either explicitly or implicitly, the scope for acquisition and appraisal. This is why an acquisition mandate is so important for appraisal – because it alone determines the initial scope for it and establishes the foundation for the point of view of the appraisers in doing their assessments and in making recommendations. In fact, appraisal is virtually impossible to undertake if it has a “view from nowhere”. One persistent theme in contemporary archive literature is that of anxiety. This professional angst has its source in what are perceived to be the real short-comings in recent acquisitions and, as a consequence, a questioning of the methods of appraisal that have recommended them. This level of professional anxiety, however justified the questions may seem to be, will be reduced considerably by separating conceptually the roles of appraisal and acquisition in the archives and then relating each one appropriately to the other. Acquisition is one of those words that archivists use without much reflection – largely because they soon relate its detail to the methods used in their institution. However, acquisition, in its broadest sense, implies both custody and responsibility. In an archive programme there is a very specific relationship between these two whereby responsibility is logically assumed through custody. Many would take this further by arguing that without some controls over custody, responsibility cannot be completely implemented. Policy-setting can not currently be equated to full responsibility, nor can it be expressed completely in post-event activities such as an audit. It is the intimacy of the many

46 The many views on appraisal in archive programmes connections between custody and full responsibility, whereby one can not be completely and fully realized without the other, that causes most problems in addressing the long-term maintenance of electronic records. Few institutions with archival responsibilities are able to handle electronic records that are, by nature, dependent on changing and expensive technologies and inherently lack the stability of a persistent support such as paper or cellulose. Acquisition, viewed as either custody or as a form of non-custodial control, is clearly the foundational concept that supports continuing services to users, and any other public programmes of preservation or distribution. Appraisal then, is a test, or form of assessment, to select records for acquisition and in the process, to document the many complex aspects of provenance, especially the contemporary contexts of technology, business processes and their complex interrelated documents. This testing or assessment is accomplished by a structured valuation, ranking records within views of the world conditioned by visions, mandates and goals, perceived needs and responsibilities, resources and capabilities, ideals, and history. Appraisal cannot by itself do what must be done by policy and standards and/or what can or may be done only by acquisition; nor can appraisal operate without the directions of a mandate, the inspiration of ideals, and the target of clear goals. Rather appraisal is the creative ways that the archives goes about making its mandated responsibilities manifest and real in the world that currently exists. One fruitful way to see the relationship between acquisition and appraisal, regardless of programme type or collection focus, is to ask a simple but profound question suggested by Barbara Reed’s chapter on “Appraisal and disposal” in the manual Keeping archives – “why do I keep this material?” The word “why” leads into the area of appraisal values while the location of the “I” points to the necessary guidance of mandates and authorities. The acquisition mandate should clearly establish whether the institution should be considering any given set of records. Only when it is clear that these records are within the legitimate scope of your specific mandate should you be embarking on an assessment, or appraisal, to answer the question

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why or why not. It is not easy to develop a clear and rational acquisition mandate, one that guides decisions rather than avoids them or places barriers in their way. The time devoted to developing a clear and forthright acquisitions mandate pays dividends by ensuring in the long term that the archive’s holdings are adequate in their coverage and depth.

3.4 Acquisition in archives programmes and institutions – dependence and independence Many archives have considerable independence in acquisitions, including what they will or will not acquire, from whom, at what time, and how. The extent of independence is determined by the specifics of each institution’s mandate and by the nature of its governance, or often from a combination of both. Generally speaking, institutions whose mandate is broad and comprehensive, for example covering all individuals, families, professional groups and other organizations in a defined area such as a county or state, will be able to acquire records and historical information resources from many groups or organizations without a specific limit to their possible sources, at least a limit in theory. Other archives may have mandates to serve the needs for records of one organization or corporation, or to acquire only materials related to a topic or subject. The archives of a religious order could focus on only the records produced by the order itself. Manuscript or other special types of historical collections focused on a theme – for example women poets, or medical practitioners – would acquire records only from sources that are deemed to be relevant. The potential scope for their acquisitions would then reflect that concentration. Some institutions may further restrict their focus to concentrate on a particular medium to the exclusion of others. Archives devoted to historical sources on film, or in sound, or perhaps of maps and charts, are examples of media-specific programmes. There are also hybrid mandates that give the institution equal responsibility for the historical archives of their parent and for the papers and manuscripts from private persons and

48 The many views on appraisal in archive programmes organizations who are deemed to be significant in some way to understanding the history of a larger collective group that has a clear and persistent definition. An example is the National Archives of Canada which has a mandate for the historically important records of the nation. Many other public authority archives also will have legislated mandates that comprehend a collective public group as a whole such as a city, a province, or a state. For all programmes and institutions, the liaison with the parent body will be important. The tie may be a loose one, for the purpose of governance, budget, and reporting only. The archive may have a considerable degree of programme independence: this is often at its most visible in the areas of appraisal for acquisition. Other archives will be more integrated with their parent body, where the archive is involved in a number of records-related activities, from participating in the design of records systems, through control and audit of records for compliance with rules, to unique archival services for records over time and through history. Each mandate, regardless of its breadth or specificity, imposes a further obligation on the institution to refine and direct it to achieve objectives that change and are reshaped over time.

3.5 Passive versus active implementation of acquisition mandates Acquisitions and appraisal can be ad hoc, as appropriate records are identified or presented for acquisition. However, reaction to outside stimuli is not recommended as either a rational or a balanced way of building historical resources; where it has been in operation, often because of inadequate resources and staff, it is now being questioned and changed. Reaction to offerings as they are made also makes it difficult for the archive to develop a plan for active appraisals, to introduce innovations, or to sustain quality acquisitions over time. Passivity in acquisitions and reactive appraisal can rarely move beyond assessing the qualities of documents in isolated offerings. While it is probably necessary to be able to respond to unexpected opportunities, this should be countenanced only within the framework of an active process

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of appraisal and acquisition. As archival programmes and institutions develop more management expertise and greater experience, it is now more common for archives to implement or express their mandates in active pursuit of acquisitions driven in large part by appraisal that is systematic and phased according to the work plan of the institution. Archives that focus exclusively on the records of one organization or source have a well-defined scope for their acquisitions – it is already described by the exclusive service the archive provides for the records and historical sources of that one institution. The narrow boundary initially establishes the focus for appraisal although it does not reduce the breadth of knowledge the appraiser must bring to bear on this limited area. In some organizations, their archival programme may be integrated more or less with a formal programme of records management. Many see the linking of the current and the historical as an ideal marriage, uniting skills and competencies which promote best practice in keeping records regardless of the scope for that practice. This union can build better understanding of roles and responsibilities for records in serving current needs and supporting historical investigations, clarifying the location of specific responsibilities, and, where the management of current and historical records are separated, promoting a synergistic sharing of plans, resources and facilities. Appraisal of the records and information resources of a specific corporation or group may not necessarily be animated by unique values. But these archives will have a more restricted scope for appraisal and acquisition than an independent collecting archive, whose potential field of acquisitions and scope for appraisal is not only larger but also inherently more complex.

3.6

Relationship to source affects appraisal

The relationship of the archive to the people/organization who are the sources of records that are scoped in the archives’ mandate must have its effects on appraisal. The relationship will not only have an impact on the foundations for valuing, but it will suggest appropriate methods for acquisitions and it will largely determine

50 The many views on appraisal in archive programmes the conditions of access to the records by users other than the originators of them. For example, acquisitions by archives that serve one organization exclusively will be closely tied to the needs of that organization. These are almost always directed by its ongoing requirements for doing business. Most corporations see their responsibility to the future in terms of their own corporate survival, not in terms of the society in which they operate. From an immediate perspective of operations, records are weighed in a balance that favours short-term needs. The cost of keeping records for needs that may arise over time, or for those purposes not clearly seen to be a corporate responsibility, may require more effort to justify. The possible benefits for keeping some records for continuing use can include supporting administrative continuity, defending the corporation from risks, and providing full and clear accountability that robustly demonstrates fiduciary responsibilities including the ethical treatment of colleagues and clients. Organizations, like society as a whole, need to be accountable to or speak to the future, as part of a responsibility of citizenship. However, it is difficult to demonstrate these many benefits equally in terms of the balance sheet. Examples that clearly highlight uses of records in the past are worth pursuing for the concrete emphasis they provide. The archival perspective is really the only view of records over time that specifically addresses the claim of the future on the present and is a voice for the past speaking in the present. Acquisitions by archives devoted to the records of many informal and formal organizations and individuals as private persons may involve more complex relationships with many groups and people who are the sources for records. Institutions that are in this situation will always have many new or changing possible sources. The archive periodically will need to refine its priorities for acquisition and appraisal. At these and at other times of change it will need to negotiate changes to its existing commitments to regular donors and other groups that rely on the archives’ services. Additionally, the archive may need to involve its own governors, sponsors or wider administration, such as an

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advisory committee, historical society, or citizen groups in its planning and activities. These people usually have their own sense of priorities and values that may not be fully in concert with those of the professional with actual programme responsibilities and experiences. The variety of situations and relationships that affect an archive’s responsibilities emphasizes the importance of a clear acquisition mandate, to establish the scope for acquisitions, the possible foci for appraisal, and the point(s) of view for undertaking appraisal. Without the focus of a point of view provided in the acquisitions mandate and/or mission statement, appraisal will lack essential direction. Without direction, appraisers may be diverted to concentrate on supporting activities, such as the detailed ranking of types of records, or careful classification of information by type, category or subject, or any number of other related functions, such as establishing procedures for retention schedules. While each of these activities may help the archives’ programme of services and suggest useful criteria to be incorporated into appraisal, none is the objective of appraisal. They are tools used at specific points in a much larger process. The objective of appraisal should be to rank records based on the values we assign to them as evidence of the functions and activities whose historical profile the archive seeks to build or create. The aim of appraisal is to highlight or to isolate the small portion that should be acquired as the best evidence for a particular view or views of the past, anticipating uses and needs. This valuation may subsequently inspire or support classification, or other useful tools, either for the archivist to use in appraisal and acquisition or to assist users in identifying material that is pertinent to their special inquiries. But neither classification nor the development of tools is the prime objective of appraisal.

3.7 Coherent schemes to relate acquisition to appraisal A crucial task for any archive is to relate its mandated mission to a coherent scheme for acquisition and appraisal – coherence may

52 The many views on appraisal in archive programmes be conferred by programmes or by cyclical exercises or by strategies and plans. The search for a workable union for each repository is a practical necessity that is as fundamental to the archive as are the tasks of preservation, intellectual control, and presentation of the records to users. Acquisition and appraisal are directed to the records of human activities as these are expressed by and in documents. Individuals may make and keep records, as a citizen, as a professional, or as a member of a family or community. Informal and formal groups in society, such as local theatre groups, charitable enterprises, and government, business or educational organizations also create and use records as integral to their “business” activity; consequently, the archive and its appraisal must not only choose and build appropriate methods for appraisal in its own working situations, but also look beyond its institution and its working methods to understand the nature of records that are created and used by the people and groups that are the focus of the archive’s interests. Several questions may be posed to help build this picture. For example, how are records related to the functions of the creator? What roles do they play in the organization? How consistent is the process of records-keeping? These questions, and others, will be developed to shape an archives’ procedures for interrogating the organization with the objective of describing the role of records and mapping their relationships to business, to organizational knowledge, and to history. The view that records are tied to functions rationally, especially in a business or other organized corporate activity, is currently favoured as the best explanation of records keeping in an organization, less so, perhaps, for people who may more keenly feel the claim of emotions. Habit and tradition in organizations seem to be less important for records-making and keeping than the compelling logic of business needs. Ideally, in either paper or electronic systems, business needs would be reflected in requirements for records. These should be identified completely before systems are purchased or used. Real needs should be catered for by a system’s design and as part of a logical process of planning followed by implementation and review.

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High quality records, defined by law, regulation, and corporate needs are then systematically captured and controlled until they are no longer needed to serve these official purposes. In this “systemic” view, long-term uses would be considered – these would include many of the traditional interests of an archive. The “systemic” view is well suited to the archive that serves one group exclusively. It is also a good fit with the continuum model of a records universe because its conceptual view of records integrates many cycles or lives of documents into an integrated, logically related whole. “Systemic” ideas are largely shaped by the practical logic of engineers and by the values of proper controls in corporations. These have been, if anything, reinforced by our experience with new technologies for records. Methodical restructuring of office routines and records have expanded the idea of “system” to embrace the design of records, the controls for routines of use, and the spaces allocated for the logical flow of work and for records keeping. The integration of business with digital communications and electronic records seems to be accelerating as we enter the twenty-first century. Because we now are in a period of growth and instability, technology appears to be the chief, perhaps the only agent of change altering what was customary by opening up new and inviting vistas we want to explore. Nevertheless, technology has always had an impact on records, from the copy-press to the computer. If its impact is now particularly evident later it may appear to be in a more or less steady state. It is tempting to equate the obvious changes we see as systems and modes are superseded with profound difference. The impact of rapidly changing digital technologies on communications and records-keeping disturbs our level of comfort with customary modes of communications forged by experience with relatively stable and persistent systems and conventions. Technology currently destabilizes aspects of persistence and continuity and adds elements that neither appraisal nor acquisition can ignore if they are to be responsible and responsive to capabilities. Nevertheless, technology should not be the engine of either activity.

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3.8

Appraisal in an electronic environment

Systems that are largely resident in computers, some designed to provide information, others to produce “records”, are entities which provide significant challenges to the integration and coherence of appraisal and acquisitions. The challenge has its source in the tendency to confuse information with record. The differences between these are not clearly understood nor are they always evident on a computer screen. One consequence of the blurring of distinction by the use of the same technologies for information and for records and communications is that the needs of the organization for specific qualities in each one are not clearly articulated. This is a key factor in the design for electronic systems which must, in the first instance, have a clear view of the complete business needs of the organization. Electronic systems, incorporating integrated or separate modules for mail, spread sheets, report drafting and links to external information sites, each one perhaps with multi-levels of access, many contributors, and multiple gateways and access points, provide particular problems for the archives and records professional. Many of these problems are political – the design of new systems may not involve all users: often it remains in the hands of technology specialists who may not understand that the organization has equal needs for records as it does for statistics and “information”, and that these have different sources in a business’ processes, and in requirements for audit and in law. Electronic systems have an additional complication for records professionals because they have spawned new uses for old words which drain them of their original meanings save for that part retained for use within a new universe established by a technology. The term “archive”, for example, has taken a new meaning in an electronic environment as a technical term for a generational difference in a machine system. These are not archives in the traditional meaning of the term which had specific and explicit reference to aspects of records that were guaranteed, such as their persistent and provable identity and integrity and their clear ties to functions, processes and actions. The ability to

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integrate by technology instead of by physical effort makes electronic systems attractive to organizations. They can be introduced quickly without the many tests being applied to them that would have been applied, for example, to a new drug, or the design of a new building, or the purchase of filing cabinets and certainly to a change in a record registry, filing systems or any other major change to manual records-keeping. Electronic systems disrupt accepted norms for records and challenge the nature of archives in definition, terminology, and responsibility. Many have begun the task of designing solutions by viewing the organization’s needs for records and accountability they enable and inspire. In fact, accountability, transparency and levels of transparency, and risks (the views from many points) are all concepts which allow the records professional to contribute positively to the shape of new records and information systems. Their aim is to define what records are needed and what types of information can be safely left aside without giving these characteristics of records. These changes in systems at the very least throw into sharp relief the intimate relationship between design and appraisal in electronic systems. In some quarters appraisal has been elevated to embrace the responsibility formerly afforded only by the direct acquisition and custody of records, documents and their many aggregations in systematic groups.

3.9

Appraisal as test

The challenges of electronic systems underscore the continuing importance of acquisitions, whether this be expressed by responsibility for standards or by the transfer of records into an archivescontrolled space, and of appraisal as the gateway or process for making choices. Appraisal is a form of valuing that can be seen as a test. The nature of the test is defined by the archives in its own situation. The test could be directly related to the design and capture of information and records. Phrased another way, the test could be integrated with the activities of creating records in an

56 The many views on appraisal in archive programmes organization and managing these for corporate uses. The test, or tests could equally be related to the various evaluations which take place in different types of managerial contexts or regimes – those of the internal audit, those of the corporate lawyer, the needs of the personnel manager, or the systematic building of a coherent historical memory. Appraisal, as a form of valuing, is conceptually friendly to a number of views, processes, and places. Whatever the context for the valuing or appraisal, whether it be in a historical records repository with a special mandate for collecting primary resources on theme, issue or other matters of fact, or as a programme in a large organization, where appraisal has defined roles in current information and records management functions in addition to its uses for selecting material for preservation over the long term, the common ground is that appraisal takes place in contexts. And it is each one of these contexts that gives it shape, direction, and purpose. Contexts can be simple or complex and may have a different mix from one institution or programme to another. Appraisal for acquisition in a local history collection of a public library will be somewhat different in scope and purpose than appraisal for acquisition done by archivists of a large public authority institution, such as a national archive which will have many functions, responsibilities, and business processes. It is important, therefore, to address the matter of appraisal first from the level of greatest abstraction then down to a specific situation where rules and procedures, expectations and law may affect appraisal in different ways. Appraisal has many and different expressions, but it also has a history; it is the historical context for it that has had a formative influence on our ideas today.

Key Readings: James O’Toole, “Recording, keeping and using information” in Understanding Archives and Manuscripts, (Chicago, 1990): 7–23. Terry Cook, “From information to knowledge: an intellectual paradigm for archives.” in Canadian Archival Studies and the Rediscovery of Provenance.” Tom Nesmith Ed., (London, 1993): 201–226.

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Terry Cook, “‘Another brick in the wall’: Terry Eastwood’s masonry and archival walls, history, and archival appraisal.” Archivaria 37 (Spring 1994): 96–103. Tyler O. Walters, “Contemporary archival appraisal methods and preservation decision-making” American Archivist 59 (Summer 1996): 322–338. Barbara Reed, “Appraisal and disposal” in Keeping Archives, Judith Ellis (ed.) (Melbourne, 1993): 157–206. Bruce Dearstyne, “Historical records programs: Diverse types, common elements” in The Archival Enterprise: Modern Archival Principles, Practices, and Management Techniques. (Chicago, 1993): 27–43. John Dojka and Sheila Conneen, “Records management as an appraisal tool in college and university archives” in Nancy E. Peace (ed.) Archival Choices: managing the historical record in an age of abundance. (Toronto, 1984): 19–40. Barbara L. Craig, “Records management and the Ontario Archives, 1950–1976” Archivaria 8 (Summer 1979): 3–34. Karen D. Paul, “Archivists and records management” in James G. Bradsher ed., Managing Archives and Archival Institutions (Chicago, 1989) 34–52. Philip Bantin, “Strategies for managing electronic records: A new archival paradigm?” And affirmation of archival tradition?” Archival Issues 23/1 (1998): 17–34. John McDonald, “Managing records in the modern office: taming the wild frontier.” Archivaria 39 (Spring 1995): 70–79. Margaret Hedstrom, “Building record-keeping systems: Archivists are not alone on the wild frontier.” Archivaria 44 (Fall 1997): 44–71.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Archival appraisal briefly reviewed in historical context

“Faced . . . by the prospect of impossible accumulations . . . we propose to try to prevent accumulation occurring at all; to deal with the matter before documents come to the Archive state . . . .” Sir Hilary Jenkinson, Manual of archive administration (1937): 152. “ . . . archivists should have final responsibility for judging the secondary values of records whether these are preserved as evidence . . . or for . . . other information.” T. R. Schellenberg, Modern archives: Principles and techniques. (Chicago, 1956): 30 “Many archivists believe that they have a broad mandate to compile a ‘balanced and representative record’ of society as a documentary patrimony for the future.” F. Gerald Ham, Selecting and appraising archives and manuscripts (Chicago, 1993): 8.

60 Archival appraisal briefly reviewed in historical context

4.1

Appraisal in modern times

Archivists, in concert with other records professionals, have always appraised records to rank these in some order of value to meet real needs as these were identified in working situations. Appraisal to select records to ensure their continuing preservation is not a new activity in records offices, registries or archives. For example, an appraisal of relative value based on frequency of use is always implied when some records are moved to storage offsite, or off-line. Appraisal is also done when existing holdings or potential acquisitions from customary sources are reconsidered and ranked according to changes in the priorities or capabilities of the archives. Another common example of appraisal occurs when the attrition of age makes the physical preservation of the record in its original format no longer feasible. Summaries, abstracts or in some cases even more extensive archival descriptions would be done to preserve their essential information: more recently, technology has made conversion of fragile or brittle records to a more stable support a cost-effective option. Eventually, in the fullness of time, copies, abstracts, summaries, and detailed archival descriptions of records, individually and as groups, will inevitably replace original information artefacts. The processes of selection, copying, and migration implied by the inescapable facts of decay clearly involve an active appraisal on the part of all records keepers but especially the archivist whose work is most often associated historically and today, with the preserving institution. However, in modern times appraisal has acquired a new dimension as the function that determines what is worthy of being acquired in the first place. It is the role of appraisal in the archival function of acquisition that has stimulated explorations of its role in the archives and the methods best suited to that role. Appraisal to select records for acquisition became important for the Public Record Office in Britain in the latter part of the nineteenth century and for the National Archives of the United States soon after its foundation in the 1930s. Although these two institutions were not alone in developing the notion of appraisal to assist acquisitions, their practices were influential because of

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their size and national importance. Moreover, the major early texts in English on archive practices, including appraisal, emanated from archivists employed by these national archives. Their experiences in public authority archives shaped their discussions of archive functions and activities, including appraisal.

4.2

The archivist as advisor and preserver

By the latter part of the nineteenth century necessity spurred the Public Record Office in Britain to develop methods to keep records, space, and staff in a reasonably supportable balance. The Public Record Acts and the regulations associated with them elaborated methods of scheduling records which aimed to ensure that what came to the PRO for preservation was only the essential core agreed by administrators who had rights to these records and needs for them in continuing business. The archivist’s role was that of advisor and facilitator on behalf of interests of the State for its own records. Sir Hilary Jenkinson, an archivist at the PRO, produced a manual of archive administration in 1922 in which he expressed a number of views about appraisal for selection. The manual discussed archive responsibilities from a position of general principles and provided guidance on arrangements for an archive’s business. While it would be wrong to assume that Jenkinson’s book reflected the historical position of the PRO, his text expressed ideas that were shaped by his experiences there. Jenkinson was unable to see a principled justification for an independent role for archivists to decide what records should be acquired by establishing a special function of appraisal to make these archival choices. His reasons were anchored in practical situations and used a practical language. Archivists could never have either the level of knowledge about records or the real needs for them as the administrator whose instruments of office they were in the first place. The administrators’ role in making the records gave them clear title and first claim on establishing their values for the future.

62 Archival appraisal briefly reviewed in historical context Jenkinson’s sources of value were those of the organization and not of other potential communities of use. His views were reinforced by a special sense of the organizational role of the archive repository and of the archivists in it. He argued that appraisal for the purpose of deciding what records the archives should keep could be in conflict with the archivist’s prime responsibilities as a preserver whose goals were the physical and moral or intellectual defence of records, not selection. He did not see these working together to support each other, but as goals that were essentially in conflict. The tension between choosing and preserving could not be reconciled by archival fiat. Archivists did not choose for history: the creator chose what he needed or wanted. The archivist kept these instruments safe and it was up to researchers, including historians, to assess the evidence according to their needs or the requirements of their discipline. Jenkinson’s thorough knowledge of records at the PRO, records that covered centuries and reflected many changes in administration, led him to doubt that reducing the duplication of information in records could be a basis for selecting the few to be kept. He saw that functions might produce similar-looking records but that each function had its own needs: these would give a distinct spin, shape or slant to the records and, inevitably, to the continuing needs of officials for them. Although he did not use these words, he sensed that functional distinctiveness transcended the detailed information contained in a record’s explicit content: this sense undoubtedly grounded his arguments. Jenkinson was mindful, however, of the unsettling impact of office technologies – in his time the effects of typewriters and mechanical copiers – which he agreed were unprecedented in their power to change the shape and quantity of records made in bureaucracies. The greater use of mechanical devices in place of hand-copying in the British Civil Service, especially since 1890, combined with the equally unprecedented expansion of administrative responsibilities and government functions, especially during the First World War, threatened to overwhelm any administrator’s ability to make and keep clear, useable records. Without guidance from the PRO and without the assistance of a procedure

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of assessment, the bulk of modern archives could easily overwhelm the repository without any guarantee of usefulness or quality being provided by the careful controls of creators. By pointing to the difficulties inherent in any archive-directed function of appraisal for selection, Jenkinson aimed to establish caution in doing appraisal while at the same time locating the responsibility for making and keeping useable records in the bailiwick of the creators, with the archivists acting as advisors and supporters in these tasks. In essence, Jenkinson wanted appraisal to be integrated with the other activities discharged by a responsible public servant. To take this away would be to separate creating from keeping, something that Jenkinson thought would loosen records from the ties which gave them their prime meaning. In such a controlled economy of records and information, nothing would be created that was not needed and the focus would be on destruction, in a controlled way, as time reduced the need of administrators for records.

4.3 Registries, decentralized records keeping, and bureaucracies Jenkinson’s ideas were conditioned by experience in the British Civil Service. Officers were recruited by a structured process designed to select people with ability and promise; most chosen for the executive grades came from the same social background and went to the same schools and universities. As career officers they developed a strong ethos of public service which was a strong bond among distinct departments. Most departments of the preWorld War II civil service also had some type of central registry for their records. Although each one had its unique features and special services, similar assumptions about registries were a common ground. Registries were central units that provided common services for the branches or functional units of a department’s administration. The registrar, as the manager of the registry, controlled the technical details of registration procedures and any other services to the department – the most common were mail

64 Archival appraisal briefly reviewed in historical context and courier services, copying of documents, and the indexing of all records. A specially trained staff classified all documents according to schemes, the most common being by function, responsibility or pertinent subject. Registries also controlled records during their use and kept them safe for reference in their department’s storage or file rooms, often for very long periods of time in those departments where precedent was an important guide for decisions. Although the details of work varied among departmental registries in government, most provided similar services and operated according to agreed procedures and processes. Jenkinson was familiar with modern registries despite his great expertise in medieval administration: His understanding of records was shaped by the context of registries and the assumptions they fostered by extensive experience with them. Nevertheless, his understanding of their operational strengths and weaknesses was imperfect. In fact, it would have been difficult, if not impossible for anyone to have an expert’s knowledge in the circumstances of change whose impact was unprecedented and unpredictable. All registries were affected by new and greater demands as the responsibilities of government expanded and the amount of business it handled grew – both produced more records in unprecedented amounts in the twentieth century. The full impact of two world wars on the civil service and its registries was profound but their effects were not fully appreciated by managers and archivists until much later in the century. The registries of the 1950s were worlds apart from their predecessors even fifty years before, in their organization and management and in the nature of the records and information they now contained. However, a constant ideal, for senior officers and ministers as well as for archivists, was the central control of records and information for business uses. The search for the best way to recognize this ideal with minimum cost in large part fuelled continuing interest in appraisal and in methods of assessing records for selection to serve the state better. Archivists in organizations that had no tradition of registries developed views and practices in a different context. They worked in the only central repository for records in their organization

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which could have many departments doing the State’s increasing business. These archivists were sensitive to the implied waste in the duplication of records and repetition of information from many local systems which fed their archives. Decentralized records and controls might serve administrators in their own sphere of business, but decentralization did not recognize common interests across any service. Duplication of information and of records was the inevitable outcome of decentralization. From their central perspective, archivists were largely concerned with overcoming unnecessary repetition in records that were destined for historical purposes. The limited capacity of any central repository was also always in mind. A clear goal for any archives was to reduce the volume of records and associated costs by avoiding the acquisition of duplicate records and information in the first instance. Compounding the problem of duplication was the seemingly chaotic systems for keeping records. Local offices often kept records idiosyncratically, according to local needs, often to serve the person who used them most often. Records were rarely kept according to rules, and personal custom rather than procedures controlled what was placed on file. There were few if any guides for classification. Arrangements were made locally to handle records according to local resources and needs. New office technologies, introduced in the 1870s and increasingly used by most larger organizations after World War I, only served to exacerbate problems inherent in few controls. Consequently, the volume of material kept by bureaucracies grew faster than facilities or systems of control through purging. The accumulation of United States government records that needed retrospective assessment was huge by the 1930s. This was the situation when the National Archives was established in 1934.

4.4

The independent role of the archives

Although the archive of the United States is a relatively recent foundation compared to the Public Record Office (1838) or even

66 Archival appraisal briefly reviewed in historical context the National Archives of Canada (1872), the scope of its responsibilities and the size of its initial task cast a spotlight on the methods it employed and the archivists that developed them. Theodore Schellenberg, an archivist with the National Archives, gave voice to many of these developments. His texts on archive methods expanded many of the internal directives he prepared to guide certain operations of the National Archives. Schellenberg focused on what he called the “modern”, a term used to distinguish records and archives and their systems of keeping from those of the medieval and early modern Europe. The “modern” was different in many respects, in the quality and quantity of records produced by administration and in the responsibilities of the archives to the nation and its history. This judgement of difference has had a profound impact on the responsibilities for appraisal and on the methods of doing it. The role of appraisal in the management of “modern archives” was to determine what records should be preserved because of their high potential for subsequent research. Appraisal was a function applied at the front end to determine which records would be acquired for continuing or permanent preservation. Appraisers used a schema developed by Schellenberg, but largely informed by his colleagues, that ranked the values in records in one of two categories. Those with a primary value served the needs of administrators in doing business. Records were then assessed for their secondary values to users other than administrators. Those with high quality and concentrated information about functions, events or people were deemed to have a high potential as sources for future reference by other possible users particularly, but not exclusively, by historians. The National Archives of the United States and Schellenberg were also interested in an independent role for their institution and saw in appraisal the means by which the Archives could establish its credibility as a useful department of government. His ideas fitted well with government’s interests in efficiency through scientific office methods. His view also underscored the role of the Archives as a research institution, serving an elite of historical scholars who required archives for their research. Schellenberg

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saw appraisal as a way for the Archives to establish its bona fides, in administration and research. The legitimate needs of administrators were not totally discounted; however, these were largely addressed by establishing centres for the storage of records. These records were kept under control and away from the active offices for a period of time before being destroyed. Only a limited set of records was ever contemplated for the Archives, and these had to meet the tests established in appraisal. The ideas of Sir Hilary Jenkinson and Theodore R. Schellenberg reflected their understanding of the goal of an archive in preserving unique evidence and the role of its various functions in achieving that goal. The contrast between them is less one of theoretical understanding of archives than of the appropriate method best suited to express this idea in their particular context and circumstances. Although both were conditioned by their knowledge of a large national bureaucracy, these institutions were sufficiently different in operation, functions and “culture” that the methods of the archives, in the area of acquisition and appraisal, were quite legitimately different. These differences persisted until the end of the last decades of the twentieth century, when changes in technology combined to reduce the contrasts between appraisal and preservation, and their goals were seen more and more to support one another.

4.5

Archives as a reflection of society

The ideas of the role and purpose for a national archive as the central repository of the historical sources of the state and nation, ideas which Jenkinson and Schellenberg largely shared, did not reflect the goals of other types of archive, such as those collecting on the basis of a theme or locality, or even those responsible for the records of a church or business. Archivists in these organizations had to meet distinct demands of the groups whose records they acquired and of the expanding public clientele that used them. Their needs and priorities shaped alternative notions that took root especially in the 1970s. Revisionist views

68 Archival appraisal briefly reviewed in historical context were clearly voiced by F. Gerald Ham, an American archivist with a distinguished career at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. His notion of the archive was shaped by what he saw to be their role and purposes in society. This view was more inclusive than traditional preoccupations with the records of large bureaucracies such as the state, embracing all of society, its people, institutions, and experiences. Ham argued that to concentrate on the records of governments and their agencies was an incomplete recognition of the archive’s role with its implied responsibilities to society as a whole. Large government bureaucracies and big business were only one part of society and the part with the most power. He lamented the inadequacy of current appraisal methods, as discussed in the literature and as practiced in most workplaces, to implement the true goal of archives in society. This goal, according to Ham, is to document the breadth of experience, including the experience of groups not privileged by society and as a consequence, not in its records. His views largely extended those of Schellenberg by emphasizing the special responsibility of archives and consequently, of archivists, to determine actively the shape of the human record bequeathed to the future. Archives had the latent power, collectively, to give a voice to people poorly represented in the archives of corporate and government repositories. Ham’s lament for the inadequacies of archives as evidence of a society as a whole, suggested two new endeavours, among others. First was to support archival interest and participation in projects to record oral evidence, and second was to promote system in joint efforts with other archives and interest groups to document society according to co-ordinated plans rather than willy-nilly. Ham articulated ideas shaped by a working experience, shared by others of his generation, in historical collections of manuscripts, and the archives of small organizations and social groups. These archivists had somewhat different concerns than their colleagues in public authority institutions. In retrospect we can see their views were animated by two different ideas that reinforced each other. The first was a desire to recognize in archives those individuals and groups without a voice in society.

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Secondly, their vision of archives emphasized their potential for social action. These views molded a new idea of the archivists’ role as creator of social goods – a role more suited to activists than the vision of the disinterested protector of a past privileged in records, a view that seemed to be passive. The active orientation to the world and society was promoted as a professional goal worth achieving. To Ham and his generation, archives seemed to be structures which perpetuated the voice and ideas of those who exercised power in large institutions and organizations. Socially concerned archivists, working in private collections with a theme or subject focus on society, sought ways to “even the playing field”, to give a voice to those who were silent or to “document” that which was not, in the first place, ever committed to documentary or even written forms. They looked beyond structures to see people and they looked to records and documents as a way to expose injustice and provide a redress for inequalities. Animated by the worth of the memory of every person, a new generation of archivists embarked on an exploration of methods which would express the goal of recognizing the unseen or those only seen through the restricted vision of organizations that affected their lives – the state, the courts, the prisons and the welfare system. These archivists believed that newer methods of appraisal had the potential to transform archives to become a locus for social action. This active approach to society would be manifest in broader acquisitions. An enriched social memory would be preserved and, in some cases, actually would be created by archivists in their new professional mission as documenters of society rather than preservers of well-formed groups of records. Revisionists thought that ideas and methods developed by large national archives of public authority bureaucracies were too narrow to reflect society. The focus on existing records was restricted, ignoring knowledge and experiences that were socially constructed and shared more informally. Moreover, they believed that their scope for acquisition was biased towards those with entrenched privileges, being economically well off, literate, and male. This new generation of archivists had an inclusive and less

70 Archival appraisal briefly reviewed in historical context legalistic definition of what constituted a record for acquisition, one they believed would better express the connections in society, or show its disjunctions. These holistic connections among memory objects were either severed by the acquisition focus of large bureaucratic archives or were ignored by them because their scope was too narrow. These ideas about records and the archives’ social role, in turn, influenced archivists working in the archives of large organizations and bureaucracies, especially public authority archives serving states or national governments. On one level, some archivists developed critiques of their parent organization, especially the quality of its records and records-keeping systems. Poor records indifferently controlled compromised their ability to account to the public’s interest in its governance. Others sought ways to articulate assumptions and ideas that were not explicit in their programmes or in the records they acquired. This developing critique is probably best seen as part of an emerging sense in all archives that their responsibilities, in either preservation or appraisal, meant that they needed to acknowledge the assumptions and beliefs that comprised the culture of the larger parent organization if they were to acquire, describe, and provide reference to records that originated in unique functions. On another level, archivists actively sought allies among the emerging profession of records managers; both could use control of records creation and disposition, classification and scheduling as tools in their business. Many archives also looked beyond the borders of their institutions to form alliances with other partners in schemes of documentary preservation that had a scope not entertained by previous generations. They also began to look beyond documents to seek what was not recorded.

4.6 Appraisal as a key archival activity, its links to acquisition, and the emergence of functional analysis and memory Today appraisal is generally recognized to be a critical archival function whose exercise has a continuing and profound impact

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on the archives and eventually on society and history. Since the 1970s many new ideas have been discussed to deepen the intellectual springs that feed appraisal and innovative methods have been proposed and tried in continuing efforts to bring a lasting coherence to the many tasks of appraisal, especially to its formative role in controlling acquisitions to achieve clear goals and to be of the highest possible quality. Discussions of methods, the distinguishing qualities of a coherent programme, and of the best strategic orientations for the archives, have been largely initiatives in the archival community itself. This quest shows no sign of slowing down. Those archives that also had roles in the management of current records for their parent also developed greater independence as advisors, especially as their experience grew. Most soon realized that decisions made concerning current records eventually will affect the archives. The long-term implications of current issues in records-making and keeping were better seen from a position of independence. Distance and a long-term view helped clarify the possible impact of alternatives on records and society. As a result, better advice may be given to managers responsible for current records. Traditional and newer forms of alliance with the managers of current records in offices also have been found wanting, because these have almost always made the archive a dependant of the priorities or current goals for administration and its records. Records disposition schedules and the processes for their development that initially seemed to hold promise for archive use too, also have been less complete in their control over records or in the information they provide the appraisal archivist. Moreover, several years of experience in records management sharpened the distinction between the goal of each function – many archives rethought these alliances and some have reallocated resources to concentrate on appraisal for acquisition rather than on the perfection of tools for managing records. Schedules, like the well-tried records survey, are just two tools among the many that seem likely to be needed to make appraisal effective as a strategic foundation in the business of “archiving”.

72 Archival appraisal briefly reviewed in historical context The method of appraisal for acquisition may need to be separated, at least conceptually, from the technique used for acquisition. Linking the two is often a practical necessity, as in the records survey or disposition schedules, but each activity needs to be seen as distinct and independent. Current thinking in appraisal is coalescing to support some form of the functional analysis as a complete multi-stage process for analysing business processes and activities, for weighing their relative values to the organization, and for assessing their needs for records and information systems. The concept of a function accomplished or proved by the records it creates is not entirely new, being a basic concept in diplomacy. However, modern discussions have somewhat altered perspectives and use the language of management and business process re-engineering. In addition, the archival versions of functional analysis are tied directly to appraisal and to subsequent acquisitions. The archivist assesses functions and business processes in the first instance rather than focusing on the records they produce. Functional analysis, as a framework within which to conduct appraisal, is clearly well suited to archives that are responsible for records from organizations that have established functions and a regular structure for their business – this may be the “business” of running a symphony orchestra, or it could be the governance of a state or nation, or it could be a postsecondary institution of education. Corporate persons are knit by functions, and functions are often associated with related organizational structures. While each part of an organization contributes something to the whole – otherwise it would not be there – not all parts contribute things that are of equal value, either to its officers, or to others who have legitimate interests in it. Functional analysis encourages the archivist to understand the organization before addressing its records. Functional analysis has other uses beyond appraisal. It is very important in the process of designing records systems and as a consequence appears often in the language of standards. Functional analysis also provides the analyst with a method for probing complex activities to reveal dependencies, dislocations

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and other relationships. It seems to hold promise as a useful way to understand people in their capacities as a professional, for example, a doctor or an accountant. However, from the archivist’s perspective it is not a technique that fits effortlessly with the appraisal of materials created by individuals, either as private persons or in their many capacities and social relationships. Artists, writers, and social support groups, for example, have many activities and produce considerable documents in these activities. But whether these are a good fit with the model of functional analysis is moot. The emotional and psychological motivations for making records, especially evident in personal documents, such as diaries, journals, and the testaments of creative work are not easily accommodated in the concept of a function as it has been articulated up to this point. Recent discussion of memory and its manifestation in personal documents and collectively in archives holds promise to bridge this gap, perhaps to be a meta-concept in appraisal, which has room for many different views on documents and on the archive’s role in society. Remembering and its polar opposite, forgetting, are notions of purposeful actions that have profound implications for people, organizations, and society: they affect knowledge and conscience in time and space. Since the 1950s the literature discussing appraisal, particularly the diversity of methods for doing it, suggests no broad agreement on fundamentals – on the theory that should animate appraisal, on the essential characteristics of an archive, of its core functions and role in organizations and society as a whole. There are ample examples of these contrasts. Jenkinson’s discussion of appraisal is largely negative in intent, refuting arguments which support the archivist’s independence in further selecting the records they have or will receive. Custody brings moral and physical imperatives of responsible behaviour that are undermined by tampering with records for reasons not derived from the situation in which they arose and were set aside for keeping. Although Jenkinson also saw the role of the archivist as advisor to agencies on matters of good records keeping in the office, he never elaborated on his idea. We may presume that archival

74 Archival appraisal briefly reviewed in historical context advice would include guidance to avoid unnecessary duplication. The systems of reviews that were put in place following the report of the Grigg Committee in the 1950s and the Public Records Act of 1958, incorporated more concrete procedures for giving advice and established a useful practice for dealing with the modern records that Jenkinson saw coming but with which his practical experience was limited. Schellenberg’s discussions emphasized the independent role of the archives in selecting what it deems worth while. These ideas of worth, further developed by his colleagues, and later expanded and elaborated by others with growing experience in appraisal, suggested record types that were valuable for history and users of records for historical purposes. Rather than emphasizing the responsibilities implied by acquisition, these archivists emphasized the opportunity in acquisition and the responsibility to make choices based on proven values and anticipated uses. These ideas emphasized different functional roles of the archivist and of the repository over time.

4.7 Electronic records revitalize interest in appraisal The growing use of digital media, electronic communications, and magnetic or laser etched supports for records as well as for information, statistics, and other types of visual, text and numeric data, adds a newly expanded technical dimension to appraisal. Whether there is any significant difference between a record which is found in paper or electronic form is not agreed. But on the balance it seems more than likely that the circumstantial supports that stabilize traditional systems – paper support, postal communications, and information readable by the unaided eye – are not automatically transferred into e-systems. Capabilities for continuing access and readability will need to be specifically addressed. Matters are confused in a technologically complex environment because people have no generally agreed definition of a record. The most useful one, from an organization’s point of view, would incorpo-

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rate the legal definition and requirements in their jurisdiction. If these are not catered for when records are made and kept, and particularly when records technologies are changed or transformed, the organization places itself at an unnecessary risk. System requirements for making and keeping records for a long time and the characteristics of records required by law, are matters of particular importance to records professionals who work with current records and information systems as designers, information entrepreneurs, and records managers. But personal records that have minimal if any legal requirements to meet are equally unstable and at risk: They are as vulnerable to changing technologies as records in organizations but individuals are less able to cope systematically with media deterioration and obsolescence. Archivists as professionals with the responsibility for preservation and access to historical records through time – who in some organizations and situations, may be the same person as the information manager – have additional interests in these transformations because of their impact on records keeping over the long term. The interest is not new, but an old one; however, the practicalities of many situations, including rapid transformation from established practices to new systems, inadequate planning for change management, and technical specialists unaccustomed to business and social requirements for records and communication, have upset what was accepted as a reasonable balance in a customary records regime using technologies such as paper and microfilm with which people have familiarity and are comfortable. The potential for loss of personal documents retained in electronic systems seems even greater. The new technologies have exposed weaknesses in records keeping especially in procedures which have not been sufficiently robust to adjust to new technology by enabling clear articulation of business needs for records retention and controlled access to them for full accountability. Among the many effects of this new environment on archivists has been to thrust appraisal to the forefront of interest. Many knowledgeable people agree that the responsibility for establishing retention requirements must be assumed from the beginning of a record

76 Archival appraisal briefly reviewed in historical context regime. The organizational implications of establishing procedures to fully recognize the requirements for managing records in electronic forms are not yet in place in either government or business – and the impact of computer technologies on personal records, especially on their survival in readable forms have yet to be fully appreciated by those who use them. Recent calls to locate the function of appraisal at the time systems are designed echo Jenkinson but in a new register. He also located appraisal in the creating environment, but he saw the function to be the prime responsibility of those who made and used the records, arguing that decisions on retention should reflect the needs and ideas of those who were most involved in making and using them. If records are extensions of people in action, then it was the responsibility of these people to decide the memory they were to assign to their successors. The contemporary version of this idea includes far more participants in assessing the value of records than the creators, including archivists whose interests are for the long-term strategic accumulation of historical sources. The differences between the current situation and what was the case over a half century ago should not be minimized. But these also need to be understood within the contexts which gave them their unique shape and substance. Perhaps the most significant differences between the early twentieth and twenty-first centuries relate less to their dominant technologies, whose differences are obvious, than to the social or moral universe of large public bureaucracies, which are largely transparent to us and may be only fully understood with the effort of research and analysis. Nevertheless, some features seem to be obvious. Today, officers in public authority organizations are less cohesive as a group and all members may not share the same values of service and respect for memory. Perhaps it is because the life of a public servant no longer runs parallel with his or her working life in the organization. Moreover, frequent changes in personnel and the vast expansion in operations, as took place in government and industry during two world wars, affect the fabric of organizations. What was once an innate but strong sense of the long term, especially in large

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bureaucracies with a substantial history and life-long officers, is now imperfectly grasped. This long-term view continues to be espoused by archivists who are now the only professionals who brings this view explicitly to the table. Where Sir Hilary Jenkinson saw agreement embodied in a culturally robust civil service dedicated to ideals of public service and knit together by agreed ways of doing business and telling each other about it, archivists today do not usually view their organizations as being socially homogeneous. Perhaps with the experience of profound loss in this century, we are more aware of the damage to the nature of the record passed on to the future from abuse or careless action. In an electronic environment, the threats to the records are most potent in the short term, largely in the first instance from the volatile nature of their substance and media, but also clearly from the problems of securing continuing meta-data that is reliable and trustworthy in changing systems. These uncertainties heighten the archivists’ interests because of their responsibility for appraisal and preservation over the long term. Recently, some have suggested again that fate may best determine what survives, providing a justification that normalizes a status-quo. The archives for example, may comfortably adopt a quasi-reactive role, now making forays to acquire, now waiting for approaches to be made. However, fate does not recognize human actors. Archives are essentially human institutions with a modest brief to help society function better by providing evidence and information about humanity’s experience in documents and through their usefulness as evidence. Archives provide many paths into different types of memory and versions of the past. Archives and archivists should resist neo-fatalism with vigour. Nevertheless, it seems to be less than helpful to seek only the one perfect method and the universally best practices. Since these are so intimately connected with the context in which they are undertaken, no one cloth can be cut to fit all. A more useful exercise is to understand the common grounds and common problems that all archivists share in appraisal, and to seek the emerging agreements they have about its nature and how to do

78 Archival appraisal briefly reviewed in historical context it. The results should give us clearer views of its differing mechanisms and communities of interest. The aim of a clearer view is to make choices in action better informed.

Key Readings: Luciana Duranti, “The concept of appraisal and archival theory.” American Archivist 57 (Spring 1994): 328–344. John D. Cantwell, “William Hardy, Third Deputy Keeper, 1878–1886” in The Public Record Office, 1838–1958 (London 1991): 287–304. Sir Hilary Jenkinson, Manual of Archive Administration (London 1937): 1–22, 136–155. Barbara L. Craig, “Rethinking official knowing and its practices. The British Treasury’s Registry between Two World Wars” in Dynamism and Stability in Knowledge Organization, Proceedings of the Sixth International ISKO Conference, 10–13 July 2000 eds., Clare Beghtol, Lynne C. Howarth and Nancy J. Williamson (Wurzburg 2000): 213–218. John D. Cantwell, “Jenkinson and Evans: The last old-Style Deputy Keepers, 1947–1958.” in The Public Record Office, 1838–1958, (London 1991): 445–507. T. R. Schellenberg, Modern Archives, Principles and Techniques, Chicago, 1956). Richard Stapleton, “Jenkinson and Schellenberg: A comparison.” Archivaria 17 (Winter 1983-84): 75–84. F. Gerald Ham “The archival edge” American Archivist 38 (January 1975) 5–13. F. Gerald Ham, “Archival strategies for the post-custodial era” American Archivist 44 (Summer 1981): 107–16. F. Gerald Ham, “Archival choices. Managing historical records in an age of abundance” American Archivist 47 (Winter 1984): 11–22. Tywanna Whorley, “The Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the politics of memory.” in Archives and the Public Good. Accountability and Records in Modern Society, Richard J. Cox and David A. Wallace eds., (London and Westport, ct., 2002): 165–176. Sue McKemmish and Frank Upward, eds., Archival documents. providing accountability through recordkeeping. (Melbourne, 1993). Eldon Frost, “A weak link in the chain: Records scheduling as a source of archival acquisition”, Archivaria 33 (Winter 1991–92).

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Brien Brothman, “The past that archives keep: memory, history and the preservation of archival records” Archivaria 51 (Spring 2001): 48–80. Verne Harris, “Law, evidence and electronic records: a strategic perspective from the global periphery.” A paper delivered at the ICA 2000. Adrian Cunningham, “Beyond the pale? The ‘flinty’ relationship between archivists who collect the private records of individuals and the rest of the archival profession.” Archives and Manuscripts 24/1 (May 1996): 20–25. Functional analysis and its integration with appraisal is discussed in documents on the website of the National Archives of Canada at <www.archives.ca/> Barbara L. Craig, “Rethinking formal knowledge and its practices in the organization: The British Treasury’s Registry between 1900–1950” Archival Science (2002):111–136. <www.naa.gov.au> is the website of the National Archives of Australia. It provides considerable information about the methodology recommended for Designing and Implementing Recordkeeping Systems (DIRKS) and the objectives of appraisal for selecting records for the archives within the framework of that methodology for good corporate records management and to meet the needs of the National Archives.

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CHAPTER FIVE

Practising appraisal – common grounds and common problems

“Appraisal has long been regarded as the single most important archival function. The appraisal process determines the fate of our documentary heritage and thereby contains perhaps the only socially significant element of archival power.” Roy Schaeffer, “Transcendent concepts: power, appraisal, and the archivist as ‘social outcast’.” American Archivist 55/4 (Fall 1992): 609.

5.1

Agreements about appraisal

Although the literature on appraisal is surprisingly large, it is skewed to discussions of methods, frequently in the context of special projects when new ideas are tried. The literature identifies a number of elements that repeatedly have been found to be important considerations in appraisal, things such as workable and specific mandates, planning for appraisal and acquisition, and adequate resources for work. However, general agreement on the importance of appraisal in professional responsibilities has yet to find a working means of professional audit. Nor are there generally agreed ways of doing appraisal that are common to

82 Practising appraisal types of institution, such as a public authority archive or a hospital archive. Nevertheless, a useful way to understand appraisal is to seek common elements that bridge diverse mandates, responsibilities and situations in general. It is also fruitful to listen for agreements that may not be clearly voiced. Differences in situation or mandate are usually very clear, being the unique features that are stressed in specific documents or discussions. But an equal number of similarities may not be emphasized or declared explicitly. The value of seeking agreement rather than distinctions is to locate what is common in diverse experiences and discussions of appraisal. These common elements may help us isolate larger concepts that may be obscured by the details of a concrete situation. Although each individual case is deprived of that which makes it unique, this loss may expose structures common to each one: it is the structure that this book suggests is the most important commonality in appraisal.

5.2 Important to develop and then articulate a theory of appraisal The values we seek in appraisal are the engine that drives all methods and techniques – these values motivate assessments, support recommendations and justify decisions. Archives and archivists clearly should be making every effort to articulate explicitly the values they seek in records. This book does not promote any one set of values. But it urges that the exercise be done for the clarity it will bring to whatever method is selected by the archive or that an institution develops to suit its programme better and uniquely.

5.2.1 Appraisal as a function and appraisal theory – the difference Appraisal, as the valuation of records to determine how long they should be kept – in the case of an archive for a long term – is guided by the working methods of the archival repository or

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programme. It is focused on achieving the goals of the archive and will have, along the way, a number of objectives that appraisal must meet. Some examples would include meeting acquisition targets for a source, agency or group, pruning or restructuring holdings to reflect better revised goals, or supporting statutory requirements for managing current records and protecting public interests. Nevertheless, these declared and often highly visible guides for an institution’s work are also shaped by archival ideas that are less tangible and many be only known within a small group that works together every day. Appraisal has a theoretical dimension, especially in the area of values sought by the appraisers and the sources they use to help them develop their ideas and sense of value. It is important to separate the reasons and the rationale for the function of appraisal in a specific organization, from a general theory, or more correctly, philosophy of appraisal – the ideas guiding appraisal that are established by the existential and acknowledged point of view of the archivist. In the case of the former, we can point to the needs for effective management of resources and space, and the ideal of seamless and smooth operations of corporate information places and sites, whether these be paper registries or electronic systems for information exchange and for records keeping. The rationale for appraisal and its utility is a business one. In the case of the latter, the appraiser seeks compelling and persuasive intellectual guides for selecting records that fit, represent, or express the moral universe brought into being in an organization or in a social context by people and their activities that are expressed in documents. Most theoretical ideas of appraisal are less concerned with the contents of documents, subject information and individual datum and data sets, than with the relationships expressed by documents, responsibilities for actions accomplished by the documents, and the accountability to others made tangible by the objective existence of documents that can be interrogated in the public interest and be read for private purposes. Few archivists have explored formally the theories that either do or should animate appraisal and its methods. Values are often

84 Practising appraisal implied by the methods used and the goal that appraisal is to achieve. There are clearly several sources that archives have customarily used to seek values – the needs of users based on experience with them; the needs and values of the creators of records; the values of the marketplace; and the values that are agreed in society at large. These may not be the same, they will clearly change over time, and each one may often be at odds with the others. In fact there is no simple, correct, or universal value to be found that could be a standard for everyone. This reality suggests that seeking to recognize real life plurality rather than seeking to reflect conformity may build better archives over time. Very often, you will find that theoretical foundations are implied in the terms of practical discussions. With some effort, theoretical foundations or assumptions could be sketched for many methods even if these are not explicitly declared. For example, Jenkinson clearly identified the creator as the source for values in records. Schellenberg found his values in historiography and the interests of the historical users of archives. Ham and later generations tried to visualize broader social values and were especially sensitive to the memory of the individual. Theories of archives and about appraisal, and frank discussions of these, are important for practical reasons. Theoretical explorations allow us to map the broad landscape for appraisal activities from the points of view established in an institution’s acquisition mandate. Theory, and its intellectual supports in logic and argument, also allow archivists eventually to isolate the essential core that is frequently concealed by the detail of records in their fullness of contexts and in the varieties of their current uses. Theoretical distillations allow us to see what is common in many diverse cases. From this essential understanding we are better able to see what is repetitive in the records and information (if anything) and what are, by contrast, unique attributes. Theory should establish, in abstract, what the archival function is expected to do and why it is there at all. A theory of appraisal would explore the sources that should provide the values that the archive and its archivists seek to recognize in their appraisals. Clearly the essential nature of archives and the values we seek to

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recognize in appraisal are related: they exist symbiotically: One alone is less complete without the other to nurture it. Post-modern perspectives on records and archives, such as feminist theory or structuration ideas, expand our sense of the possible meanings in records and accumulations of these. Far from “deconstructing” the archive, post-modern ideas expand its potential while at the same time exposing the importance of the archivists’ role in creating or shaping the archives. Archivists cannot help but shape archives to mean something. By recognizing our instrumentality and our creativity as participants in the archive, post-modern views underscore the importance of engagement with theory and with its articulation and declarations in a formal way. This is not to say that there no longer is value in history, or social anthropology, or philosophy or other forms of theory. Far from it: it is by the active pursuit of theoretical discussions that we establish what the archive is, can be and should be – this would be a fully developed theory of archives – and what sources or foundations we recognize in doing appraisal – this would be a fully developed theory of appraisal. Each archival institution and its archivists should understand what their archive is and what role appraisal fulfils in relation to this idea. These theoretical understandings will shape the methods for appraisal and protection of records for continuing uses. No one theory, either of archives or of appraisal, should be expected to fit all archival repositories or archival functions in organizations. The theories of archives and appraisal and the methods they support will be shaped and molded by many of the same or related ideas that inform human disciplines and guide methodical business engineering. For example, history and our understanding of it, one way or another, will affect our views on the past and make our present experiences coherent in relationship to it. Our personal understanding of the past and history, perhaps of sociology, or of politics, even of popular culture and post-modern disjunctions, cannot but affect our general approach to archival jobs. These can and should be articulated to help us understand what archives mean in our own contexts and what we aim to achieve by doing appraisal.

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5.2.2

Theory and method – the relationship

The archivist’s understanding of the reality/ies they aim to represent in their acquisitions, and the values they use for their appraisals for selection will have a formative impact on the methods they choose for doing appraisal. Methods are developed to reflect accurately key elements of a need. That need or those needs, either of defined groups such as a business enterprise or of composite groups such as “society”, or “human experiences”, or “social justice” will be in mind when methods are proposed. Methods also reflect agreements on ways of doing business and allow the play of power in the group. Methods do not have a vision. Methods do not cater for the unique but promote repetition and regularity for the purpose of control. Theory that is clear and articulated is the strongest foundation for methods. Methods are procedural by contrast to the speculative and abstract nature of theory. Methods “operationalize” tasks and lay out the jobs to be done. To be effective, a method should tie or link a theory to a concrete situation – a method is not an end in itself. One reason many types of method have been developed is that each expresses a particular theoretical understanding of the purpose of appraisal and its goal in the archive’s economy. In some cases these theoretical ideas may not be explicit but only be implied by the method and its assumptions.

5.3 A systematic, archive-directed appraisal is favoured as a strategy It is becoming more common for archives to implement their mandates in the active pursuit of acquisitions using appraisal that is systematic and phased according to the work plan of the institution or programme. Systematic and planned approaches that are strategically conceptualized have four key features: a broad scoping of the area described in the mandate to establish a global view of an entire field; a top-down approach to appraisal moving from function, theme, area, and components, through an

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organization’s structures and then to the records themselves; a continuous and planned sequence of activities integrated with an institution’s or programme’s resources and priorities; in-depth research, current and historical, to develop a full understanding of the records-keeping environment.

5.3.1 The macro-appraisal strategy Macro-appraisal is a systematic and strategic approach to doing appraisal for acquisition. It was developed by the National Archives of Canada. Macro-appraisal is animated by a developed theory of appraisal values, seeking these in the interaction between the citizen and the state – in this way the relationship of society to the state is seen to unfold through its documents kept over time. The ideals of democratic accountability are clearly present. Further refinements of macro-appraisal theory have deepened the notion of citizen/State interaction to embrace more comprehensive analyses of civil society beyond government and the State. Moreover, the initial concept of the interaction of citizen to the State is attractive because it could be exported or applied in other types of organization – such as a business, a bank, or a social action group – with modest adjustments to accommodate the new situation and a change in language to focus on the interaction of a client group with the larger organization. The relationship of each member or part to the whole, and the implied responsibilities of power or authority exercised by the larger over the smaller resonates with many types of organization and activities in society beyond government and business. The details would depend on the organization, its goals, its mission, and its business functions. Functional analysis is also married to macro-appraisal at the National Archives of Canada. In operation, it has become a fully developed working scheme for a top-down approach to total appraisal. The linking of a theory with an analytical framework and then to a method of procedure tied to cyclical plans, agreements on appraisal targets with agencies, and in-depth research on functions, contexts, and records, also moving from the top-down in each project, seems to be developing to become a flexible way

88 Practising appraisal to unite many archive functions. The most productive and articulate exponent of macro-appraisal is Terry Cook who developed the model while an archivist at the National Archives of Canada. Macro-appraisal is developed on a number of levels, making it a self-contained, and self-referential scheme that is suited to procedurally-oriented business carried on in an organization that has structural clarity. At the highest level, it is a business process for scoping functions and their competencies. Macro-appraisal is also a guide to the conduct of appraisal, at any time and at any level. The direction of activity is always first from function through structure and only later to the records produced by these. Moreover, the concept of “macro” provides a parallel top-down direction for each individual appraisal project. Despite the emphasis on the strategic aspects of macro-appraisal, the method provides a nuanced process for seeking records of quality that reflect the values sought. Macro-appraisal is distinguished from micro-appraisal by the focus of its interest. Micro-appraisal concentrates on individual documents and groups of documents, assessing and weighing their values according to specific criteria, either of a general nature, or special criteria developed to address a certain body of records, such as police case files, or immigration files. Macro-appraisal, by contrast, concentrates on an analysis of the origins of records (either explicit or implicit), in functions, responsibilities, and activities. Records or other information artefacts are seen as representing these in concrete form. The valuing of both is then done according to whatever theory or view the appraiser espouses: so for example, the National Archives of Canada seeks to document the interaction of the citizen with the State in all of the ways that this is manifest and important in a unique history. The idea of citizen/State or client/organization interaction, made explicit, demonstrates the importance of articulating theoretical ideas, about what the archives are, and how appraisal is to act as the test to assess this in records, and with that in mind, how the method of appraisal is to be constructed to reveal this most efficiently and expeditiously for the archives, given their resources and other responsibilities. Either macro or micro-

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appraisal can be animated by the same theory, point of view or goal. It is the sequence of analysis that differs. All of the tools that archivists have used in the past, such as surveys, lists of document types and forms ranked in value based on experience, and working links to front-end records management through records retention schedules, and newer tools, such as assessments of collection strengths and weaknesses, and reappraisal of acquisitions of suspicious or unclear origins are countenanced by macro-appraisal. The problems of multiple, fragile media and rapidly changing technologies, are contemplated in systematic and top-down approaches to appraisal. Distinction of media and their technologies have practical implications for acquisitions. Many archives are not fully equipped to handle the profusion of supports for documents that have exploded since the 1960s. Competition drives the market of products that change often to introduce new, more attractive capabilities or models that will appeal to users. Manufacturers have paid little attention to effective and affordable ways of ensuring their products survive in useable forms. Software and hardware are driven out of the market or rendered obsolete by newer versions and the documents made by earlier versions may as a result of change be no longer readable or useable. Electronic documents have a short lifespan. However, the systematic approach to appraisal is well suited to helping institutions deal with rapid change because it is not just done at one time, but works best when it is continuous. It promotes a planned approach to targets based on assessments of value and capabilities, and it is an archive-directed activity, not one driven by technology or media interests. Technological change underscores the importance of assessing technology as one of the many contexts which surround records and communications.

5.3.2

The documentation strategy

Macro-appraisal has a close relative in the documentation strategy: they share may of the same presumptions. They seek similar goals and they use similar tools. The documentation strategy was

90 Practising appraisal conceived largely, although not exclusively, to assist archives in developing rational approaches to acquiring documentation from individuals and diverse private-sector organizations in a specific geographic area. It has also been explored as a procedure and a process for approaching many diverse records creators deemed by a planning group to be pertinent to the themes or subjects that they seek to document historically and in the future. The classic exploration of the strategic approach to documentation is by Larry Hackman and Joan Warnow Blewett. As it has been developed in the United States, a documentation strategy is proposed as a method for systematically doing appraisal and acquisition. The strategy also shares other elements with macro-appraisal, particularly the top-down approach to defining a field and then to doing the tasks or projects that are defined by the plan of work for appraisal and then subsequent acquisitions The goal is to identify and then acquire valuable records. Resources are focused on achieving that goal rather than being divided to support participation in other areas related to records-keeping, such as the processes of retention scheduling, or as advocates for some form of accountability in records. It also has used functional analysis: this is especially relevant when a strategy for building documentation is adopted within one organization. The documentation strategy may be a framework to shape the collective efforts of more than one repository, for example a network or alliance of institutions in a city or state. It also may be a useful approach to the development of historical collections within one organization. The documentation strategy within one institution was developed by Helen Samuels for a university, Nancy McCall and Lisa Mix, for a university medical centre, and by Joan Krizack for understanding the documentation of twentieth-century healthcare in the United States. Each of these iterations includes a global scoping of an entire field, theme or area, a top-down approach to work, initially in developing a global understanding of the key elements that the strategy subsequently seeks to document. All use tools to analyse functions or to structure a systematic analysis of roles. And all explicitly tie appraisal to acquisition in the specific projects they undertake.

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5.3.3. The Minnesota method In keeping with the diverse needs and interests of archives, we may expect to see a continuing development of appraisal methods, suited to particular environments and the capabilities of institutions or programmes. A recent example is the method developed at the Minnesota Historical Society by Mark Greene, Todd J. Daniels-Howell and their colleagues and dubbed the Minnesota method by them. It adopts the macro approach, it uses aspects of the documentation strategy, it integrates appraisal and acquisition with an analysis of collection strengths and weaknesses, and it establishes multiple levels for assessing creators, records, and collection needs. The method integrates many ideas, approaches, and tools developed by others, in a unique combination suited to the needs and interests of a specific archives. The method scopes an area – business activity in Minnesota – and weighs the contribution of each sector to the state’s economy in understanding its impact beyond that suggested by size, gross product, and numbers of employees. The global approach to a structured and systematic assessment of an area scoped by the institution’s mandate and its socioeconomic position embraces macro and strategic thinking as the foundation for understanding the contexts in which documentation could be appraised and acquired. The method also provides guidance for appraisers based on extensive and intensive research that has been done into the area or topic and its current and past documentary profile, and into the holdings already acquired for preservation and access. This assessment of the institution’s strengths and weaknesses highlights areas for remedial attention and/or development. It is a top-down, systematic method that is comprehensive in its guidance for appraisal and acquisition. The aim of the method was to systematize the Society’s approach to appraisal and acquisition with the goal of improving both. Macro-appraisal, the documentation strategy, and the Minnesota method are all archive-directed methods for taking control of their own fate in doing appraisal for acquisition. Each of these methodical approaches welcomes and integrates other

92 Practising appraisal techniques, such as the identification of acquisition targets, perhaps in a multi-year planning cycle to deploy resources rationally and according to expectations, or the process of analyzing risks related to the presence or absence of documents, or the assessment of a historically accumulated archive to see it in the light of current concerns and to understand its development as an aspect of the archives’ own history. In all methods research is essential, before appraisal is done and during its work. Intensive research, in fact, is the only secure foundation of any systematic approach.

5.4 Tools should be used and developed further as needed In the past half-century, archivists developed a number of instruments to assist appraisal, especially in establishing a sense of the nature and quantity of documents to be found in the areas established by their acquisition mandates. These tools, depending on their design, may also help other tasks and functions. They can be used to locate conservation problems, reveal unsuspected weaknesses in records-keeping systems or gaps in records. Most provide more information than is used initially and begin the process of building official knowledge in the institution. Most continue to be used because of their proven worth. They also may help institutions cope with larger problems in the management of current records. These tools include the records survey, to scope records by type, content, location and uses; the records schedule, to guide retention and disposal; the appraisal checklist, to guide systematic process and to build documentation of appraisal activities; the collection assessment, to describe areas of strength and weakness in existing holdings; lists of document types and forms, to rank their possible values for legal, administrative, financial or historical purposes; and comprehensive appraisal reports, to structure the presentation of data in support of recommendations. Reports embody the fruits of extensive research and analysis and provide arguments in support of a proposed appraisal decision. Many of the areas that a full appraisal report would address would be

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specific to a jurisdiction or repository where it was developed. As a result it would need to be customized to suit the needs of other repositories that decided to use it. Nevertheless, there are many similarities among all of these tools, each one including areas for information about records-keeping systems and codes, functions and users, and restrictions on access. In fact, a good place to begin assembling a menu of areas in which to do research to collect data is suggested by the ISO standard for managing records (ISO 15489). Archivists generally agree that the tools they develop or adopt for use, such as those identified above, are useful, perhaps even necessary to support the detail and complexity of analysis required in appraisal. But it is important to always bear in mind that no one instrument alone or set of instruments combined will accomplish appraisal without careful and thoughtful direction to guide their use. They do not solve a problem, but they will enable richer analyses and better records of it. The records survey, perhaps the longest established instrument supporting micro-appraisal and subsequent acquisitions, illustrates the adaptability of all types of tools, even those developed for specific purposes. The records survey or structured inventory of records has been used in a number of different types of programme and for many diverse purposes – there are examples from the early nineteenth century that still are useful today for the information they have about records and conditions. Public authority and corporate archives use surveys to find out what records are being created and kept. Survey information then may be used to support records management, legislative compliance, audit and system design. Theme archives, or historical collections use the survey to develop an understanding of the records that form their universe, usually by a systematic collection of information about records creators and the location of specific records in organizations or with private persons. It has been used many times to locate what is “ripe” for acquisition and was the foundation for many archives and historic records programmes. Well-established archival programmes may also use surveys for acquisitions support. The survey is then followed by formal contacts with potential donors to begin negotiations which will lead to acquisition.

94 Practising appraisal The simple survey for acquisition, used as a scoping device or beam to illuminate a universe, may be integrated with other types of appraisal programmes. For example, a documentation strategy could use a modified version of the survey. It would serve all the partners in a planning committee and would be specially directed to their aims for acquisition. The survey may also have additional benefits for the archive. The survey, as a focus and goal, can cultivate both clients and relationships, locating useful advisors or information about records, identifying possible acquisitions and contributing useful information on many other matters that may be germane to appraisal, description, and the continuing preservation of authentic records. Formal records or information management programmes use surveys as scoping devices. Each instrument or tool may also support the development of records schedules, the negotiation of specific disposition agreements for records and provide key information to support the systematic development of procedures for controlled access to records.

5.5 Appraisal based solely on locating values in specific records is largely unworkable Planned approaches to appraisal and acquisition such as macroappraisal, the documentation strategy, Minnesota method, and other similar initiatives are all animated by a presumption that a focus on documents in the first instance, perhaps to match these to criteria of value based on past experience with such records as they were created and kept in hierarchical organizations, is no longer either an accurate assessment of their nature or a workable approach to a job. But more importantly, these initiatives further presume that the assessment of documents according to criteria neglects a key aim of appraisal which is to locate records and creators in their related contexts of organization and society and, given current conditions, those of technology. An assessment of the functions of the organization, in the first instance, is vitally important to do before addressing the records these produce and their changing location and relationship to its structure(s) over

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time. More attention must be directed to functions, functional relationships of documents to people and group memory, if appraisal in the future is to shape the structure of the archive to reflect consistently any single value or set of values the archive seeks actively to recognize. Focusing on the web of relationships may also help restore the unity to the documentary world that appears so fractured by competing technologies, formats and systems. Nevertheless, the valuing of documents remains a fundamental task for all institutions, regardless of their methods of appraisal. It has a considerable history in working methods of appraisal and quite clearly, records are the objects that are valued in the commercial markets of cultural property. Criteria for weighing the values of records, based on currency in the marketplace, or on possible uses by others for historically focused research, were developed by archives to guide appraisers using the institution’s accumulated knowledge of the uses to which the records had or could be put. Criteria, such as age, importance to the organizations, location in the hierarchy, concentration of information, uniqueness, and the like, were used to rank records according to a rating of value. Schellenberg emphasized the values of information contained in the records, classified as evidence of functions or as information about programmes, events, policies, and ideas. This method of ranking and rating of records, based on a classification of values, continues to be used by many institutions as a working calculus to guide appraisal. Even macro approaches to functions and relationships integrate microappraisal at critical points in the process, but often selectively, once other analytical work and research has identified likely sources for quality records. It seems likely that criteria, specific to an archive or to the experience of many archives, will continue to be important in appraisal but will be used in conjunction with other more global methods of assessment that initially isolate the possible sources for valuable information that needs to be explored at the micro level. There are a number of lists of criteria for valuing individual records, in textbooks and manuals, and at local institutions,

96 Practising appraisal built as a result of their own experience. These are important tools to support appraisal because they embody the fruits and judgements of experience in archives that have done appraisal over many years.

5.6 Appraisal shaped by a group may better reflect values and support more rational, co-operative acquisitions Appraisal may be stronger when a number of people, perspectives, and points of view are invited to contribute. A broader set of participants is one way to recognize a broader “appraisal community”, catering for their views by a process of inclusion. Macro-appraisal and the documentation strategy include a number of participants, in planning, in doing the appraisal, in making the final decisions, in implementing appraisal decisions to acquire records, and in evaluation and replanning. Advisory boards, records committees, and records management programmes that use schedules to manage records disposal, are established ways to involve stakeholders in agreeing and implementing decisions. Indeed, there are probably many other equally good ways and practices for this inclusion. The role of the archivist is pivotal. The archivist almost always does the formal appraisal and recommends courses of action. Their knowledge and experience often give them credibility as arbitrators among different views and normally they are charged with implementing a group’s decisions. The aim of inclusion through participation is to focus different needs and voices on the issues of appraisal and to achieve closure through agreement that shows respect and involves stakeholders. Competence resides with the archivist but this can be strengthened by involving others whose knowledge brings perspectives that come from the community and may reflect other dimensions of its values. Methods of appraisal which incorporate participation of a number of interests are differentiated by the degree of autonomy afforded any one participant for the decision, the mechanism used to complete appraisal analysis, the manner and extent the

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participants are involved in monitoring compliance, and the procedures for seeking, or recognizing voices not allocated a formal place in the process. Participation may be restricted to players within one institution, for example, all archivists acting as a larger “community of interest” and reviewing appraisals in a form of peer review that is well known in the academy, or it may involve many groups and organizations in a network either to accomplish one task or to establish a more permanent network for sharing. Macro-appraisal, acquisitions targets and plans, documentation strategy, records disposal scheduling are all methods that rely on participation of a number of people and are animated by the ideals of community and its multiplicity of interests. Systematic approaches suggest that co-operation among institutions and programmes, on a number of levels, is a useful support not only for appraisal but also for the acquisitions of any one. Recent development in on-line catalogues are making controlled description of collections widely accessible. The information they have about records and sources increases our understanding of the total universe of historical documents and seems to hold promise of future developments to rationalize collections and make better use of resources. These developments are some time in the future, but the prospect is real and it supports recent projects among institutions to co-operate in appraisal and in subsequent acquisitions. The documentation strategy, as a model, and in the various real projects carried out using its structure as a guide, embrace many people and archives as formal participants in planning, in appraisal and in subsequent acquisitions. As a conceptual model, the documentation strategy is both comprehensive in coverage, participatory in design and implementation, and contributory in the development of its values and plans. The strategy includes a key advisory group of interested parties who have a stake in the theme or subject area. The group plans the strategic initiatives and co-ordinates activities and deposits of material. The advisory committee may include representatives from creators, repositories and others from the thematic “community”. Modest aims for individual projects, perhaps as components of a larger, overall plan, may better guarantee success where

98 Practising appraisal ambitious schemes, however rational these are, may tax the capabilities of participants. Some who have participated in a cooperative strategy for appraisal and acquisition have noted problems with sustaining a continuous infrastructure. Effort and energy may be sustained better for short bursts, overcoming the drawbacks to large projects that tax the resources of small institutions to maintain.

5.7 Re-appraisal, retro-appraisal, the idea of continuing appraisal, and collection assessment/ self-knowledge A re-appraisal is often required for practical reasons. A change in functions or records at the source may require re-appraisal to consider these new circumstances. A major change in the operating conditions of the archive, such as an increase or decrease in resources, a change in mandate, or a serious but unexpected event, such as a natural disaster or a major lawsuit, may make it necessary to re-appraise what has already been acquired. A periodic, regular re-appraisal of current holdings may be implied by the on-going strategic approach of the archive to its areas of responsibility. It appears to be a necessity in many instances. Re-appraisal has been discussed largely in terms of redressing the perceived shortcomings in acquisitions from an earlier and less systematic era. This view fits the ideas of management efficiency, maximum benefit from minimum expenditure, and the ideas that animate re-engineering. However, re-appraisal as a retro-appraisal, a rethinking of the appraisal of the past, is also worth doing for itself, as an exercise in positioning. It also may have other aims that are less concerned with understanding and more with challenging decisions of the past. This form of reappraisal is favoured as a technique to reveal acquisitions that do not meet the declared aims of the archive and its vision today. Re-appraisal as a purge is less easy to justify. It would be better accommodated if the mandate were clearly defined, priorities articulated and documents about past actions kept and used.

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On-going, planned appraisal and acquisitions, or even reactions to unexpected offers of documents, are greatly assisted by a critical self-analysis. This exercise may be comprehensive, covering all aspects of the repository and its relationships, such as is recommended by strategic planners in the environment scan or SWOT (strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats) assessment. Whether a formal or full SWOT scan is done or not, in essence each archive must assess the strengths and weaknesses of its own holdings, matching this assessment against a vision, mandate, plan, or other calculus, to measure or weigh “in the balance” what is in hand with what is desired to be the case. The concept of the monitor of appraisal, developed by the InterPARES I Task Force on Appraisal, incorporates the idea of re-appraisal. However, it is not viewed as a special action done as a project at a specified point in time. Rather in the InterPARES I conceptual model of an appraisal function the re-appraisal is an on-going activity. Such an official or officer identified as the reappraiser may never actually exist. The importance of the monitor is as an idea. This idea provides continuity to appraisal by incorporating a function of continuing review of the explicit or implicit conditions that governed the original appraisal and the specific terms concluded with donors. By locating the monitor as a specific activity or function, roles could be attached to it that explicitly conceptualized the links of appraisal to its subsequent implementation and to an on-going review of the terms and conditions that governed the initial decisions. The monitor is not an evaluator, assessing achievements. The monitor is a balance wheel ensuring the continuing fit of the original appraisal with current conditions and contexts, and co-ordinating the implementation of decisions.

5.8 Locating appraisal in the contexts of situation – the constraints on an ideal The foregoing areas of agreement in appraisal certainly assist in seeing the conceptual logic that motivates them and the areas that are generally agreed to need more discussion and work. Abstract

100 Practising appraisal models can rarely be applied in concrete situations without being customized to fit an institution, or programme and its resources, staff, and mandate. Paradoxically, no method, however carefully crafted to meet the special needs of an institution, will solve by itself all of the problems inherent in doing appraisal. All methods are soon distorted by the realities of work and the unpredictable contingencies of real life situations. Especially vulnerable are methods imported for use from other institutions without first being carefully tailored to new assumptions and situations. While we have seen that a systematic and planned approach to appraisal is agreed to be most desirable, methods alone do not create agreement on values. Many institutions and programmes will need to articulate a theory of appraisal first and only then begin the real work of addressing the problems it will raise. Nevertheless, once that careful intellectual work is completed and a suitable method adapted or developed, the real work begins. Appraisal next must overcome or at the very least accommodate by explicit recognition the specific problems inherent in the context or situation in which it is done. Real appraisals must be flexible because they will have to negotiate many different kinds of constraint. These will have an impact on all decisions about what to keep and why, and what not to keep and why. For the sake of clarity, it is useful to see these constraints on a free, full, and ideal appraisal as falling into one of two areas: those in the larger, extra-institutional contexts in which the archive must operate, including such things as the political regime of the state or nation, the juridical environment of laws and regulations that affect records and archives, the immediate policy framework of the archives’ parent organization or sponsor; and those conditions in the internal or institutional context which will shape the direction and the details of keep/destroy decisions. Each context has its impact on appraisal and on subsequent acquisitions. And it is these contingencies that brand appraisal to its time and place. Some of the practical problems posed by a specific context in which appraisal for acquisition is done can be clearly visible at the time, especially to those that are doing appraisal. For

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example, space may be at a premium in the repository. Appraisers and managers will be more or less affected by knowing this fact. Appraisers may not have all the knowledge or information they need to make an informed decision, either because they are new to the situation or because such information may be difficult to acquire. For example, when archivists appraise records whose creators and original users are no longer available, the appraiser is unable to talk to these important sources to develop a fuller understanding of the implicit knowledge that users brought to the records and their system of keeping. Research into office practices confirms the commonsense notion that there may be gaps between the procedures of a records system and the actual practices of the office. These can be significant: understanding where these are and why they exist is fundamental for business process engineering, systems designers, and appraisers. Clearly, the appraiser of the future will need to use many official and unofficial sources of information about records practices and office customs to develop a comprehensive understanding of records and their meanings to their creators and contemporary users. People, as actors, in their many networks of communication and action, are related in complex ways that extend beyond the concrete boundaries of a records system. Another common constraint is provided by the legal, regulatory, and procedural infrastructure that support the archives. The archival agency may not have the requisite power and authority to be in control of all aspects of the situation in which they must work. A common example occurs when records are proposed for destruction. The archive may not have sufficient time to respond to an urgent demand for an appraisal that must be done outside its normal process. Moreover, the archivist or chief administrative officer may be unable to negotiate more favourable conditions because of insufficient resources or indifferent support in the organization. All of these factors are examples of common situations that may confound the best intentions, will, and skills of the most seasoned and sanguine archival appraiser: they seem to compromise the value of any model which in the clear light of reality may appear to be too

102 Practising appraisal idealized to provide real guidance. Nevertheless appraisal must be done and keep/destroy decisions made. Many practical constraints, particularly those that arise from the shortness of time available for any job requiring mature consideration, would be minimized if archivists could count on commonalities in records and their systems for keeping. The InterPARES I project initially attempted to develop a typology of electronic systems based on the repeated and known features of common software such as word processors and spreadsheets, or of common off-the-peg systems such as those for office records keeping. However, it seems that records and systems for them are as various as are the needs they meet and the juridical system in which they are conceived. A hybrid reality, linking many technologies and social networks, is still only an assumption, based on limited experience because there has been little research into the structural, functional, and cultural properties of modern records and the systems which hold them in place. However, preliminary research tends to reinforce intuitive reckoning that systems and the records they hold are always stamped with properties unique to the creator and the situation in which they are captured, created, and used. It seems improbable that appraisal will be transferable among institutions except at the level of high abstraction and principle leading to a standard of behaviour rather then results. Decontextualized models of types of records and systems remain true to their many forms, properties, and structures but will never be accurate replicas of the social situation of their use and keeping. Such differences in the milieus for records are cited as impediments to developing criteria which can be used across jurisdictions, cultures, and times. However, this text suggests that the differences in records should not be emphasized in appraisal because these are natural characteristics and are not a “problem” to be solved. It is more useful, from a professional point of view, to focus instead on the common grounds for agreement. These will go some distance in anchoring appraisal. We can begin to establish a grounded conceptual understanding by abstracting the commonalities from many unique cases. This type of meta-

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analysis can help advance understanding of appraisal, what purposes it must serve, and what factors inhibit its perfection.

5.9 The archivist’s internal context of appraisal work Archivists soon become accustomed to seek always the contexts that envelop their records – research is done to uncover the fullness of these contexts to understand the records better, to describe them in guides and surrogates, and to assist users to locate what they need. In the section that follows, the view is reversed on the presumption that appraisers are also well served in their work by an equally full and candid assessment of the contexts inside the archive. Doing appraisal places the archivist in a number of situations. Some overlap each other, some are independent of each other but co-exist, and some are more influential than others in any given situation. These working situations may be a real constraint upon the implementation of any model programme or plan. Appraisal and the keep/destroy decision is especially sensitive to three conditions: the knowledge of the appraiser, the institution’s resources and structure, and the impact of time and history.

5.9.1

Knowledge

Archival appraisal, of whatever model or method, is influenced, more or less obviously, by the accumulated knowledge of the appraiser and by the knowledge base they can draw upon in the form of reports and records of their predecessors at the archive. On the one hand, decisions made with care but poorly recalled in a formal memorial, such as a decision minute, appraisal report or an agreement on terms and conditions with the donor or creator, will be more susceptible to a successful challenge by those with differing views or agendas than decisions which are documented clearly with the needs of the future in

104 Practising appraisal mind for full and complete information. On the other hand, an appraisal and acquisition decision made as a temporary conclusion – for expediency or because a gap in information could not be identified or filled at the time – needs to be fully documented as well, to allow future archivists to continue the job begun by their predecessors or to provide concrete information for a reappraisal. The conditions and presumptions that guided appraisal need to be made clear to the future as a guide to their inevitable reviews of the decisions made in the past. Appraisers, even those with considerable experience should try always to recognize the imperfections in their knowledge about the records, creators, and uses, especially in circumstances where information about records – or meta-data – is wanting, deficient or totally lacking. The appraisal process assumes that the appraiser at least has a deep understanding of the whole of the current and historical records universes pertinent to his or her task. This is a large expectation: its constraints should not be merely understood among colleagues but be declared for successors to see, to challenge if it is needed, and to be inspired by, if that is the case.

5.9.2

Resources and structures

Appraisers must address the needs of the archives’ managers who bear the ultimate responsibility for decisions and their impact. Each recommendation, whether it be to acquire, select or sample records by acquisition or, by contrast, to destroy them or to allow their destruction, brings in its train implications and responsibilities for managers. Appraisal needs to provide information about the responsibilities assumed when records are either selected, sampled or destroyed. Each recommendation comes with real effects and implications for a manager in the future, some practical, others financial, and many political. The manager responsible for an organization needs this information and explicit considerations of these areas cannot be neglected in the appraisal but rather need to be recognized and declared. The ultimate costs to the archive of a decision may not be clear; however, the prudent

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appraiser will address these issues head on. The estimation of costs assume importance for managers who must allocate resources in budgets that are always subject to claims. Appraisers should always estimate costs of alternatives to meet the needs of management: this is especially important in organizations in which managers are very sensitive to political implications, and those in which financial hard costs and their controls operate on cost recovery. Appraisal and its many activities may be undertaken in an environment which is not supportive of the detailed work and measured deliberation these warrant. Analysis and deliberation take time. The effects of appraisal are lasting and the decisions made as a result are usually irrevocable. While it is true that not all appraisals involve high stakes or high drama, each decision will involve some form of destruction of records, documents and the information they bear as extensions of the person who made them. For example, the records of a public authority touch many aspects of the lives of citizens and appraisal decisions will affect inevitably the lives of people who are represented in the records as parties to the actions they enable. But appraisal decisions also have a more general impact on citizens. On one level, citizens have a right to hold their delegates accountable for the powers they exercise. On another level, the community may have just expectations that what happens today is accessible to those in the future. These expectations are met by responsible records keeping but equally by responsible destruction. The archives of other types of organization may have a very different composition of their “public”, and may have other expectations of their records. Every situation may differ: but the responsibility of appraisers to address these expectations explicitly in their work is the same responsibility for all.

5.9.3

Time and history

Appraisal is largely affected by its timing in the life of an organization and of records. Many knowledgeable appraisers argue

106 Practising appraisal that appraisal should be done early in the life of a record or system to ensure adequate protection for larger interests in them. Monitoring appraisal decisions may be a balance wheel to ensure a continuing alignment between an original decision, its implementation, later adjustments that may be needed in the light of new knowledge, or a full re-appraisal because of other circumstances or changes that were not originally contemplated. Time and technology are intimately associated in records. All material, supports, media, and communications technologies used for records making and keeping will alter and change over time. Because of the unique nature of records in history, appraisal must be fine-tuned to the historical situation of the records and their origins. For example, we would be hard pressed to do a responsible appraisal of records from an early nineteenthcentury business without understanding the purposes these served, the assumptions they mask, and the nature and history of the organization in which they arose. Time, ultimately, is the ubiquitous seasoning in all appraisals, in how they are done, on the criteria used, either implicitly or explicitly, and on the values inherent in the recommendation and the decision that follows. Appraisal is bounded by the “nowness” of our existence. We view the past, recent and distant, from a perspective, that is through a lens, which can make the prospect clear, cloudy, marginalized or minimized. This lens of time is one we need to recognize and use for the advantages it can provide.

5.10

The “situateness” of appraisal

The “situateness” of all appraisals and the many factors that can affect its procedural course make archivists uneasy about their appraisals. Error seems built into the process with little the archivist can do to systematically eliminate its sources or reasons. Post-modern critiques of even the most elementary assumptions of continuing stability, in our laws, in our ideas or in records and their meanings, merely underscore the anguish of appraisers

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unable to transcend the temporality of their choices. Yet none of these constraints should stop us from striving to recognize the contingent truths of our own existence. While criteria upon which to rank and rate any given set of records may not be agreed, and while the values each brings to appraisal may differ, the foundations for sound appraisals and the most appropriate methods and useful tools for certain situations do command wide acceptance and provide a modest but important agreement in appraising among those who have now had several generations of experience doing it. There is surprisingly wide consensus, some of it silent, about procedure, participants and process. The moral obligations of the archivist and the ethics of professional action in appraisal are aspects over which the archivist alone has complete control – both are served by ensuring consistent and complete procedures for appraisal and documentation of its conditions, course, and recommendations. It is in the area of procedure and documents that appraisal can be placed on common ground in all institutions. It is the base from which to begin developing standards in the future.

Key Readings: Maynard Brichford, Archives and Manuscripts: Appraisal and Accessioning, (Chicago, 1977). F. Gerald Ham, Selecting and appraising archives and manuscripts (Chicago 1993). Angelika Menne-Haritz, “Appraisal or documentation: Can we appraise archives by selecting content?” American Archivist 57 (Summer 1994): 528–543. Verne Harris, “Post modernism and archival appraisal: Seven theses.” South African Archives Journal 40 (1998): 48–50. Tom Nesmith, “Still fuzzy, but more accurate: some thoughts on the ‘ghosts’ of archival theory.” Archivaria 47 (Spring, 1999): 136–150. Terry Eastwood, “What is archival theory and why is it important?” Archivaria 37 (Spring 1994): 122–130. John Roberts, “Practice makes perfect, theory makes theorists.” Archivaria 37 (Spring 1994): 111–121.

108 Practising appraisal Michael Buckland, “On the nature of records management theory.” American Archivist 57/2 (Spring 1994): 346–351. Functional analysis and its integration with appraisal is discussed in documents on the website of the National Archives of Canada at <www.archives.ca/> Brian Beavan, “Macro-appraisal: from theory to practice.” Archivaria 48 (Fall 1999): 154–198. James G. Bradsher, “The F.B.I. records appraisal.” Midwestern Archivist, 13 (1988): 31–66. Larry G. Hackman and Joan Warnow-Blewett, “The documentation strategy process: a model and a case study.” American Archivist 50 (Winter 1987): 12–27. Nancy McCall and Lisa A. Mix (eds.) “The broadening base and changing media of evidence in the health fields.” in Designing archival programs to advance knowledge in the health fields, (Baltimore 1995): 1–8. Helen Samuels, “Rationale for the functional approach” pp 1–18, and “The functions of colleges and universities: Structure and uses of Varsity Letters.” pp 19–30” Varsity Letters (London 1992). Helen Samuels, “Drinking from the fire hose: Documenting education at MIT.” Archives and Manuscripts 25/1 (May 1997): 36–49. Timothy L. Ericson, “‘At the rim of creative dissatisfaction’: Archivists and acquisition development” Archivaria 33 (Winter 1991–92): 66–77. Joan Krizack, “Hospital documentation planning: The concept and the context.” American Archivist 56 (Winter 1993): 16–34. Mark Greene and Todd J. Daniels-Howell “Documentation with an attitude. A pragmatist’s guide to the selection and acquisition of modern business records.” in The Records of American Business, James O’Toole ed., (Chicago, 1997): 161–229. Edward C. Papenfuse, “ ‘A modicum of commitment’: The present and future importance of the historical records survey”. American Archivist, 37 (April, 1974): 211–221. John Fleckner, “Records Surveys: A Multi-Purpose Tool for the Archivist”, American Archivist, 42 (July, 1979): 293–94. Judith E. Endelman, “Looking backward to plan for the future: collection analysis for manuscript repositories”, American Archivist 50 (Summer, 1987): 340–355. Terry Cook, “From the record to its context: The theory and practice of archival appraisal since Jenkinson,” South African Archives Journal 37 (1995), pp. 32–52.

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Richard J. Cox, “The documentation strategy and archival appraisal principles: a different perspective.” Archivaria 38 (Fall 1994): 11–36. Tim Ericson, “To approximate June pasture: The documentation strategy in the real world.” Archival Issues 22/1 (1997): 5–20. Rapport, Leonard. “No grandfather clause: reappraising accessioned records”, American Archivist 44 (1981): 143–50.

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CHAPTER SIX

Architecture of responsible appraisal – a foundation and a framework

“The demands of effective management of masses of information have resulted in a dearth of analysis of the theoretical and ethical framework within which appraisal occurs. . . . Assuming that choices must be made, is objectivity possible or even desirable? Is the appraisal power held by archivists a real power for which they must be accountable? What is expected of archivists in legitimizing their appraisal choices?” Roy Schaeffer, “Transcendent concepts: Power, appraisal, and the archivist as ‘social outcast’.” American Archivist 55/4 (Fall 1992): 609.

6.1

Our knowledge of appraisal

Archivists are reasonably well served by a literature that explains appraisal – the processes archives use, their rationales for choices, and the tools that were most helpful in special circumstances. These discussions are usually prepared some time after jobs are completed. Surprisingly, the evident continuing interest in appraisal has yet to be reflected in empirical research into the

112 Architecture of responsible appraisal work as it proceeds. Reports from special projects suggest, at least implicitly, that tracking and analysing cases, for example, using structured interviews or by reviewing contemporary reports and other documents, potentially would be useful in developing more thickly textured understandings of appraisal as it is understood and practised by those with the responsibility for doing it at the time. A basic empirical examination of the professional conditions of those who do appraisal, for example, by a survey of their demographics, education, preferences, and opinions would address the imperfect knowledge about the professional norms and ideals of practising appraisers. Such research may help new appraisers and other archivists understand the impact of points of view on appraisal and open up a larger picture of experiences. The understanding that would be forged in this research and the publication of results for the community to share undoubtedly would be helpful to individuals and institutions in relating their own working practices to those of others. Moreover, it has the potential to feed activities across institutions, for example, in developing education and training programmes and in shaping a better understanding of what steps are necessary to build a common standard of practice. Research may contribute to sketching surer grounds for claiming there are enduring ideals we seek in appraisal. By contrast to the few published studies of real cases and projects in the field, there is far more literature that either discusses particular aspects of appraisal or proposes modified methods, for example, to fit an archive’s mandate, or to meet the needs of academic researchers, such as historians or social scientists, or corporate users whose research is driven by needs in administration or for legal purposes. Many articles that have a theoretical bent are less discussions of theories of appraisal and more propositions about the best or most useful methods which should guide appraisal as a working function. Although individual appraisal projects in different jurisdictions may have tested these ideas empirically in working situations, we only have access as a community to the few that have been widely published.

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Ultimately, we do not have ways of measuring what constitutes a successful appraisal nor do we have a calculus for evaluating any given process save that provided by the terms it creates. Archivists also are not well served by tools and methods that will allow them to evaluate working practices to see better their contribution to the archives’ goals, or to adjust or modify approaches and methods to avoid past problems or other types of error or deficiency. While the literature in other information environments, for example, regarding library management, may be useful by analogy, no other profession has a similar responsibility or objectives. Evaluation – what to evaluate, with what tools and methods – is a topic in archival work which requires more concerted research and discussion. Today’s dynamic environment, in which organizations and functions are changing at the same time that new technologies are being tried, adds new elements of uncertainty about the continuing usefulness of traditional methods and techniques. Empirical research into the social understandings beyond what is recorded is another area that appraisers will need to address soon by their research. While the literature on appraisal is profuse collectively, it is uneven and lopsided, giving too little guidance to new appraisers. It is more valuable to seasoned professionals seeking to advance their understanding of appraisal and the methods that work best. They are probably better equipped by experience to integrate what is offered by others with their own practices. Moreover, recent highly theoretical discussions of post-modern ideas and their impact on archives and records, while they provide exciting intellectual challenges for archival theory and appraisal ideology, are uneasy companions to our inherent search for a stable system and repeatable methods. Both are needed, in a greater or lesser degree, for the practical enterprises of records-keeping, whether this be for managing current records or for understanding the information artefacts from the past. Despite gaps in the literature and the real challenges that face historical records in the future, there are currently working benchmarks that allow us now to evaluate appraisal better and to contribute to the sustainability of archives into the future. Many

114 Architecture of responsible appraisal of the elements for an enduring architecture are already in place, having been used by many institutions in one way or another for a number of years. These elements collectively are the various ways that archivists discharge professional and moral responsibility for their actions – employers, sponsors and society require tangible accounting as do our successors in the profession. Future generations should be able to understand our decisions – they will need to know not only what we did, but also why we did what we did. Although these elements have yet to be standardized formally, the nucleus of requirements for doing appraisal and the areas that appraisers need to consider in making their assessments, are largely agreed by the profession. In light of the very different mandates for archival institutions and of the responsibilities of archivists working in them, which are compounded by the cultural and juridical differences in countries, it is not useful to apply rigid criteria of values for appraisal, especially those specific to records or to structures. At best, these would apply only to well-understood types of records, or suit the needs of an institution or time where there are proven similarities and well-understood uses. More useful contributors to a common design are conceptual models that are based on broad functional criteria. An example is the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 15489 for the management of current records and information systems which is based on one developed in Australia. The guidance these standards give to appraisal is at the general level of process and restricted largely to current records. Nevertheless, by implication they suggest many of the elements that need to be addressed in appraisal of all types of records. However, the limitation of these standards vis-à-vis appraisal are important. Neither the ISO nor Australian standards address the use of appraisal for historical records repositories, especially those defined by the types of their collection, or for reasons which may transcend the specific frame-work established for the business accountability of a current organization. Moreover, neither addresses appraisal of records undertaken at some remove from their creation, or in the context of social goals.

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Another useful model is the universe of records graphically presented in the continuum diagram. That model indicates points where current records and archiving intersect, identifying the broad areas where appraisal would need to be applied to achieve smooth transitions for records across a boundary. The model schematic developed by the InterPARES I Task Force on Appraisal also suggests points where appraisal and valuation would take place and the general sequence in which it would most likely happen at least in abstract. The particular value of the InterPARES I Appraisal Task Force model is its clear and continuing reference to a distinct archival function from the perspective of the entity responsible for preservation over the long term. However, records-keeping standards and conceptual models can only suggest the broad categories in which assessments should be done. They cannot establish values, nor specify how to identify these. They cannot tell us how to knit the world together in records and processes. They cannot tell us where there are silences nor how to span the gaps. Nevertheless, many aspects of appraisal are agreed widely to be important for any archive that has responsibilities for selecting records as sources for historical research especially for their own “publics”, for example in a State or other larger social grouping. While we would be chasing phantoms in trying to secure agreement on an exclusive and universally applicable set of values, we can with some confidence establish a list of the components that need to be addressed in appraisal and ways of proceeding consistently in making decisions that will ensure that repositories and practitioners are accountable and responsible.

6.2 The components of an appraisal architecture sketched The architecture for an accountable and responsible appraisal encompasses ideas, concepts, and beliefs, along with theories, methods, and procedures. As far as is possible, these are made explicit by being expressed in formal documents. Each should

116 Architecture of responsible appraisal be related to the archive’s larger enterprise, especially to its mandated functions in preservation, records and information management, and public access services. Appraisal is anchored in the same essential supports for the archive’s mission and that serve as a foundation for all its official functions – they ground the staff who do the work on behalf of the archive and are the foundation for intellectual structures and practical programmes. These supports include: a basic glossary of working definitions; a mission and/or mandate statement that declares goals and establishes a basic authority to work; an acquisition policy outlining general features sought in acquisitions and especially declaring what can or cannot be acquired; an appraisal policy expressing ideals and guiding decision-making; and a policy on the terms of public access to all of the preceding and to other archive documents. Clearly, a prime document would be the working definitions used by the archive for concepts, terms, and any technical language agreed by the organization and preferred for the documents and reports about their work. Similar support comes from the archives’ mission and/or mandate. It is the authority for all activities, establishing the archives’ competencies in different areas of work, such as preservation, public services, appraisal, and acquisition. The mandate also may provide a statement of the archives’ roles in their larger community, such as the immediate parent organization. Many will have or will want to assume roles and responsibilities in records management. The nature of the archives’ participation and its extent of involvement need to be explicitly articulated. The mandate will also establish, either explicitly or implicitly, the degree of independence the archive has in acting, for example, to build a consensus among various partners in appraisal and acquisition, or to participate in auditing others or themselves for compliance. The acquisition policy and its ally, the policy on appraisal, will declare the institution’s own interpretation of its mission/mandate, and provide guidance to appraisers on the general conditions of doing appraisal that are considered the ideal. The working structure for appraisal may vary. For example, appraisal may be guided by a planning group,

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which works on specific initiatives identified in a strategic plan. Nevertheless, differences aside, all appraisers should work under the general guidance of their institution’s appraisal and acquisition policy as it is tied to the mission. Specific instructions for individual projects of appraisal would be given in other ways, such as work plans that provide concrete targets, establish timing, and assign resources. Both larger strategies and more specific working plans would locate responsibilities and roles in action. Although these documents will be comprehensive and ideally should be linked to each other, for example, as sections in a manual or guide, they may be fully developed at different points in time; consequently, interim versions or draft statements, prepared as required, may often be developed independently, to be integrated later in the foundational documents, such as the mission/mandate and the acquisition and appraisal policies. These working documents might include discussion papers or reports of committees or other groups convened for a special task, for example, to establish the point of view from which valuing or appraisal is to be done in the archive, or to amend an appraisal policy in the light of experiences. Such directed discussions, embodied in documents for others to share, may also further elaborate the theory of appraisal the archive seeks to express in its work, discuss the values that are sought in appraisal, and extend the institution’s specific criteria, for example, reviewing documents with proven historical uses, or giving more details about the nature of evidence that supports a full corporate memory, or providing historical guidance on those points and places where citizens or clients interact with the organization with acute clarity, as in the macro-appraisal theory and method of the National Archives of Canada, or assessing current or projected risks and vulnerabilities. They may also discuss the concept of accountability and provide general directions on functions and corporate locales where the archives should seek documents to provide that accountability most succinctly. These task groups will also debate any other values that are seen to be the foundation for the archives’ appraisal and acquisition. Documents will be needed to define more carefully the scope for

118 Architecture of responsible appraisal appraisal and acquisition, or by contrast, to propose a new focus of appraisal or the sequence of foci that are favoured. New or revised appraisal targets will also be shared and communicated in documents. They may propose new ways of reviewing appraisal recommendations or of monitoring decisions for their continued suitability or for compliance with specific terms. And they may establish communities of interest and co-operation for acquisition and appraisal. Given the likelihood that the conditions of doing appraisal will be less than the ideal, the archive should establish the elements for best practice in its jurisdiction and for its programme. For example, the appraisal policy of an archive that has a role and responsibilities in managing records and information resources for its larger parent body should establish the nature and extent of the archives’ independence in appraisal recommendations and declare the normal conditions under which the process takes place. Such a policy may be important in placing responsible boundaries around making decisions or recommendations where urgent demands for unusual speed are pressed upon the archive. As a matter of principle, the onus for demonstrating need would be placed on the requestor to declare the grounds for urgency and demonstrate the need for immediate action. Foundational documents support a stable, resilient framework for appraisal and acquisition. This framework is comprised largely of procedures that guide the archives’ functions, including appraisal. Procedures declare the archives’ working methods for appraisal and acquisition, sketch the path to making a decision, identify the contributors/participants in it, discuss the process for monitoring compliance with decisions and the continuing accuracy of the assessments and give a concrete form to any other structural elements which shape appraisal, for example, the cycle of current acquisition plans. The foundation and framework are not prescriptive but are exemplars of ideals. The actual work in any one archive may not be exactly that in another. For example, decisions will be made by all organizations or programmes but in some they may be made by consensus, through iteration and counter-iteration of a plan. In others, it

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may be the legislated authority of one office, such as the holder of an official position of archivist in a large public authority such as a state, or the chief information resource officer of a large corporation. Clear statements outlining the terms of access to the products prepared in appraisal should be a priority and are probably best addressed in a general policy. Open access is highly desirable. Making decisions which affect a “public” and the future need to be made in the open to serve that public’s collective interest. This is especially true in societies that aspire to support democracy and its values. The statement should be a document that is shared with the archives’ “public” and it should specify points of public contact in the official process. Particularly crucial is the sequence of consultation, deliberation, decision, and appeal. These points in a procedure are benchmarks of a very traditional kind, which can themselves establish the role of outsiders and the way that they participate in the appraisal process. The foundation for appraisal and the framework that guides its operation in an institution, should be formalized in documents that collectively comprise a common “script”, shared by the staff and available to users, supporters, donors, and depositors. Policies, procedures, and manuals are common examples of official documents whose roles are well understood by people generally. However, no one set of documents can be prescribed to serve all programmes. The archive may also find that other types of document better formalize its decisions and ground the actions of individual appraisals, the deliberations of committees, or the routine for peer reviews. Useful types of document include formal appraisal reports, position papers, or periodic bulletins. The advantage of formalization in writing is not obvious and may appear to be unnecessarily bureaucratic – perhaps more of a hindrance to the creative aspects of appraisal than advantage as a common script. Nevertheless organizations will find these bridges to be useful as an internal control on operations and as points against which to measure performance and achievement. They are the best way yet devised to support the completeness and consistency of work. Most important for the archivist and

120 Architecture of responsible appraisal the users of archives, these documents support accountability across time by constituting an audit trail of appraisal and acquisition. These benchmark documents serve the interests of many different groups, known or contemplated now, or unknown and unforeseen in a future yet to come. The ideals embodied in policies and procedures and their roles as independent scripts guiding work are useful goals to work towards. But policies and procedures tend to normalize what are unique situations. They have many hidden assumptions upon which the ideal performance is predicated, such as a high level of sophisticated knowledge and experience of the appraiser who reads and uses their instructions. One way of acknowledging the unique aspects of each situation is a periodic statement of realities in the form of a scan that reviews the situation in which an appraisal is undertaken. In this statement, perhaps prepared as the introduction to an appraisal report, or posted to an intranet as a preview of upcoming work shared among a large networked group, the appraiser or appraisal team endeavours to declare assumptions, assess constraints and opportunities, and recognize what is obvious to the group involved or associated with the actual work but can be unknown or unknowable to people in the future. This existential statement and the review it embodies helps the appraisers to make a record that is a memorial to be passed on to the future. What is clear today and shared by all involved in a situation may not be clearly seen in the future when the appraisal is re-examined. This archival version of a SWOT scan (strengths/weaknesses/ opportunities/threats) and the declarations it includes are important balancing mechanisms for the archivist as appraiser. Articulating the conditions in which appraisal is being undertaken helps archivists, their colleagues and successors. A statement or a declaration or an analysis is an ethical way to discharge the imperative for moral behaviour. It begins the process of crystallizing phrenesis or practical wisdom and it can result in recommendations for more general changes in the environment or to strengthen the institution’s capabilities or minimize the effects of any danger.

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The foundation documents that embody an institution’s shared understandings of ideas, concepts, and principles, and declare its mission and goals, clearly need to be brought into the open to acknowledge the situation of the archive’s authority and the constraints on its professional officers. The framework of ways and means in policies and their procedures provide clarity to the methods used and the results achieved. Together these are a powerful battery of documents that drive work along a wellmarked highway. They provide accumulated information about records and their structures and they will become a rich library of experience to educate, stimulate, and counsel new archivists.

6.3 Procedures express professional competence and obligations The literature and the best practices for appraisal in many established institutions underscore the benefits of a solid foundation in a mandate, and a transparent, open structure for work. Together these give appraisal a continuing form of stability. Procedures create a regular frame or structure for appraisal and documents provide substance that can be shared with others, now and in the future. Both are important for any institution as visible levers to control the implementation of any methods that may be chosen or developed by the archives. The size of the archives or the organization of which it is a part is not a variable: a foundation, built by the mandate, mission statement and declared definitions for terms, concepts, and language for all of their documents, should be in place for all repositories regardless of their size or complement. The framework for appraisal that is built on these foundations is best expressed in specific policies and in agreed procedures for work: this is a structure that can be developed by all institutions regardless of size or complexity. Procedures are especially a fundamental way for organizations to establish agreement on ways of acting. They guide rather than restrict work and their development, in documents, forms a bridge that joins generations of practitioners that

122 Architecture of responsible appraisal have the same responsibilities. They also allow the past to be revisited confidently, by providing signposts to guide the journey, for example, in revisiting appraisals and acquisitions from earlier times. Those for appraisal will express professional responsibility, collectively and individually, and provide the concrete ways that this is manifest in each organization.

6.4

Benefits of procedure

What are the benefits of agreed procedure apart from gratifying the post-enlightenment obsession with method? There are, I believe, several cogent reasons for the general benefits of this approach, to the profession, to institutions with responsibilities for building long-term historical memory in archives, and for society as a whole. Procedures ultimately allow all the elements germane to appraisal to be joined in action and by documents. Collectively, these comprise a working frame for on-going and self-regulating appraisal. Although this text does not claim that procedures and policies will perfect appraisal, it does suggest that their development and use build knowledge over time and provide a way of making changes and of measuring accomplishments. First, agreement on procedures allows archives and archivists to take control of appraisal, however modest this control might be. The initiative for “archiving” is shifted from donor to recipient, and placed within a management structure and on a professional base which minimizes the swings which may result from poor records control “upstream”, political changes, or other environmental factors which are often beyond the control of the archives and archivists. Despite major efforts since World War II to integrate professional records-keeping perspectives into the offices and structures of government and business, records continue to be generally of only minor concern to public authorities and private businesses. High-profile political attention to records as in the Enron scandal, legal suits by Holocaust survivors and their families to recover property, and headlinegrabbing history related to the records of banks and businesses

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in wartime Switzerland and Germany, have raised awareness among the public of the importance of records to social justice. But on balance it seems that the impact on organizations, either as a result of changes in laws and regulations or institutional culture, are still many years in the future. In this situation it is important that archivists take the lead in developing ways and means of intervening to ensure the larger public interest: this is especially important in archives that serve democracies and their inclusive public. Secondly, agreed procedures are surprisingly useful for introducing change or for promoting innovations. They accommodate difference by being focused on procedure as opposed to content. Procedures are worth pursuing for their ability to combine standards with the unique. Differences in laws, organizational records and records-keeping traditions seem to be a bog in which efforts to develop common standards flounder. However, recently and in a number of different jurisdictions, archivists have proposed frameworks for appraisal which endeavour to combine a number of previously distinct approaches, selecting pertinent ideas and incorporating useful aspects of method to create hybrids. These have emerged from efforts of a number of archival repositories which have undertaken appraisal projects with a view to tackling new problems and learning from the experience. Consistency in procedure or operations is not incompatible with innovation. A total or complete appraisal may result from grafting many separate elements of methods to the forms of procedure that fit a specific situation. Perhaps the most visible hybrid method is that developed by the Minnesota Historical Society. Discussions highlight its components, structure, and rationale but in the background is procedural consistency that allows it to flourish. All modern methods are hybrids in some way, incorporating ideas and using tools developed and proven in practice by others. Indeed, it seems likely that future developments in appraisal will build on what has been achieved, by refining its concepts and tailoring its many tools to fit the situation of each archive. Given this very real prospect of change, the support of procedure emerges as critical to success.

124 Architecture of responsible appraisal Greater attention to programmes, functions, and processes in organizations has directed attention away from the exclusive examination of records to view the larger operational scheme of things. Analysis of functions and activities may be preliminary, suggesting the location of records which should be targeted initially for closer examination. This view of the landscape as opposed to the details of the forest is similar, in motivation at least, to the process undertaken by those who are involved with documenting or collecting relevant records on the basis of theme, subject or other classification, especially from the private sector. Selecting the “national writers of modern fiction” for example, is not dissimilar to approaching organizations from the point of view of their functions, responsibilities, and pertinences. The press of practicalities in government and organizations urges innovation and trial which have to be properly grounded on agreed procedures. While the claim that procedures promote innovation may seem far-fetched, change is clearly better managed, and its impact better evaluated, if its operating procedures are clearly thought out in the first instance at the very least for a trial. Thirdly, a decided advantage is that procedural regularity is easier to achieve and better able to build bridges, and lasting ones, into those communities which have interests in archives. Procedures and the policies they recognize in the reality of daily work produce recommendations, reports, and decisions. These documents are well placed to be fruitful “border objects” that join the interests of many communities in the conduct and result of appraisal. The success of achieving agreement for the ISO and Australian records management standards owes much to the emphasis on procedure as opposed to criteria. While procedure does not replace inspiration, genius, or deep experience and knowledge of subjects, people, and organizations – while it can not replace history – it has distinct advantages for the archivist and archival authority seeking to build appraisal into a programme which satisfies a number of distinct needs for records. Fourthly, policy and procedures which are well developed and responsive may go a long way to implementing full archival

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responsibilities regardless of the differences among institutions and programmes in their assigned legal role. A substantial professional benefit will accrue from policy and procedures. Each stage of their development and implementation should be associated with an appropriate level of documentation. The accumulation of opinion, information, and knowledge will build institutional wisdom in the area of records. Documentation, regularly and consistently structured, establishes a means of accountability to future archivists. Well-developed professional documentation is indispensable to the future professional – like the case notes and opinions of a legal expert, accountant or physician. Documentation provides real data for either a re-appraisal or “retro-appraisal”. They allow people to revisit and rethink appraisal decisions on the basis of arguments developed by predecessors. Documents encourage the re-engineer or re-appraiser to transform themselves into the time that the original appraisal was undertaken. They enable others to return to that which original appraisal acknowledged and to another generation’s documentary practices. Procedural clarity should provide a better summary of what was destroyed and the reason for it. Procedures, despite their dryness, clearly recognize “strategic dependencies”: work and decision-making are not isolated from the people who act and the contexts in which they are held. Accumulated experience, based on clear procedure, builds knowledge and experience for the future. Fifth, ethics are best proved in documents tied to procedures. Clarity in design of procedures, regularity in the points of action and decision, transparency in the decision-making process, declared rationales which can be audited by someone not part of the group now or by anyone in the future who may need access to the appraisal, consistency in undertaking each separate appraisal project and the careful union of actions to the archives’ warranted mission and declared policies, are the hallmarks of moral action in appraisal. While the archivist may not be in complete control of all aspects of appraisal, they have complete control over procedures and documents. They allow the archivist in the act of appraisal to fully respect the situation, the resources

126 Architecture of responsible appraisal that are available, and the claims of memory, even where these are not clear or many-voiced. Procedures which are clear and transparent as to timing, input, and players allow many perspectives and values to be recognized and accommodated.

6.5

Choosing and accounting for choices

The unchanging element in appraisal is the moral obligation of the appraiser and the ethical responsibility this brings in its train. Accountability, by contrast, is morally neutral. It is a relationship between an actor and auditor with no moral obligation beyond that discharged by ensuring specified means of rendering an account are in place. Responsibility, by contrast, includes accountability but extends this into the realm of human interaction by including a component of just behaviour in a community where rights and obligations are shared. One can be accountable and irresponsible at the same time; however, one cannot be irresponsible in appraisal because in undertaking it we assume the position of moral judge on people and their communities as these are extended in documents. There is little if any appeal against the judgements we make – only a very few things will survive while most will be destroyed through conscious decisions or neglect. In making the keep/destroy decisions archivists exercise power. That power needs to be wielded responsibly. Procedures for business and documents to track activities are two proven supports for ethical action in a larger moral universe; that they also integrate accountability with responsibility is an added bonus. While this book provides no ex cathedra pronouncements, it does suggest that formal procedures are prudent from the perspective of theory and for very practical benefits they bring to a complex task. A model architecture incorporating procedures common in many archives and in many jurisdictions may advance our understanding of appraisal to a higher level of agreement that may transcend jurisdictional differences, at least in part. Nevertheless, procedures do not declare what is valuable and what

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is not. These are human judgements that should be embodied in foundational documents and specific criteria within institutions exercising an archival responsibility. These values most likely will differ among jurisdictions, countries, social groupings and even communities of discourse. These differences are legitimate. The architecture suggested by this volume is based on an implicit criterion – that procedural clarity and continuity are desirable, perhaps even necessary, to underpin successful appraisal. Appraisal for retention may not necessarily be undertaken by everyone in the same way – it may not be and probably should not be a drill. However, appraisal for retention can be and should be undertaken ethically. If choices differ, there is no fault in method to be sought. Rather, differences need to be explained within the context in which the choices were made and on the basis of a foundation and framework declared and thoroughly documented. As the profession that specializes in the historical integrity and relevance of documents, archivists should be active and vocal exponents of accountability for our own work by and through documentation.

Key Readings: Terry Eastwood, “Reflections on the goal of archival appraisal in democratic societies” Archivaria 54 (Fall 2002). Philip P. Mason, “The ethics of collecting” Georgia Archives (Winter 1977. Felix Hull, “The archivist and society”, Society of Archivists Journal 6/3 (1979): 125–130. James O’Toole, “Archives on trial: The strange case of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers.” in Archives and the public good. Accountability and records in modern society. Richard J. Cox and David A. Wallace, eds., (London and Westport, Ct., 2002): 21–36. Frank Boles, “Conclusions” chapter 6 in Archival appraisal (New York, 1991): 97–108.

128 Architecture of responsible appraisal Frank Boles and Julia Marks Young, “Exploring the black box: the appraisal of university administrative records.” American Archivist 48 (Spring 1985): 121–40. Patricia Methven, Janet Foster, George MacKenzie and Rosemary Rogers. Measuring performance: a practical guide for use in the setting of standards and measurement of collection policy, document production, repository facilities, cataloguing, indexing, outreach and user satisfaction. London: Society of Archivists, 1993. Thomas Wilsted and William Nolte, “Planning.” Chapter 4 in Managing archival and manuscript repositories (Chicago, 1991): 27–34. Robert Sink, “Appraisal; the process of choice.” American Archivist 53 (Summer, 1990): 452–8. Acquisition policy of Toronto, Appraisal Report Toronto, [see appendixes].

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CHAPTER SEVEN

A brief general summary

“To bring the past into relationship with the future, via the present, is the archivist’s vocation.” (Jane E. Sayers, Archives and the nation’s heritage. Has the past a future? An inaugural lecture delivered at University College London, 18 March 1992. p.18.)

7.1 Living with ambiguity and qualitative judgements While appraisal by definition implies the valuation of something, the distinctive hallmark of archival appraisal is the valuation of records and information in the service of building histories and from the perspective of institutional accountability, social value or public good(s). The most common definition of archival appraisal, as a process of evaluation to establish requirements for keeping and disposal, is concise but to the point of concealing

130 A brief general summary truly important complexities. The definition may be essentially accurate, but it is only a skeleton, lacking the flesh, blood, and vitality that comes from being applied in the world of real life concerns and problems. There are many implications bound up in the term archival appraisal, some are related to its goal, some to the situation in which it is undertaken, and some to the people who are charged with the responsibility for it. Let’s review a few of these now. All appraisers have a perspective as we have seen above. Their points of view, the ideals that animate each one and the practical contexts that shape any application need to be recognized and most importantly, must be appropriately acknowledged in documents that can be shared by a larger group whose interests may be affected by appraisal either today or particularly in the future. Appraisal clearly needs more than visions and perspectives: success also relies on clearly articulated goals and on the suitability of methods to achieving that goal. Appraisal is inevitably shaped by the skills of the appraiser, the physical capacity of the repository, and the strength of the regulatory regime that supports its work. No single textbook discussion of appraisal or standard of practice, or agreed benchmarks can be used as a technical manual to guide mechanical tasks or for rote application. Appraisal must be a live procedure which recognizes the nuances of situation and timing, and caters for the constraints of resources. Appraisal undertaken for archival purposes also implies that it is done on the basis of knowledge – of business processes, of administrative functions, of the needs and uses for records, and perhaps most importantly, of the responsibilities and rights which are manifest or latent in records. Many of the sources for this knowledge are obvious – the law, corporate best practices, and the general experience of citizenship. Nevertheless, these do not exhaust the scope of archival knowledge which must include familiarity with history and the past. Responsible appraisal also implies a rational procedure to shape it so its course and conclusions are understood. Appraisal decisions need to be declared and visible in some way so that they can be audited and their

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outcomes revisited many times, perhaps in anticipated reviews of achievement, or as exercises in understanding what has been accomplished, and perhaps as recorded experience to be used in developing measures to be used in evaluation. Appraisal implies that the appraiser recognizes that the customs which shape records-capture, keeping, and use in any business process are not fixed or static. Extensive research is often required to build an understanding of the ecology of records at any given point in time. Appraisal implies that the appraiser understands society’s interests in records and information objects and is able to relate that understanding to the requirements of their institution or programme. None of these demands and requirements is amenable to analysis and repackaging as technical activities: the creativity of the appraiser and the knowledge of records and their structures they bring to the task are essential. Some form of appraisal has always been done by archives although its explicit tie to acquisitions as the favoured method for controlling the nature of holdings is recent. Although the practice initially was developed to maintain an archive’s viability in the face of overwhelming demands, appraisal ideas have been transformed to become a professional desiderata by a number of developments in archives and in the wider world of records following the Second World War. The convergence of practical necessities for selection with richer discussions of ideals and methods have combined to nurture a developing ideal of mature professional responsibilities to organizations, to society and to its members. As the definition suggests, the central idea of appraisal is that of an action or of active valuing. As an action, appraisal places the archivist in a number of relationships in which the determining, as an act, and the determination, as a decision, involve understanding a special moral universe and of the ethical performance of professional tasks in it. This universe is one whose boundaries are set by human actions as these are accomplished in records. Records are objects brought into our realm by human action and by the interaction of people with themselves and with others. This social reality makes it imperative that the archivist

132 A brief general summary recognize the integrity of records as they were initially brought into our world. Moreover, once the archivist has assumed responsibility for these objects, either in policy or by custody, their needs, as objects tied to specific sources in function, purpose, and time, must be given the most careful consideration in preservation regimes, description programmes, public exhibitions and in any other from of communication, access or diffusion. Appraisal and acquisition bring responsibilities which can not be escaped, abandoned or avoided. The archivist is also an architect or an artist, responsible for helping society see itself more clearly in the objects of archives. This goal is all the more difficult to achieve when such a small proportion is appraised for eventual acquisition by an archival institution. The distortions that come inevitably and inextricably in the process of making choices are bound to be formidable barriers to any programme that seeks to reflect the whole of society or to provide anything more that a glimpse of something incomplete and unknowable. While the barriers may be lamented by some, they are a reality that is hardly possible to transcend. However, transcendence is perhaps not a desirable goal. Far more useful are efforts to understand how appraisers and archivists participate in shaping archives. Despite the growing understanding we have about the nature of our instrumentality in forming archives, archivists have clear responsibilities, to origins, to groups, to society, and to other records: these larger responsibilities determine the nature and importance of the connection between appraisal and acquisition. The many appraisals that archives and archivists make, in description, in preservation choices, and even in reassessment of holdings would be better understood and monitored for consistency if the basis for values were discussed and recorded. Archivists, and others who will need to know about these views would then be better able and perhaps more sensitively, to respond to the decisions made by our predecessors. Our own regime of documents in turn would give our successors a path to follow in endeavouring to understand us and our values after we are gone.

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Efforts to standardize appraisal according to general criteria or procedure, however desirable as exercises in building common grounds for a profession, will not surmount the ultimate barrier: appraisal is a qualitative judgement and like any judgement, it can vary. If we liken the skill of an appraiser to that of a musician, we see that despite skill, even the most proficient musician must “learn” to play a new concerto; you may know the technique of playing the violin but you do not instantly know any specific work. While it may seem that it would be valuable to take the time and effort to develop universal criteria or system or calculus – something akin to the fabled philosopher’s stone that worked magical transformations or, by contrast, something more in tune with the agreed truths of mathematical formula – which when invoked would produce the “correct results” either by magic, or artistry or by correct procedure. There are good reasons why this development is neither desirable nor useful. Plurality of views allows many needs to be heard in appraisal. Different decisions may not be building chaos, as one might assume, but rather a healthy plurality of perspectives that are more in tune with the emergent hybrid societies of the future. Totalitarian claims, whether political, or religious, or professional, lead to brittle structures and arguably to equally brittle memories. Nevertheless, some common grounds that continue through time not only are highly desirable, but also are things we must develop to ensure that the language and ideals of past generations are understood. Agreement on the elements of procedures and the documents that should be created by a responsible professional is not a restriction on choice, but rather a condition that liberates professionals regardless of the final decision that is made to keep or destroy. They also create paths that beckon colleagues in the future, better ensuring that today’s voices are heard. Documents and procedures are a shared and stable foundation that supports both consistency and change, providing the deep system of roots, if you will, supporting the development of variety and difference. The perceived gulf between model methods such as those recommended in the literature and the working practices embodied

134 A brief general summary in institutional policies and habits may be less the result of differences in vision, purpose, or theories of what archives are, and more adjustments for working effectively in organizations which have different structures and cultures. As we have seen, appraisal methods developed as responses to the needs of the archival repository within specific historical situations. These differences notwithstanding, we now have substantial agreement on the general approach to appraisal. Archivists generally agree that appraisal for whatever purpose is best accomplished when it is planned, continuous, adaptable, and integrated with other activities and responsibilities. There is general agreement that it should be directed by archivists and not by some other group or external authority. Most archivists would also agree that appraisal should be clearly related to the archives’ other functions and that it needs to be responsive to changes in responsibilities, records, and the larger environment. These emerging agreements embody the assumption that each one contributes an element that is needed to fully recognize the role of appraisal in the economy of an archive. Archivists generally agree on the following: an articulated theory of appraisal and of archives is indispensable; a systematic, archive-directed appraisal best focuses resources and energies; full use of existing tools and their further development encourage consistent analysis; microappraisal undertaken alone without the support of other types of analysis of requirements, uses, functions, and structures is largely unworkable; groups may better reflect values and support cooperative acquisitions; self-knowledge is fundamental to all successful endeavours; and appraisal is a research-intensive activity.

7.2 The common ground upon which appraisal rests – records and human actions The archivists’ world is conditioned by their focus on records. Their professional life is devoted to understanding all aspects of records, their ties to people, their origins in functions, their uses in institutions and the traditions that shape records to be

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accepted as genuine and trustworthy by their users. While the information in records is also important to archivists, their first responsibility is to understand how records are tied to people, functions, and actions. Complex networks of ties and relationships give information its special meaning within a context. The structural and functional contexts for records and their information is provided by the many facets of provenance – the provenances of making, those of keeping over time, and those that are added when the records are passed on to successors – and are a ground that all archivists share in their work. Recordsmaking and keeping are extensions of humans into the world. They are a form of knowledge, they declare beliefs, either explicitly or implicitly, and they partake in group actions – in some cases they alone accomplish these actions. Documents, as “extensions” of ourselves in our many capacities and competencies, are never isolated from the conditions in which they were brought into being and were used and from the material culture and moral economy which they express. Some modes of documentary behaviours are well anchored in contemporary life and have a long history that can be pursued – the form of the letter, the contract of agreement, the last Will and declaration, the form of adoption – all are examples of documents we understand and with which we communicate and act. By contrast, there are other forms of behaviour in documents which have as yet no articulated history to help orient us to them or to establish a familiarity in use by habit. Websites, electronic commercial dealings, distance medicine relying on consolidated data from many patients as guides to diagnosis and prognosis, and public Internet behaviours are a few examples of new forms of documentary communications that may prove to be very different than others previously experienced. There are also examples of documentary usages that are no longer familiar to us having been current at other times and in other situations but no longer are part of contemporary usages. Archivists need to retain their knowledge and understanding of both contemporary and discontinued usages if they are to expand historical knowledge and enrich the archives, as mirrors of ourselves as human

136 A brief general summary actors, and as windows on society through their documentary relationships. If we lose that knowledge, and discard records that we no longer understand as being useless, we limit the extent of our horizon to a modestly extended present rather than expanding it by our work to infinity. Documents are extensions of people’s acting in an official capacity, such as an officer of a company or the agent of a public authority, or on their own behalf as individuals. Documents also are real objects. While the concept of personal actions accomplished by documents is fundamental to our corporate and individual behaviour in the world, the objective existence may seem to be compromised by digital technologies which appear to detach documents from their traditional anchors as concrete objects in paper, ink, containers, and piles of stuff that furnish the spaces in which we live and work. Nevertheless, digital documents are perceived by the courts as continuing to be a form of property in which there are recognizable property rights. Documents may be held, copied, sent, communicated, recalled or otherwise be used, singly or as groups in series of documents. The systems used for transmission and the places or spaces for keeping may trespass upon the material qualities of independence of documents customarily assigned by the use of paper. However, the convergence of documents with the means of transmission, keeping, and reproduction also establishes important new types of links between people, their records, and the organization in which they arose. These also underscore the continuing importance of concepts such as authenticity, the continuing identity and integrity of documents, and their reintegration into the contextual analyses done in appraisal. These links will affect our ways of seeing and understanding documents. Documentary entities in their many modes, as information artefacts, as instruments for acting and as vehicles for information of many kinds, establish perspectives from which to view their meanings and uses in conducting an appraisal. The contextual analysis of documents and records remains a constant requirement in appraisal. Standards for the description

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of records in archives and the emerging consensus on the requirements for new records systems in electronic form allow us to see more clearly their unique reference to human unique acts and actions in time. While the similarities in their structure as documents or in systems allow us to build models of their general features, it is their uniqueness in concrete social situations that is important for appraisal for acquisition. The unique is an essential part of the truth appraisal seeks to identify. In assuming the responsibility for appraisal we do not seek to find or to express the one “true” theory, or one “true” method. There are no immutable criteria, and no fixed answers waiting to be found. Answers to questions and the logical support for decisions are only provided by contextual research and argument to develop greater understanding of records and a surer sense of appropriate decisions in any given contingent circumstance. Archivists normally work in institutions or programmes that are organized, bureaucratic, and directed to achieving goals. Bureaucracies abhor ambiguity; however, archives need to be comfortable with differences, plurality, and the instabilities of continuing and unpredictable change. One way to build personal and institutional comfort is to have a secure route to a familiar home – for archivists, that route and that home are the documents that speak to us, about when and how things were done in the past and why decisions were made. There are always changing views on the modern condition we experience and, as a result, on the place of records as evidence. What was once a “modern” present is now transformed into a “post-modern” condition. New labels and perspectives on contemporary experience will emerge in the future and each generation will identify itself uniquely. On-going transformation in the perspectives of contemporaries on the present and their past is a constant. But this change is paralleled by another constant – that of human life and experience as it unfolds in time. We must always be on guard to ensure archival appraisal that by definition seeks to uncover human experience in documents, is not transformed into a tool for a political project of post-human engineering by becoming a mechanism for control of the past.

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Key Readings: Terry Eastwood, “Reflections on the goal of archival appraisal in democratic societies”, Archivaria 54 (Fall, 2002): 59–71. Roy C. Schaeffer, “ Transcendent concepts: power, appraisal and the archivist as ‘social outcast’” American Archivist 55/4 (Fall, 1992): 608–619. Barbara L. Craig, “The archivist as planner and poet: Thoughts on the larger issues of appraisal for acquisition.” Archivaria 52 (Fall 2001): 175–183.

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An introductory study guide

The study guide directs further reading into archival appraisal by expanding on some contemporary themes and their connections. Organized by chapters and topics, the narrative extends the basic key readings provided at the end of each chapter. It delves into selected, specific areas and suggests connections with a larger literature situated in other disciplines. The study guide is selective, not exhaustive. Nevertheless it covers a wide area and affords a path into more advanced study in a number of fields related to appraisal for archival selection and preservation. The study guide is a supplement to the key readings: it does not duplicate nor replace careful attention to them.

Chapters 1, 2 and 3 A good introduction to the uses of documents in human affairs and as instruments that shape and reflect social discourses is through the literature on literacy and memory. Much of it concentrates on the times when changes are perceived to have taken place and on the cultures in which changes were most prominent. This literature is vast, as might be expected, and very little is from the perspective of contemporary archive practice or

140 An introductory study guide the interests of archivists. Nevertheless, three themes are particularly pertinent to archives. The first is historical discussions of the practical uses of documents and records in modern societies, especially in modern times when provable, personal identity is linked to entitlement to citizenship and its advantages. The second area is the role of documents in forging personal and group memory while the third is the archive as a social construct through the actions of selection and preservation. A useful place to begin is James O’Toole’s “Toward a usable archival past: Recent studies in the history of literacy”, American Archivist 58 (Winter 1995): 86–99 which reviews the debate concerning the power of writing in knowledge formation, information transfer, and the exercise of economic and political power. Some scholars believe that literate ways introduced new elements into public and private discourse, while others believe that oral methods of engagement formed the basis of many documentary uses and continued to exert considerable influence on learning, the law, and business. Writing has its mirror in reading, as talking does in listening: scholars recently have begun to assess the problems associated with receiving texts – reading, listening and understanding – as opposed to aspects of writing texts – authority, production and circulation – and seek areas that bridge each in the acts of transmission to others. Three different places to enter the literature on orality and literacy are Jack Goody, The logic of writing and the organization of society, (Cambridge, 1986), Walter Ong, Orality and literacy: the Technologizing of the word (New York, 1991) and Rosalind Thomas, Literacy and orality in Ancient Greece (Cambridge 1992). Community and communities are a context for literacy and orality. Mary Carruthers explores the relationship between text and reader in the medieval world in The Book of memory. (Cambridge University Press, 1990). Scholars in literary studies, communications, and rhetoric, are also interested in the relationship of text/utterance to reader/listener and in how messages are communicated and received. The literature is growing and its focus reflects special interests. Nevertheless, a useful and pertinent entree is provided by Anthony Grafton’s entertaining,

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The footnote* (Cambridge, 1999). The literature on modern readers of fiction and the press suggests that publishing of texts – how, why, by whom, and for what reasons – is another aspect of a “communication loop” that links text/utterance with recipient/reader and commodifies messages and ideas. The seminal works in this area are Robert Darnton “What is the history of the book?” Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences III (Summer 1982) and Thomas R. Adams and Nicolas Barker’s “A new model for the study of the book” in Nicolas Barker (ed.) A potencie of life: Books in society (London 1993). Communication – how it is done, by whom, and for what reasons – is also the terrain for other scholars who are especially interested in the broad area of communication technology because documents, people, and activities are linked in new, faster networks of computers controlled by software and using digital encoding. The expanding universe of literature on communications has a psychological thread (how do individuals communicate), a thread of culture and social connections (how do individuals build personal and community meaning), and a thread of technology (how instrumentality impinges on connections and meanings). A good place to begin is Michael E. Hobart and Zachary S. Schiffman’s Information ages. Literacy, numeracy, and the computer revolution, (Baltimore, 1998). From the perspective of the archivist, works that explore the formation of documents for legal, organizational, and cultural purposes are particularly pertinent and nourish richer ideals of value in appraisal. Many of the foregoing titles contribute to building that understanding. Contemporary research by ethnographers is especially relevant for records professionals, for those who manage records to serve contemporary organizational needs, for systems designers, and particularly for appraisers because the ethnographic research perspective embraces a contextual notion of complex relationships in networks involving people, the organizational structures that locate them, the jobs they perform or * A curious history.

142 An introductory study guide discharge, the rules that order work, and the mediating affects of technologies, capabilities, emotions, and culture. From among the growing work in this area, three titles are recommended as a beginning: L. Suchman, “Knowledge and routine in document production,” in P. Luff and J. Hindmarsh et. al. (eds.,) Workplace studies: Recovering work practice and informing systems design, (Cambridge 2000); D. Keller-Cohen, “Organizational context and texts: The redesign of the MidWest Bell telephone bill,” Discourse Processes 10 (1987): 417–428; and J. Van Maanen and B. T. Pentland, “Cops and auditors: The rhetoric of records” in S. B. Sitkin and R. Bies (eds.,) The legalistic organization, (Thousand Oaks, Ca., 1994). Archivists Beth Yakel (“Record keeping in radiology: the relationships between activities and records in radiological processes” Ph.D. Dissertation 1997) and Ciaran Trace (“What is Recorded is Never Simply ‘What Happened’: Record Keeping in Modern Organizational Culture.” Archival Science 2/1–2 (2002): 137–159) use ethnography as a framework for exploring records-keeping practices, contrasting empirical research with current archival theory. Personal documents continue to engage and re-engage scholars of literature, ethnography, and sociology. Genres of personal documents, particularly the diary and letter, have a considerable literature in language studies and social history. While many are concerned with the biographical pertinence of the material, others have explored documents as instruments of social participation and of identity formation. David Cressy’s “A constant intercourse of letters: The transatlantic flow of information,” in Coming over: Migration and communication between England and New England in the Seventeenth Century, (Cambridge: 1989) is an example of the insights that come from studying a genre of documents. This historical and sociological work provides considerable food for thought for appraisers developing a strategic approach to examining personal records-making. The public uses of documents may be self-evident in a world suffused with the idea of public identities tied to documents, ownership tied to recorded proofs, and arrest sanctioned by process in documents, but it is not as easy to transfer contemporary

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experience and priorities into the past. The public uses of documents in the ancient and medieval worlds are discussed by R. McKittrick The uses of literacy in early mediaeval Europe (Cambridge 1990), Rosalind Thomas, “ Literacy and the state: The profusion of writing,” in Literacy and orality in Ancient Greece (Cambridge 1992) and Michael Clanchy, From memory to written record (2nd ed.,) (Oxford, 1993). Few archivists have written monographs about large themes, at least in the English language, although there is a growing number of specialist studies that embody the fruits of extensive research into specific records-keeping regimes. Two notable exceptions are Ernst Posner’s Archives in the Ancient World (1972), and Jane E. Sayers, Law and records in Medieval England (London 1988). Current attention to the mechanisms of memory, and especially public memory formation and transmission, has been stimulated by the passing of generations that were involved in the catastrophic events of the twentieth century. Philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists are actively engaged in memory studies; they join historians who see memory as a key concept in the writing of history, in its uses in the public sphere, and for its narrative power to persuade in story. Three accessible texts that introduce this topic are Douwe Draaisma Metaphors of memory: A history of ideas about the mind, (Cambridge 2000); Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust. The growing assault on truth and memory (New York 1994); and P. Hutton, History as an art of memory (Vermont, 1993). Several archivists have explored memory, especially in relation to the participation of archives in the formation of public memory and in nurturing personal recollection. A good place to begin is with Richard Cox’s “The concept of public memory and its impact on archival public programming,” Archivaria 36 (Autumn 1993): 122–135. Four other contributions ground aspects for the public memory/archives relationship, showing the complexities of it and suggesting relationships to archival practices and to records-keeping more generally: Robert McIntosh, “The Great War, archives, and modern memory”,

144 An introductory study guide Archivaria 46 (Fall 1998): 1–31; Terry Eastwood “Reflections on the goal of archival appraisal in democratic societies” Archivaria 54 (Fall 2002); Brien Brothman “The past that archives keep: Memory, history, and the preservation of archival records,” Archivaria 51 (Spring 2001): 48–8; and Verne Harris, “The archival sliver: Power, memory and archives in South Africa,” Archival Science 2 (1–2 (2002) 63–86. Although corporate histories, in the sense of formal written texts, exist for many organizations, these works are often commissioned, and they tend to celebrate achievement and success. Few managers are probably self-consciously aware that their records are potential blocks to build a corporate view of the past and to justify actions. Their valuing of history may be moot, but they would all agree that they are cognizant of the demands of managing risk and of ensuring adequate accountability, at least in the short term. Not surprisingly, records managers pay careful attention to the legal requirements for keeping records and develop techniques to insert controls into the process of corporate administration. Accountability, corporate memory, and knowledge transfer are three themes that are of considerable interest to management theorists and newly minted managers of information and knowledge. Downsizing of business in the 1980s and 90s and several scandals in business and government exposed the key role of documents as sources for rendering an account. Greater attention has been paid to them as a result: proponents of secrecy, public accountability, and greater guarantees for personal privacy can agree on promoting greater consistency in records making and keeping. A considerable literature is accumulating in the areas of compliance with standards; litigation support; protection of privacy to support corporate credibility with the public; and managing proprietary knowledge for market advantages and corporate resiliency against loss of knowledge with the loss of personnel. The impact of these ideas on the function of appraisal in managing corporate information resources and records is clearly evident in the literature on managing records and on management theory. Chun Wei Choo’s The knowing organization: How organizations use information

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to construct meaning, create knowledge, and make decisions (New York, 1998) is a lucid introduction to knowledge management. The emphasis on business reasons for controlling records rationally in organizations is a foundation for the work of records and information managers and recently the subject of an ISO standard and an associated technical report. From among the many texts on quality records management, a good place to begin is the work of Elizabeth Shepherd and Geoffrey Yeo, Managing records: A handbook of principles and practice (London, 2003). Public accountability, legal responsibility, and the foundations for workable democracy are larger themes in the literature persuasively and consistently pursued by the International Records Management Trust and its programmes of education and training in support of public information policies that integrate accountability with sound records keeping. The IRMT website is a good place to seek relevant titles in this area: www.irmt.org. Victoria Lemieux’s “Let the ghosts speak: An empirical exploration of the ‘nature’ of the record,” Archivaria 51 (Spring 2001); 81–111 addresses the practical problem of business unsupported by clear records whose purposes are clearly grasped by officers. Also useful is the wide-ranging discussion of accountability in records generally, and especially the nature of public accountability in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries through the analysis of real cases, in Richard Cox and David Wallace (eds.) Archives and the public good (London and Westport Ct, 2002). The idea of the archive, its formation, role, and history has emerged in the past twenty years to be an area of interest to philosophers, literary scholars, and historians although few, if any, take explicit notice of the role played by archivists in shaping the residue – appraisal being only the most obvious function that impinges on the archives. Nevertheless, these contributions recognize collectively that archives as a residue are constructed. They are not accumulated nor generated without interest. The professional ideas that animate its work and the tools archivists use to build the archive are instrumental in

146 An introductory study guide establishing its shape, voice, and possibilities. Appraisal clearly is the focus of this intentional. The area requires more sustained research and discussion; however, three contributions show the way: Carolyn Heald “Are we collecting the ‘right stuff’?” Archivaria 40 (Fall 1995): 182–188; Verne Harris “Claiming less, delivering more: A critique of positivist formulations on archives in South Africa,” Archivaria 44 (Fall 1997): 132–141; and Bernadine Dodge, “Across the Great Divide: Archival Discourse and the (re)presentations of the past in Late-Modern Society,” Archivaria 53 (Spring 2002): 16–30. The inevitable gap between any office manual of procedures, especially those related to records, and the real practices of organized groups in offices and at other places of work, should be areas of special concern to archival appraisers. The veil of ignorance over this disjunction is slowly rising and future research will probably concentrate on developing ways that reality can be mapped to records and procedures. These concepts and tools, in turn, will be very important additions to the methods of appraisers. Ethnographic methods show promise in this area and several examples of their applications have already been referred to. A good text to use for research methods generally, including ethno-methods, is E. Babbie The practice of social research (9th ed.) (Belmont CA, 2001). The archivist’s role in the business process, including their optimum strategic placement, emerged in the 1990s to become again a topic of interest, fuelled by the evident impact of computer technologies on organizations, especially on their structures for doing regularized business, their systems for communications, and their related records practices. While archivists seem to be most aware of their potential impact, largely as a result of their responsibilities for preserving evidence intact and authentic, their points of view are represented in the standards for records-keeping in Australia and at the international level. Active participation in public policy development, especially in the areas of copyright, privacy, standards for records keeping and historical accountability appear to be areas in which the archives must develop strong and independent voices.

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Many archivists laud these developments in archival independence but argue that they should not take precedence over key areas of archival responsibility including appraisal for selection and records preservation for historical accountability. There is also a tension between policy and standards or physical custody as better techniques for implementing appraisal and preservation of information artefacts – both are strategies to guarantee the records’ continuing identity and integrity over time. Standards and audits may be more in tune with the needs of today. The tension will most likely be resolved by another way that combines aspects of standards, reformatting, and custody. These points of view are expressed in Glenda Acland, “Managing the record rather than the relic,” Archives and Manuscripts 20 (May 1992), pp. 57–63; Luciana Duranti, “Archives as place,” Archives and Manuscripts 24/2 (Nov. 1996): 242–255; and Adrian Cunningham, “Commentary: Journey to the end of the night: Custody and the dawning of a new era on the archival threshold,” Archives and Manuscripts 24/2 (Nov. 1996): 312–321. The growing literature on archive programme management, especially noted in the past ten years or so, is another sign of an emerging sense of community among a group of practitioners that share goals and responsibilities, despite the differences in their institutions, infrastructure, and size. Archivists and librarians have taken opposite routes to exploring their professional responsibilities: one concentrating on the nature of their materials and social role, only coming to management topics recently, the other devoting efforts to resolve issues of standards and systems in bibliographic control and management, only recently returning to focus again on their social mission. More are promoting books and published materials as cultural and information artefacts. Appraisal in archive programmes has reflected the emphasis on materials and roles, on theory and theories. Valuable textbooks with theoretical, practical and management strengths are Keeping Archives (Ed. Judith Ellis), especially in the context of this book, the chapters on “Managing the acquisition process” by Anne-Marie Schwirtlich and Barbara Reed (Chapter 5),

148 An introductory study guide “Appraisal and disposal” by Barbara Reed (Chapter 6), “Created and compiled documentation programs” by Ann Pederson (Chapter 14), Richard Cox’s Managing Institutional Archives (New York, 1992), and F. Gerald Ham’s Selecting and appraising archives and manuscripts (Chicago, 1993) and Bruce Dearstyne’s Managing historical records programs (Walnut Creek, 2000) discuss appraisal in many situations. All of these authors have had considerable experience in appraisal and in management in Australia and the United States. Canadian understanding of appraisal is often different in concept and emphasis. The Canadian experience is introduced by Laura Millar’s “Discharging our debt: The evolution of the total archives concept in English Canada,” Archivaria 46 (Fall 1998): 103–146, Terry Eastwood, “Towards a social theory of appraisal” and Terry Cook “Mind over matter: towards a new theory of archival appraisal,” both in Barbara L. Craig, ed., The archival imagination: Essays in Honour of Hugh A. Taylor (Ottawa, 1993). Recent discussions of appraisal reflect a maturation of archival ideas about the profession’s roles in modern societies. Archives and archivists have developed a sense of their mission over the long term and have begun to probe the complexities that are involved in the concept of “permanent” or “continuing”, something that is conceived to exist beyond a specified point of termination. These ideas have matured in the context of post-World War II political changes, institutional down sizing, and business process re-engineering of the late 80s and 90s and reflect ideas forged by experiences in dynamic records programmes in the last forty years of the twentieth century. Sue McKemmish’s comprehensive discussion of the continuum model endeavours to link records keeping with archives within the context of archival ideas on their historical relationship in “Placing records continuum theory and practice” Archival Science 1/4 (2001) 333–359. A good introduction to archival ideas generally is Terry Cook “What is past is prologue: A history of archival ideas since 1898, and the future paradigm shift” Archivaria 43 (Spring 1997): 17–63; Tom Nesmith, “Still fuzzy, but more accurate: Some thoughts on the ‘ghosts’ of archival theory,” Archivaria 47 (Spring 1999):

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136–150; and Terry Eastwood, “Reflections on the goal of archival appraisal in democratic societies,” Archivaria 54 (Fall 2002): 59–71. We need to turn the historical microscope on archival practices, concepts and products, especially finding aids and exhibitions.

Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 Archival and records-keeping history has a surprisingly large literature although its many topics of interest are scattered among several disciplines, their journals and monographs. What these contributions may lack in direction from an agreed agenda of research pursued systematically by techniques suited to its nature, is made up amply by the variety of topics that have been explored and perspectives used in the research. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, communication theorists, and cultural analysts have each tackled related issues in the general area of records. Scholars who are interested in the life of organizations and bureaucracies have most consistently addressed records in their work. Most concentrate on contemporary organizations and look to the future. But a small group has chosen to approach the present using the past as a context that is an active player being neither a neutral background for current actions nor a restricting dead hand to escape from in the future. This historical-contextual research supports a better understanding of the archives that survive, and consequentially, of the instrumentality of appraisal in shaping, concealing, liberating or altering the past. While none seeks explicitly to reveal the power of appraisal, their historical focus on records and communications, more than any other type of history, demonstrates the power of appraisal to forge what we know, and how we know the past. From among many worthwhile texts, the following three are a good place to begin; JoAnne Yates, Control through communications: The rise of system in American management (Baltimore, 1989); Bill Russell, “White man’s paper burden”; Terry Cook, “Paper trails: A study in northern records

150 An introductory study guide and northern administration, 1898–1958” in T. Nesmith, ed. Canadian archival studies and the rediscovery of provenance, (Metuchen, NJ. and London, 1993); Brien Brothman “Orders of value: Probing the theoretical terms of archival practice” Archivaria 32 (Summer 1991): 78–100; and Peter Horsman, “The last dance of the phoenix, or the rediscovery of the archival fonds” Archivaria 54 (Fall 2002): 1–23. Monographs on the history of organizations or businesses often include sections on their records and information systems. Two examples are Ray Jones, The Nineteenth-Century Foreign Office: An administrative history (London, 1971) and Jill Pellew, The Home Office 1848–1914: from clerks to bureaucrats, (London, 1982). Collectively, specialist histories suggest some of the methods that might be used in the future to explore the history of records, records keeping, communications, and archives. The historical promises to be fruitful, particularly when married with research into current practices and situations. Among the many areas that await research in depth are the nature of personal documents, the relationships of people/professions/and organizations to their records in time, and the social uses of the past in documents. Heather MacNeil’s Trusting records (Boston, 2000) describes the grounds for trust in law and historical practice. Trust and confidence, along with the grounds for belief and the sources of anxiety, are social phenomena associated with records keeping and archives. These will need to be explored by systematic research to locate their current anchors, especially in a time of media proliferation and mass diffusion of information packaged as entertainment, opinion and story. Laura Millar probes the potentially fruitful area of the spatial disconnections among the residues of a life that lose their unity over time and the historical reasons for the separation in “The death of the fonds and the resurrection of provenance: Archival context in space and time,” Archivaria 53 (Spring 2002): 1–15. All of these issues return archivists to contemplate either the nature of their eternal quest or the solutions for a management conundrum – depending on your point of view – how seamlessly to relate appraisal to preservation and both to access or active promotion.

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Finally, there is a growing strain in the literature that questions the basis for rational decision-making for cultural purposes and looks for inspiration less to science and management and more to story, myth, and poetry. Both avenues to human truths are channelled in different ways: archive work seems to span both categories. Useful preliminary discussions of these possible conflicts and the ways to seek correctives are suggested by Hugh Taylor, in “The archivist, the letter, and the spirit,” Archivaria 43 (Spring 1997): 1–10; Barbara L Craig, “The archivist as planner and poet,” Archivaria 52; and Bernadine Dodge, “Across the great divide: Archival discourse and the representations of the past in late-modern society,” Archivaria 53 (Spring 2002): 16–30. There are a vocal few who deny categorically that there are any theoretical ideas in archival work, including appraisal. Many practitioners may agree with their pragmatic arguments locating values for records and archives largely in their roles as supports or sources for history or perhaps by their use as remembrance for evidence and accountability. John Roberts is perhaps the most vocal exponent of the view that there are no theories in archives, either in their origins and sources, or in a related but independent theory/ies of appraisal. Archivists tend the infrastructure of a mine, but others do the real productive work, of geological exploration, sample assaying, extraction, sales, and use. His sense of the archivist’s work is not uncommon and is reviewed in “Practice makes perfect, theory makes theorists,” Archivaria 37 (Spring 1994): 111–121. Frank Burke’s, “The future course of archival theory in the United States” began the debate about the nature of archival theory in the 80s. His challenge was taken up by Lester Cappon and others. The debate is reviewed by Gregg Kimball in “The Burke-Cappon Debate”. Burke’s clear discussion of the importance of theory to archival work, to education, and to the values archives seek to recognize, however these are determined, takes a very different tack than Terry Eastwood’s “What is archival theory and why is it important,” Archivaria 37 (Spring 1994): 122–130. Eastwood responds directly to some of Roberts, objections; however, its special value is in abstracting concepts for understanding Hegelian notions of the nexus between theory,

152 An introductory study guide method, and practice. Each has its place in relation to the other and no one part can do the job of its companions. Archive theory and its relationship to appraisal is discussed historically and conceptually by Luciana Duranti in “The concept of appraisal and archival theory,” American Archivist 57/2 (Spring 1994): 328–344. Alternative ideas about the relationship of appraisal to archive theory and practice derived from North American experiences are entertainingly discussed by Mark Greene “‘The surest proof’: A utilitarian approach to appraisal,” Archivaria 45 (Spring 1995): 127–169 and with Frank Boles in “Et Tu Schellenberg? Thoughts on the dagger of American appraisal theory/ies,” American Archivist 59/3 (1996): 298–310. The importance of articulating the grounds for appraisal theory/ies is underscored by the many recent discussions of the social power of archives, whether this power is explicitly recognized or only latent. In either case, archivists have a fiduciary responsibility to all groups in making choices that will have profound but often unforeseen impacts. While the methodical habit is attractive for its undoubted services to the practical needs of organizations, in arranging efficient work and in minimizing random choice or favouritism, theory and theorizing seem to be the most explicit ways to uncover foundations for an appraisal theory or theories and to argue alternatives in abstract. Methodical procedures cannot do this; their strength is to introduce and articulate the appraisal theory in a working situation. Macro-appraisal is a method but additionally, in its origins and development, it integrates a concept of value developed from an appraisal theory that locates the sources of value. Macroappraisal is, as a result, a combined theory and method. But macro-appraisal is also a strategy for scoping the field for which the archives is responsible, integrated with and supported by a parallel method of weighing values from the records themselves. Terry Cook’s “Mind over matter. Towards a new theory of archival appraisal,” in Barbara L. Craig (ed.) The archival imagination. Essays in honour of Hugh A. Taylor (1992) discusses the development of the theory of appraisal to guide macro activities and reviews the context in which it was developed in

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the National Archives of Canada. Also useful in understanding the origins of the strategic approach to appraisal at the National Archives is the late Bruce Wilson’s “Systematic appraisal of records of the Government of Canada at the National Archives of Canada” Archivaria 38 (Fall 1994): 218–31. Current guidelines on appraisal are available at the NA website. These reflect ongoing adjustments and should be checked regularly. But perhaps more useful in understanding the application of macro-appraisal in experience is Brian P.N. Beavan “Macro-appraisal: From theory to Practice” Archivaria 48 (Fall 1999): 154–198 and Catherine Bailey, “From the top down: The Practice of macroappraisal” Archivaria 43 (Spring 1997): 89–128. Strategic approaches to documentation, of which macroappraisal and documentation strategy are two that are well represented in the published literature in English, have been urged by many, in North America, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand since at least the 1960s, largely as a response to a generation of experience in doing appraisal and in serving a broader public than had ever before used archival sources and services. Satisfaction with results, however these were measured, were never sufficiently high either to support complacency or, by contrast, to urge the energetic development of standards for practices. Three strands are noteworthy and should be borne in mind when reading the accumulating literature on the experience of appraisal in the past forty years. The first is the development generally of a more expansive view of archives to include not only those in organizations and bureaucracies, especially levels of government and large endeavours such as churches or businesses, but also collections of documents that have been drawn together by conscious efforts to build an historical archive to develop a subject or express a view of the world. The second thread is the emergence of interest in the creators and why they make records in the first instance. From this has developed research into communications, personal psychologies, and perhaps most notably for archivists, the method of functional analysis to link records with business needs and requirements for regulatory compliance. Functions expressing a utility seems a

154 An introductory study guide natural way to connect documents with people and organizations and one that promotes a logical method of appraisal that is more workable in today’s environment. And the third thread is emerging notions about how the function of appraisal is best integrated with other work in archives. The continuing strong connection between appraisal and acquisition seems to be maintaining its momentum, despite suggestions that acquisition was an outmoded idea in the world of electronic records. Historical records or records accumulated over time is only one aspect of their cultural values and practical utility. The other aspect is their consistent management, protection, and promotion as sources for research. The archive is not a neutral vessel for material of obvious values but rather an instrument in the shaping of those records to suit purposes that may be declared or not. The exploration of this instrumentality has only just begun: Particularly apposite, although from very different points of view, are Joan Schwartz “Coming to terms with photographs: Descriptive standards, linguistic ‘othering’ and the margins of archivy,” Archivaria 54 (Fall 2002): 142–170; the reports of the Task Forces on Appraisal and Preservation, available on the InterPARES website; and Heather MacNeil “Providing grounds for trust II: The Findings of the Authenticity Task Force of InterPARES,” Archivaria 54 (Fall 2002): 24–58. More prosaically, appraisals clearly shape many other selections that are done by archives, for digitization, distribution, and preservation. These many faces of appraisal require systematic exploration and discussion. A good place to see this work is in Tyler O. Walters “Contemporary archival appraisal methods and preservation decision-making,” American Archivist 59/3 (Summer 1996): 322–338. The close connection between appraisal and reformatting is illustrated by the case in the appendix to this volume. Appraisal of records for their monetary values in an open market is well established for museum and art curators and for those who build collections of ephemera, autographs, and letters of prominent people. The reason for this market, its levels of control and the work of document appraisers is dealt with by Stan Hanson, The monetary appraisal of archival documents in

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Canada. (Ottawa, 1993) and Sam Kula, Appraising moving images: assessing the archival and monetary value of film and video records (Lanham, Maryland, 2003) and his earlier work on appraisal, “Archival appraisal of moving images” in Peter Walne (ed.), Selected guidelines for the management of records and archives: a RAMP Reader accessible at www.unesco.org. The literature on the use of special techniques to assist appraisal and acquisition is surprisingly detailed. Nevertheless, it is important to understand the origins, the purposes and goals of the works, and the needs of the people and institutions that developed them. Their strength lies in their specificity to a particular situation, but this also makes their methods and procedures less transferable to other institutions unless they are intended to address the same issues: most techniques will need to be adapted if they are to work. The literature on special techniques and tools for appraisal for acquisition is at once selective in the areas of its concentration but at the same time surprisingly deep and detailed, providing many samples and models for adaptation. John Fleckner’s Archives and manuscripts: Surveys (Chicago, 1977) is still the best introduction to surveying and a manual for those either seeking to build their understanding or looking for proven ways to modify instruments and techniques they are already using. The use of statistics to support a rational choice of documents for long-term keeping has both a practical impetus and the attraction of scientific sureties to recommend it. Statistical methods seem to be suited equally to handling repetitive modern records as to their analysing. Volume and repetition are especially evident in files of cases, either in healthcare, insurance, social services, taxation, or in other large bureaucracies that deal with people as individuals but en masse. Terry Cook’s RAMP study on case files, The archival appraisal of records containing personal information and his “‘Many are called but few are chosen’: Appraisal guidelines for sampling and selecting case files,” Archivaria 32(Summer 1991): 25–50, introduce methods and techniques for using samples for archival purposes. Ellen Scheinberg discusses the choice of sample methods to meet the needs of real series of files in “Case file theory: Does it work in practice?” Archivaria 38 (Fall 1994): 45–60 while Evelyn

156 An introductory study guide Kolish, in the same issue (61–73), traces the practical reasons for a sampling method used for court records and the implications for theory in “Sampling methodology and its application: An illustration of the tension between theory and practice.” Many other projects have used statistical and purposeful sampling as a method of selection for acquisition; however, most of the reports about these remain in-house and are not widely known or available. The characteristics of different media are assumed to have an impact on the sources for identifying values, on the techniques and methods of appraisal, and on the curatorial and access systems that are used. Tom Connor’s “Appraising public television programs: Toward an interpretive and comparative evaluation model,” American Archivist 63/1 (Spring 2000): 152–174 is an example of the type of detailed work that is taking place in broadcast archives and for other special media of communications. The assumptions fostered by a medium of communication and the norms of habitual use by people and their organizations are best considered by archivists and appraisers before they develop strategies, plans, and systems. Post-modern perspectives on writing and communication, on the formation of archives as residue and the deconstructive technique of questioning documents, simply understood as complete, stable evidence, or even as stabilizable evidence, is a particularly useful counterpoise to the easy equation between reality and records, especially the reality or truths of a past experienced by people in many different ways. The problem of view or views is nicely introduced by Joan Schwartz (vide supra). Terry Cook’s “Fashionable nonsense or professional rebirth: Postmodernism and the practice of archives,” Archivaria 51 (Spring 2001): 14–35 discusses many professional implications. More dense but equally rich is Brien Brothman’s “Declining Derrida: Integrity, tensegrity and the preservation of archives from deconstruction,” Archivaria 48 (Fall 1999): 64–85. The practical problems posed by various media, their needs as physical objects and their uses within organizations and communities of practice are best approached using the important series of manuals and guidelines known as the RAMP studies. The

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titles – located on the UNESCO website – include specialized works on photographs, oral history, and sound records, among others. These guidelines are a useful place to begin where the support or medium of record challenges to the technical knowledge of the archive programme or institution. The acquisition by public authority institutions of archives from private sector organizations or from individual private citizens is an area of archives work that has a long history; however, that experience is not well represented in the literature nor do the contributions take a theoretical approach. The tradition of collecting manuscripts and personal papers is strong and vibrant nonetheless. Archivists who are involved in these areas are often spread out over a number of different types of repository – the special collections library, the museum, and the gallery. They share an approach to their work that has much in common to library acquisition or museum collecting, and their artefact focus is strong and has all the robustness that comes from being associated with intriguing objects from the past – these seem to be endlessly interesting sources for contemporaries to handle, read, and muse upon. The fissure between the manuscript/ personal curator/archivist and the institutional records archivist may diminish in the future as more research explores the role of records in personal life and the multiple channels of communication that are represented by different documentary habits and forms. The InterPARES II project endeavours to map the ideas associated with digital institutional records to those of the arts and artists, and science and scientists. Archivists have had deep and sustained interest in personal documents, acquiring personal fonds, manuscripts, and building collections around special topics, such as women poets or book illustrators, or gathering items by form such as letters of writers, personal travel diaries, or war writing. Recently, archivists who specialize in archives of people and in personal papers and documents have begun to explore the relationships of people and persons to their documents, using the ideas of communication, identity construction, evidence of personhood and witness. Adrian Cunningham in Australia has written perceptively about the role

158 An introductory study guide of the archivist in appraising personal papers for selection. Particularly useful is the notion of a fruitful relationship between archivists who have different foci on the documentary universe and discussions of the implications of digital media on personal records. The discourse of professional functions, shaped by presumptions that were underpinned by a reasonably stable technology of communication, especially their survival on paper supports are topics introduced in “Beyond the pale? The ‘flinty’ relationship between archivists who collect the private records of individuals and the rest of the archival profession,” Archives and Manuscripts 24/1 (May 1996): 20–25; “The archival management of personal records in electronic form: Some suggestions,” Archives and Manuscripts 22/1 (May 1994): 94–105; and “Waiting for the ghost train: Strategies for managing electronic personal records before it’s too late.” Similar concerns about the implications of electronic media and forms of communication for collecting institutions and for archivists who concentrate on the private sector, especially the records of people, are discussed by Janine Delaney in New Zealand, “Redefining the role for collecting archives in an electronic paradigm,’ Archifacts (April 2000): 13–24, and by Tom Hyry and Rachel Oanuf in the United States, “The personality of electronic records: The impact of new information technology on personal papers,” Archival Issues, 22 (1997): 28–47. Four articles are particularly important in broaching larger issues of memory, meaning, identity formation, and professional perspectives in relationship to personal records and probably best introduce the ideas in these areas. Richard Cox, “The Record in the manuscript collection,” Archives and Manuscripts 24/1 (May 1996): 46–61; Sue McKemmish, “Evidence of me,” Archives and Manuscripts 24/1 (May 1996): 28–45; Verne Harris, “On the back of a tiger: Deconstructive possibilities in ‘Evidence of me,’” Archives and Manuscripts, 29/1 (May 2001): 8–21; and Catherine Hobbs, “The Character of personal archives: Reflections on the value of records of individuals,” Archivaria 52 (Fall 2001): 126–135. The implications for appraisal of such theoretical discussions are suggestive, especially for relating organizational records to those of individual people and for

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supporting strategic objectives for archival institutions. A handy review of this literature is provided by Riva A. Pollard, “The appraisal of personal papers: A critical literature review,” Archivaria 52 (Fall 2001) 136–150. Barbara Craig suggests that poetic sensitivities are needed to sharpen the creative edge of management strategies in “The archivist as planner and poet: Thoughts on the larger issues of appraisal for acquisition,” Archivaria 52 (Fall 2001): 175–183. The emphasis on ethics – guides for the behaviour of archivists in the main functional areas of archival work – emerged in the 70s and 80s largely as part of the increasing sense of community among a group of practitioners who saw themselves as a profession. They wanted to develop the attributes of other recognized professions, especially control over members, common standards of performance, and higher education before assuming practical responsibilities. Although explicit references to the appropriate codes of ethics are not always included in discussions of practices, ethical codes and standards of performance are natural allies. Both will have larger roles in records work in the future especially if professional certification becomes more than voluntary. This text argues that one attribute of responsible professionals is the use of documentation to account for their own work. Since the Second World War, many reviews of holdings, re-appraisals of past acquisitions, and new or renewed directions for appraisal have taken place in most institutions. Collectively, these highlight the deficiencies in professional documents kept by archivists who discharged appraisal and acquisition responsibilities in the past. Whether re-appraisal is justified or not cannot be adequately discussed unless the reasons for decisions are made clear and the circumstance surrounding the acquisition and accession of records is also made clear. The habit of keeping records pro-forma, perhaps as a ritual, or to comply with the letter of a rule, or as a form or self-assurance or self-delusion needs to be always nudged back to the spirit that animated the birth of documents in the first place, to their role as personal and professional testaments or memorials, or as a truthful story.

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Appendix 1

Some definitions with explanations1 Acquisition policy: guides the conversion of an ideal decision of what should be kept into what can be preserved and by whom. An acquisition policy would include general guidance on what the institution is capable of acquiring. It may provide guidance on working with other institutions as partners. It should specify how legal, technical, or cost factors affect acquisition. It may also declare the institution’s approach to issues of media, internal archives’ functions and work plans, or other local factors that have an impact on acquisition. Appraisal: A term that refers to the broad archival function that includes and subsumes policies, strategies, procedures and criteria for appraisal. All are required to meet fully the goal of appraisal. Appraisal is largely an intellectual activity of weighing the relative values of some thing with a view to deciding on a course of action. In archives, the intellectual 1

These definitions were developed with Terry Cook for use in the Association of Canadian Archivists Advanced Institute on Appraisal. I have refined and expanded these in places to suit this text.

162 Appendix 1 activity is the weighing of the relative values of records to decide which ones may be destroyed and why, and which ones must be kept and why. Appraisal methodology: a systematic approach to conducting each major individual appraisal project. Appraisal policy: embodies the archival institutions’ interpretation of its mandate and establishes the ideal for the approach, breadth, and level of the intellectual exercise of deciding (i.e., appraising) what records of which creators should be preserved on a continuing or enduring (traditionally “permanent”) basis. Appraisal strategy: A broad plan for approaching all relevant records creators within the archival institution’s jurisdiction as established by the mandate, as refined by the policies on appraisal and acquisition, to conduct appraisal in a systematic way to isolate records of “value” as articulated by the chosen appraisal theory. Examples are the Macro-appraisal and Planned Approach to Records Disposition Programme of the National Archives of Canada developed in the 1990s or the Institutional Functional Analysis and Documentation Strategy pioneered by Helen Samuels in her writings and especially her book, Varsity Letters. Appraisal theory: an exploration – historical, philosophical and operational – of the explicit sources or indirect influences upon which archivists should base their fundamental determination of “value” or “significance” or “importance” in records. If a record has “value” in a given situation, the question must be answered to whom is it valuable? What factors led to this determination? and why were they used? Appraisal and Acquisition Policies, Appraisal Strategies, and Appraisal Methodologies are variously means whereby specific theoretical or philosophical definitions of “value” may be identified and implemented in a working reality.

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Archival theory: an exploration – historical, philosophical and operational – of generalized concepts concerning the nature, character, and properties of records. Goal of acquisition: To acquire for the archival institution (or otherwise protect) the records identified as valuable by the appraisal while respecting the legal, political, ethical, technical, preservation, record-keeping, and resources environment in which the archive operates. An example of a working guide is that provided by the macro-appraisal of the National Archives of Canada which seeks sufficient and not superfluous recorded evidence, in the best media or medium, from offices or private persons identified as being of primary interest because they reflect the functioning of a programme, provide the “sharpest image” of the interaction of the people with the creator or programme or meet the test of national significance. Goal of appraisal: To identify records whose preservation ensures the accountability of people, officers, organizations, and society to contemporaries and to those in the future who may need or want these means of knowledge. Macro-appraisal: a process for weighing and differentiating the “value” or “significance” of records creators (and thus their related records) through an analysis of functions, programmes, activities, and structures, and interactions with people as citizens/clients/customers. By implication, macro-appraisal links this analysis to a parallel weighing and differentiating of the value or significance of the creator’s related records. This linking is done in the form of a preliminary hypothesis which is later amended, confirmed or rejected by a close and detailed examination of the records. Macro-appraisal occurs at three levels: across the entire jurisdiction for the archive; for each entire records creator; and for each major appraisal project for each creator. Micro-appraisal: a process for weighing and differentiating the “value” or “significance” of records, at the level of series, group,

164 Appendix 1 and even item. This appraisal is accomplished using criteria rating values or significances on a comparative scale. Welldeveloped criteria are associated with time span, age, uniqueness, extent, fragility, manipulability, relationships with other records, monetary value, aesthetic or intrinsic merit, and, traditionally, their known or anticipated usefulness to researchers. These are not exclusive but illustrative criteria; others may be agreed for specific situations, cases, or types of records. Microappraisal traditionally is referred to as appraisal. Re-appraisal: re-evaluation: most often the term is used for the re-evaluation of the accessioned holdings of an archive to determine which should be retained and which should be deaccessioned and removed. This re-evaluation is based on the original appraisal decision that either governed or should have governed the records in question. Retro-appraisal: re-evaluation: the process of re-evaluating the accessioned holdings of an archives to determine which should be retained and which should be deaccessioned and removed, based on challenging the ideas, aims, and goals of the original appraiser(s) or as a result of changes, either in the capabilities of the institution or the situation in which the original appraisal was undertaken. Selection: may be used as another term for appraisal. Most often it is used to denote a second wave or refinement of the initial appraisal decision once the records have crossed the archival threshold. This threshold could be either the physical receipt of records or the accomplishment of a planned upload into the archives’ preservation server. Normally, selection will take place before records are accessioned into the archive’s holdings.

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Appendix 2

Archival appraisal and the preservation of audiovisual records at Concordia University Archives, Montreal, Canada. By Nancy Marrelli • • • •

•

•

Rediscovering archival appraisal. Archival appraisal and audio-visual records. Why are audio-visual records neglected? What is special about audio-visual records? Managing audio-visual records – a general overview of requirements. The importance of reformatting. Managing audio-visual records at Concordia University Archives: how our mandate and history led us to audiovisual preservation and appraisal. The appraisal process – intuitive or structured? How we use the appraisal grid at Concordia University Archives. Conclusion: What we discovered during the project. Illustration A: The Concordia Appraisal Grid. Illustration B: A list of useful resources for information about audio-visual materials.

166 Appendix 2

1.

Rediscovering appraisal

While developing and implementing a preservation programme for audio-visual records, we “rediscovered” appraisal as an essential ingredient in the process and we developed a management tool to carry it out in a responsible manner. The following explains what happened at Concordia Archives and some of the whys. Our experience confirms that there are no quick and easy solutions to the challenges presented by the archival appraisal of audio-visual (AV) archives: film, video and audio recordings, and multi-media presentations. At Concordia Archives we came to do appraisal of our AV materials from the back door – we were drawn into the web of appraisal as part of our preservation program for AV holdings. Our experience demonstrates very particularly that all archival functions are linked. We believe our experience is a perfect example of the profound synergy of the archival undertaking – you can’t do one archival function without considering all of the others, their relationships, and their dependencies. We do not offer a fool-proof solution. The text that follows is more about exploring the issues of appraisal of AV and looking at the solution found in one institution than it is about proposing something which will answer the needs of all types and sizes of archival institution.

2.

Archival appraisal of audio-visual materials

Appraisal of AV materials is not as widely accepted as being of importance as is the appraisal of more traditional textual records on paper. The two main approaches to AV documents are at opposite poles: Keep it all because it all matters or, by contrast, don’t worry too much about it because AV is not as important as textual documentation. Oddly enough, these two very different philosophies often get jumbled into a single approach: Keep everything but do nothing much about it. The rationales I have heard from colleagues in archives that have a mixture of media in their holdings run something like this:

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I don’t DO appraisal. I save it all. All my AV material is interesting and it must be valuable if we acquired it in the first place. I don’t have the equipment or resources right now – but one day I will and I’ll deal with it then. If I were to make a selection now, I may regret the choice later. Some of the stuff might be really important to someone some day – and they’ll pay big bucks for using it. The cost of reformatting is too steep for us. I’ll just leave it all on the shelf for now and reformat the things that people request. It will be a “natural selection.” I agree that AV material might be interesting but, after all, it isn’t really archival – so we’ll just keep it on the shelf as long as it lasts and when it’s gone, it’s gone. Confused, contradictory, and wishful thinking, such as the foregoing, and the neglect it leads to, only increase problems since passive storage of AV documents often results in losing the practical ability to provide access. Benign neglect soon results in the loss of records in AV formats far sooner than for those on paper.

3.

Why are audio-visual records neglected?

Archivists may neglect to deal with AV records because they lack resources and do not have the technical expertise to understand either the format’s characteristics or their particular needs. Archivists may prefer to concentrate on what they know well. Audio-visual records as a result may be seen as being “new media” or “special media” that are distinct and separate from records that are in the archive’s main stream of experience. However, the contrary situation is really the case. As time goes by, the line will continue to blur between AV and traditional paper-based textual documents. Increasingly, textual documents have graphics, visuals, and even audio and video elements built in as integral components. Rather than a continuing separation of formats, greater integration of many document types in digital forms may create new or hybrid documents that become the norm in the digital environment of the future.

168 Appendix 2 Audio-visual records are an increasingly significant part of the records of our activities, touching almost all aspects of our personal and work lives. AV records are very evocative and appeal to our visual understanding of the world. To many they appear to approximate our commonsense experience of reality. They deliver information on many levels – emotional, visual, aural. They speak to us in immediate and compelling ways. AV records are essential components of the Record of the 20th century, and they deserve our attention and care now. It used to be that textual materials were on paper and audio-visual materials were on different supports. Increasingly, the distinctions are blurring and much of what we produce are hybrids or multimedia records that combine textual, audio, and visual elements. In the digital environment there is not always a clear and clean line between textual and audio-visual records and the problems of obsolescence and physical deterioration are shared by both. Even if we were inclined to do so we can no longer ignore our audiovisual heritage because it is so thoroughly interconnected to our textual materials. Meanwhile, archivists continue to have the responsibility to care for the whole documentary heritage – paper-based, analogue, digital, textual, audio, visual. Preservation Management concepts, its principles and tools are especially suited to the management of AV records and it was during the course of developing a preservation program for audio-visual records that we rediscovered the importance of appraisal.

4.

What is special about AV records?

Despite the future promise of media convergence, archives today must address the needs of their current holdings – they cannot wait. It is important, therefore, to understand the characteristics of AV records in order to develop practical plans for appraisal and preservation. AV records are not accessible except through playback equipment. One cannot get even the most basic information about the record (such as whether anything is recorded

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and if so, what it is) without playing it back. Correct identification of paper-based documents is usually possible by reading them with the naked eye or with the aid of a simple magnifying glass. But even the preliminary process of basic identification can be long and arduous for AV records. To correctly identify an AV record, several things are required: •

• • •

The format must be correctly identified. This is sometimes easier said than done and even experienced technical people can have difficulties with accurate identification. The record must be in sufficiently good condition that playback will not harm/destroy it. You must have access to equipment in sufficiently good condition to play back the record. You must have access to technical expertise to operate the equipment. (A list of sources for information and help is in Illustration B.)

AV records are sometimes physically unstable and they can deteriorate quickly (but at different rates from format to format) with resulting loss or disappearance of information. These problems are particularly pertinent for early video and for some digital formats. Obsolescence is a major problem. Rapid technological change in the marketplace results in format obsolescence. Very soon it is difficult to secure equipment for playback or to locate people with a working knowledge of superseded formats. These characteristics mean that failure to reformat in a timely fashion is a virtual death sentence for AV records. Constant reformatting is necessary to maintain records as readable and useable. Unfortunately there is no single magic format to which we can transfer all our holdings and expect that the records will continue to be accessible forever. Format obsolescence is ongoing. For example, we can estimate that on average we will have to reformat video about every 10 to 15 years. Most AV records are created in formats that were designed for the marketplace rather than for archival purposes. Long-term retention is not among the

170 Appendix 2 considerations of the manufacturers of equipment and supplies. We usually do not know how well an AV format and its playback equipment will endure until after many documents have been created in that format. Loss of information, particularly for digital formats, can be swift and unforgiving. There are a vast number of formats, each with its own playback equipment, and archival deposits can be in any of these. This uncontrollable diversity causes problems for archives and increases costs for preservation. Remedies may come in standards, but their development will not happen quickly. The problems of changing formats and the consequent increase in costs of preservation are matters which are out of our control to a very large extent. Archives get records the way they were created and often have no control over what the format will be.

5. Managing AV records – a general overview of requirements Responsible custody requires archivists to be responsible for the holdings in their care, and to take the necessary measures to both protect and make the holdings accessible. For AV records, as for all archival records, this involves a complex set of activities. Problems of identification, physical deterioration, and obsolescence are best addressed by managing holdings globally, and with particular attention to preservation and access. We can only talk usefully about preservation of AV records and access to them if we place these appropriately within a coherent preservation program, and, as we discovered, within a coherent archival program that includes appraisal. Basic preservation matters like environmental conditions, holdings maintenance, and care and handling must be taken care of in a systematic way. A solid preservation management program is a prerequisite. That is not to say that everything must be perfect, but it is important to proceed in an orderly way, establishing priorities as you go. Appraising AV is not going to be very helpful to you if your facility has a leaky roof!

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The particular characteristics of AV records call for overall management strategies which are somewhat different than those for more traditional forms of records based in paper. It is important to note however, that core archival principles remain intact in both cases. The basic framework for the management of AV records is: • •

• • •

Identify AV holdings as quickly and accurately as possible (initial holdings control). Ensure appropriate care and handling by developing relevant policies and procedures, and adequate environmental controls to minimize deterioration and loss. Identify preservation/reformatting priorities by format. Appraise holdings to determine collection priorities within priority formats. Proceed systematically to reformat those records which are in most urgent need of reformatting and which meet collection priorities.

It became clear to us that appraisal is the key step within the overall management process for AV records we had already received.

6.

The importance of reformatting

Reformatting is essential to ensure both physical survival of, and on-going access to the records. Since reformatting is very expensive, and resources are invariably scarce, it is essential to select the most appropriate records for reformatting. An effective program involves appraisal of AV records both at the time of acquisition and periodically thereafter because the inherent problems of speedy obsolescence and physical deterioration mean on-going selection for reformatting. Nevertheless, we must ground an AV preservation/reformatting program solidly within the framework of archival theory and sound archival practice, and resist the temptation to

172 Appendix 2 approach preservation reformatting strictly as a series of technical problems. There is often far too much emphasis on the technical issues of how to reformat AV records and what is the new format of choice, and far too little concern about what to reformat. Physical characteristics of an AV format and the unique nature of AV records are part of the reformatting process and they must be taken into consideration when doing appraisal, but it is an archival appraisal that must be done to select items for reformatting. The first question must always be how to select material for reformatting because selection for reformatting is selection for survival. This fundamental question must be answered first and separately from the technical questions of what format to use and how to accomplish the task.

7. Managing AV records at Concordia University Archives – how our mandate and history led us to AV preservation and appraisal Concordia University Archives is a medium-sized university archive in Montreal. The University is the result of a 1974 merger between two older institutions, Loyola College and Sir George Williams University. The Archive mandate states: “The Concordia University Archives, under the administrative jurisdiction of the Secretary General of the University, is responsible for the Archives and Records Management functions at Concordia University”. The Archive is responsible for the development and implementation of a records management program for the University, including: the treatment of active/semi active/inactive records; filing systems; records retention schedules for all university documentation – including formulation, approval, deposit with the ministère des Affaires culturelles, and implementation; and appropriate access to, and physical conservation of semi-active and historical documentation. The Archive also provides resource services to the university community in matters pertaining

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to records control and the organization and conservation of University documents in any medium (e.g., paper, microform, electronic documents, sound recordings, film, etc.). The Archive is the sole agency which collects, organizes, processes, preserves, and as appropriate, provides access to the historical archives and artefacts of Concordia University and its two founding institutions, as well as private archives of individuals or institutions connected with Concordia. The Archive also collects, organizes, processes, preserves, and provides access to non-institutional archival material relating to the Montréal community or which supports the academic program of the University, within limited areas of specialization and in cooperation with other archival institutions. The Archive’s holdings include the documents of Concordia and its two founding institutions, as well as private papers. It has diverse archival holdings in many formats. The Archives has a full-time staff of three professionals and one technician. Student assistants and contract employees for special projects are an important part of the staff complement. Although an Archive was formally established at Loyola College in 1973, the archives and records management program at Concordia began in earnest in 1982, following a fire in the Archive. In 1983 the Archive initiated the Records Management Program with a university-wide inventory, a semi-active records program, and the beginnings of a records retention schedule. The records program is ongoing. The Archives Program always included a strong historical records component. In the early 1990s the Archive undertook to develop and implement a comprehensive Preservation Management Program for our holdings. We began with a global preservation assessment through which both strengths and problem areas were clearly identified. The assessment was carried out by a conservator working with the Archive staff. It assessed facilities, collections, policy, and practice for their impact on the preservation of the archival holdings. This and subsequent assessments have been the basis of preservation planning and a systematic approach to managing the preservation function in the Archive. We established

174 Appendix 2 priorities and dealt with them one by one as resources were available. By the early 1990s we had effective programs for environmental controls, holdings maintenance/care and handling of materials, access, security, staff training, disaster planning, and pest control. We had dealt with seriously deteriorating paper documents with high research or artefactual value. By 1995 the next preservation priority was clearly identified as our audio-visual documents. We assumed that this would mainly consist in reformatting activities. We knew we had a significant amount of material, and we were aware that AV documents had been completely neglected, both by the Archives and by our researchers. We were unsure how important or valuable the materials were, partly because we had not rigorously kept track of AV documents at the time of accessioning. We had little audio-visual technical expertise or experience within the Archives. The last thing on our minds was appraisal. Without really understanding the far-reaching implications of what we were doing, we moved forward with conviction and determination. We were about to learn a lesson in the synergy of archival functions and the importance of basic archival principles in all archival undertakings. We were quickly immersed in all the problems that surround AV documents: • • • • • •

Our materials were poorly inventoried and were often incorrectly identified both for format and for content. We lacked basic viewing so could not play back materials. We had a stunning array of formats, a significant number of which were obsolete. We lacked in-house technical expertise to deal with the materials and equipment. We knew little about proper care and handling or storage of AV materials. We had much more AV material than we had expected but its quality and pertinence to our mandate and strategic acquisition priorities were very mixed since we had acquired AV materials in a rather cavalier way without doing proper appraisal.

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We contracted with an AV specialist and a technician to provide expertise as well as staff training. We had thought we were going to do reformatting but we quickly realized that we would have to proceed with a standard global preservation management approach, and the whole program would have to be well planned and systematic. Our first step was to partner with the Audiovisual Department within the University. That department had created much of the institutionally relevant AV materials we had already acquired and was able to provide access to old equipment and the expertise to run it. We also were fortunate in having a programme in film and video production at the University. These people were important sources of information, support, and education for us. It was clear that we would not be able to move forward with reformatting until we knew precisely what we had, how vulnerable it was, and whether or not it was a priority. This was essential since it was obvious that there was not enough funding available to take care of or reformat all our holdings. We would be doing selection for preservation. We needed a plan. After some hesitation and a few false steps, this is how we decided to proceed: • •

• • •

Identify and inventory holdings accurately for format, content, and condition. Develop proper policies and procedures for care and handling, storage, and environmental controls to take care of the global issues. Identify the formats that were most vulnerable but still able to be saved. Do systematic archival appraisal to establish collection priorities for reformatting. Reformat the priority items within the framework of an organized long-term plan.

The key to management of AV archival holdings would be proper management and sound archival appraisal, and reformatting would be but one element in the overall picture. We would have to go back to basics.

176 Appendix 2 The next question was how to do archival appraisal of AV documents. How would we decide to reformat this item and not reformat that item? The literature and urgent questioning of colleagues yielded no clear answers for us. We did not find a tried and true approach already in place, established criteria, or standardized appraisal grids designed to work for the vast array of AV materials that are in archival institutions. How do you compare footage of Frank Lloyd Wright at Falling Water to videos of a 1960s student sit-in? It’s a difficult archival problem and the solutions are certainly not immediately obvious.

8.

The appraisal process – intuitive or structured?

The first question was whether or not formal appraisal was necessary or useful. Would we be just as well served to proceed intuitively? Is intuition the best approach for AV appraisal? It is certainly one path for selecting AV records for reformatting, and many institutions do just that, particularly if they have only a few AV records. Most archivists know their holdings and they probably have some ideas about materials that are priority and those that are not. It’s also the path of least resistance, even if it isn’t particularly well grounded in archival theory! However, this approach has insurmountable problems if there are many and varied AV records involved. At Concordia an intuitive approach was never an option because we had far too much material.

The structured approach Archival appraisal was to be the cornerstone of a systematic management program for our AV records. Reformatting decisions would proceed directly from the results of the appraisal process. A structured and systematic appraisal program carried out by experienced professional staff was the only rational choice.

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Our first step in a structured approach was to identify those formats which were in the greatest imminent danger of loss – for us formats at greatest risk were half inch and one inch open reel video, large format audio discs, and acetate audio tape. We could do this because we had prepared a thorough inventory of all our AV documents and their formats. After much trial and tribulation we knew exactly how many items we had in each format. We could then pinpoint where the biggest physical dangers were. This identification of all formats and those at risk require technical knowledge and management perspective. The inventory was essential before we could use archival appraisal in selection for preservation. The technical and archival perspectives have to combine synergistically in an effective preservation management program, and the preservation program itself is but one element of an effective archival program. The structured approach to appraisal has not been used extensively for AV records. It aims for consistency and quantification of a complex set of values, and it is particularly useful in comparing large quantities of very different kinds of records. A structured approach is based on a set of criteria which are usually assigned weighted numerical values. This is often expressed concretely in the use of a grid with assigned numerical values attached to specific criteria. Instead of trying to compare dissimilar items to each other, you compare everything to the grid. You can use a grid to appraise at the item or series or even fonds level, as appropriate to the situation. There wasn’t an off-the-shelf grid so we had to create our own. The model we developed at Concordia (see Illustration A that follows) is but one example. This particular model is appropriate for use in a medium-sized Canadian university archive that has holdings in mixed media and whose mandate requires the appraisal and preservation of sound recordings and moving images. The model is a work-in-progress rather than a definitive product. The criteria in this model are based on the archival literature. They are not an original invention, but rather an adaptation that was appropriate to Concordia University Archives. In our model, the weighting for various criteria is based very much

178 Appendix 2 on a gut feeling of what is “right,” and practical experience in a particular institution rather than on a precise scientific formula. Other circumstances may require different criteria and values to meet specific institutional needs.

9. How we use the appraisal grid at Concordia University Archives Although we rely on our detailed knowledge of the University, our holdings, and our acquisition mandate within the community, we try to minimize intuition by working as a team and by articulating our reasons for decisions. The staff works together in the appraisal process. (This has the additional benefit of familiarizing everyone with our AV holdings, most of which had never been used when we began this exercise.) In our situation we are proceeding with appraisal at the item level for the formats with the greatest vulnerability, and we appraise all the items in those formats. For the appraisal session, each staff member takes responsibility for the research on a certain number of items. We try to gather as much information as possible about each one, asking such questions as: Is the recording part of a larger series? Is there auxiliary textual or graphic documentation available? Was the recording done for a significant special event? Are the people or events in the recording of particular significance to our institution or to the university/city/region/country? Who holds copyright? Are there other copies available? Is another institution taking responsibility for the preservation of this material? In gathering information and doing background research we work with experts outside the Archives as necessary. We ensure that we have the technical information we need to complete the grid fully. We meet at regular times, first during the course of the initial project, and later when any material is proposed for acquisition. Research is presented to the group for discussion and decisions. If we need more information, we set the appraisal aside until it is available. We assign values to the grid by consensus. We have rarely had disagreements and they have not been serious.

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Remember: we are not comparing one item to another, but all items to the grid. At the end of the exercise we have a numerical value for everything we have appraised – either at the fonds, series, or item level. This is the basis of our order of priority for reformatting. We reformat the materials that have the highest scores (i.e., highest priority) and proceed to the lowest until we run out of money. It’s a long and arduous procedure but it does allow us to manage our AV materials in a rational and systematic way. We no longer feel helpless and overwhelmed by a mass of material that is more than our resources can accommodate. We may not reach the end of the road but at least we know we are moving in the right direction rather than turning around in circles. Although the job is far from complete, we now have a sense that we are responsible custodians of our AV holdings from acquisition, through arrangement and description, to preservation and access.

10. Conclusions: what we discovered during this project In reflecting on our experience we believe that the following elements are important for any such structured appraisal program: •

•

•

Don’t get sidelined by the complexity of the technical issues. This is an archival problem and the solutions are archival solutions with technical input. Separate archival issues from technical issues. Deciding what format you will use for any transfer is a technical/management issue, but deciding what to reformat is an archival issue that must be addressed by archivists and managers who have the collective responsibility for the archives and its programme. Be sure the appropriate expertise is being applied to each process. Ensure access to the appropriate technical expertise at all steps to make sound decisions about how and what to reformat.

180 Appendix 2 • • • •

Identify the formats that are the most problematic. Develop or adapt an appraisal grid which is appropriate to the situation. Carry out the appraisal. Proceed with reformatting with available funding, based upon the appraisal results and your technical evaluation.

To phrase these lessons another way, we developed a basic Who, What, Where, When, and Why of the archival appraisal of AV materials. WHO appraises? Appraisal must be done by the professionals who have overall custodial responsibilities, for acquiring and preserving the records and for providing continuing access to them. In an archival repository or in a programme that discharges archival responsibilities, archivists must do appraisal. Do not leave this fundamental archival function to technical staff if they have no archival background. The ideal is an individual (or group) who has at least a minimum technical understanding of the issues (educate and inform yourself if you don’t have the technical background), sound archival training, and an understanding of archival appraisal. Appraisal is probably the hardest thing archivists do – use the best staff you have! WHAT do we appraise? Archivists will do appraisal many times – as part of a larger strategy; when materials actually come into the archives’ custody or become part of their responsibility; and every time reformatting is required, i.e., over and over again! It is essential to keep good records so you can track what you did and why. WHERE should appraisal take place? Any institution that has more AV than it can afford to maintain responsibly must do archival appraisal.

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WHEN to do appraisal of AV? As soon as possible, particularly for older formats. WHY? Because AV materials intrinsically have problems associated with obsolescence and physical deterioration, and therefore reformatting is almost always a prerequisite to long-term survival. It is necessary to select or appraise before reformatting because there is not usually enough money to properly care for it all (and we probably don’t have to keep all that we have anyway). HOW? This is clearly the hard part! There are no definitive answers but hopefully we will have more models and more possibilities available for discussion and inspiration as archivists develop systematic reformatting programs for AV holdings.

182 Appendix 2

Illustration A CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES SELECTION FOR REFORMATTING AUDIO VISUAL MATERIALS Item(s) or groups of items being appraised: _______________________________________________________________ Date of appraisal: ___________________________ Appraiser(s): ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ ___________________________ PRELIMINARIES – All answers must be yes in order to proceed • • • •

Does the document relate to the mission statement? Does the document relate to the collections policy? Do we have legal custody? Is this the only known copy being preserved?

_________ _________ _________ _________

TIMING – One answer must be yes in order to proceed • Is the document deteriorating to the extent that information is now, or soon will be, lost? • Is the format obsolete or close to obsolete?

_________ _________

COMMENTS: • DO NOT PROCEED – Essential criteria have not been met • Need further information O Go back to source document O Do research O Get more information from internal sources O Get more information from external sources Details: NOTE: Copyright Status: ___ We hold rights ___ Public domain ___ Known rights holder(s) ___ Unknown rights holder(s) Special Considerations and Additional Information: © Nancy Marrelli, Concordia University

Total Score:

_________

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• Significance of the information (0–15) – in relation to the subject, the persons appearing in the document, or the persons responsible for the production of the document, and authenticity of the document __________ At the following level (0–6) – Institutional/2 ___ – Regional /1 ___ – Provincial/1 ___ – National/1 ___ – International/1 ___ • Age, rarity, originality of the information (0–5) __________ lowest 0/highest 5 • Completeness of the information (0–5) __________ Is the information complete and comprehensible? • Special considerations (0–?) used rarely __________ LEVEL OF USE – (0–10) Lowest 0/highest 5 • Past and current (0–5) • Projected (0–5)

___ ___

TECHNICAL QUALITIES (0–5) Quality of sound and/or image __________ ACCESS TO EQUIPMENT/EXPERTISE (0–5) – Not available/0 ___ – Outside vendor (foreign)/1 ___ – Outside vendor (Canada)/2 ___ – Outside vendor (Montreal)/3 ___ – University/4 ___ – Archives/5 ___ REFORMATTING COST Hourly rate of reformatting – > $500/hour/1 – $101–$500/hour/2 – $51–$100/hour/3 – $16–$50/hour/4 – 0–$15/hour/5

(1–5) ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ TOTAL

Revised March 7, 2003 ©Nancy Marrelli, Concordia University

__________

184 Appendix 2

Illustration B Sources of information Well-maintained and frequently updated web sources are a good choice for up-to-date information for audio-visual documents because the technology changes so rapidly.

General Sources Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) 1313 Northvine Street Holywood, CA 900208 Tel: 310.550.1300 Fax: 310.550.1363 email: [email protected] http://www.amianet.org/09_Listserv/amiaL.html This is a very important association and source for information for those interested in AV – both moving image and sound. The website includes useful links and information about the AMIA listserve, an animated and important list with moderate traffic and lots of expertise. Check the list archive for particular subjects of interest – recent postings will usually give you some of the latest information on any given topic.

Council on Library and Information Resources (formerly The Commission on Preservation and Access) 1755 Massachusetts Avenue NW Suite 500 Washington, DC 20036 Tel: 202.939.4750 Fax: 202.939.4765 Courriel: [email protected] http://www.clir.org/

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They have good general documentation on preservation, with particular emphasis on digital issues. You can print out or order from their site, an excellent introduction to magnetic media, written by a technical expert but comprehensible to the layperson: Van Bogart, John, Magnetic Tape Storage and Handling: A Guide for Libraries and Archives, 1995, 34 pp. See: http://www. clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub54.html Eastman Kodak Company http://www.kodak.com/ They have information and publications on their products and on media in general. See particularly: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/products/techInfo /e30/e30Contents.shtml for a good publication called Storage and Care of Kodak Photographic Materials, including film.

Information on Format Identification BKSTS – The Moving Image Society (British Kinematograph Sound and Television Society) 5 Walpole Court, Ealing Studios, Ealing Green, London, W5 5ED Tel: 020.8584.220 Fax: 020.8584.5230 E-mail: [email protected] http://www.bksts.com Their wallchart series includes two extremely useful sources for film and video identification: • •

Film Gauges and Soundtracks Video Tape and Recording Formats

To order go to: http://www.bksts.com/posters.htm (SAA may be carrying their wallcharts soon.)

186 Appendix 2 Video Format Identification Guide http://www.video-id.com This is a good site for format identification, and it includes photos.

Recording Technology History http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/notes.html This website details the development of technology including introduction dates of recording platforms, useful information in precisely identifying recording formats.

Vidipax http://www.vidipax.com/ This company is a vendor of reformatting services for AV materials. Their video format guide is interesting and useful and it can be ordered without charge.

Nancy Marrelli Revised March 25, 2003

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Appendix 3 The acquisitions planning process EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT Clienteles

Regulations

Resources

Organizations

– institutional – non-institutional

– governmental – institutional – professional

– human – financial – material – documentary

– similar – connected – hierarchical

INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT (Archival repository) Strategic planning

Structural planning

Operational planning

Operations (Functions)

Evaluation

mission statement environmental evaluation needs assessment planning horizon goals

goals

objectives strategies

budgets records management

organizational charts policies

procedure-norms rules

vital records uniform classification scheme

criteria

differences retention schedule

ACQUISITION STRATEGY

ACQUISITION POLICY

APPRAISAL CRITERIA

ACQUISITION

arrangement preservation diffusion reference

results evaluation

(Adapted with modifications from James Lambert and Louis Côté “Les outils de travail en archivistique: la politique d’acquisition: pourquoi, comment, critères et examples” Archives, 23,3 (Winter 1992): 7)

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Appendix 4

Mandate of City of Toronto Archives Authority: Administration Committee Report No. 2 , Clause No. 4, as adopted by City of Toronto Council on July 27, 28, 29 and 30, 1999 Enacted by Council: July 29, 1999 CITY OF TORONTO BYLAW No. 458–1999 To authorize the acquisition of non-government records and collections of documents of historical value or interest for the City of Toronto Archives. WHEREAS under paragraph 24 of section 207 of the Municipal Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. M.45, Council may pass bylaws for providing for keeping in the custody of the municipality things of historical value or interest donated or loaned to the municipality and for entering into agreements with the donor or lender for the keeping of such things; and

190 Appendix 4 WHEREAS Council has adopted an Acquisition Policy for City of Toronto Archives that includes, among other matters, a mandate for the archives program operated by the City Clerk’s Division, the acquisition of non-government records and collections of documents, and the entering into agreements with respect to these non-government records and collections of documents; The Council of the City of Toronto HEREBY ENACTS as follows: 1. In this bylaw, “acquisition policy” means the Acquisition Policy for the City of Toronto Archives as adopted and amended by Council, from time to time; “collection” means an artificial accumulation of documents of any provenance brought together on the basis of some common characteristic, such as way of acquisition, subject, language, medium, type of document, or name of collector, which may be managed and described as a unit under a common title; “document” means a unit of recorded information regardless of form or media; “non-government record” means any record that is created by any individual as a result of employment with the City of Toronto, its predecessor municipalities, or its agencies, boards, commissions, or other special purpose bodies, or by any organization that is not required to submit records retention schedules for approval by Council and the City Auditor under the Municipal Act; “record” means a document made or received in the course of the conduct of the affairs of a person or organization, and preserved by that person or organization for the purposes of future reference. 2. A non-government record or a collection of documents shall be acquired as a donation to the City subject to the following requirements:

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(a) the record or collection of documents meets the terms of the mandate for the archives program in the acquisition policy; (b) the record or collection of documents is deemed to meet the appraisal criteria set out in the acquisition policy; (c) the acquisition of the record or collection of documents has been approved by the Director, Corporate Records Systems and City Archivist in accordance with the acquisition policy; and (d) the donor of the record or collection of documents has entered into an agreement satisfactory to the City Clerk and the City Solicitor. 3. The City Solicitor is authorized to prepare an agreement required under clause 2(d) and the City’s authorized signing officers are authorized to sign the agreement and affix the City’s corporate seal to it when directed to do so by the City Solicitor. ENACTED AND PASSED this 29th day of July, A.D. 1999. CASE OOTES, NOVINA WONG, Deputy Mayor City Clerk (Corporate Seal)

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Appendix 5

Acquisition policy and procedures, appraisal criteria and glossary of terms for the City of Toronto Archives The Administration Committee recommends the adoption of the following joint report (June 30, 1999) from the City Clerk and the Chief Administrative Officer, and, further that the mandate for the Archives program operated by the City Clerk’s Division, also include all Special Purpose Bodies: Purpose: The purpose of this report is to seek Council approval for a policy that will govern the disposition of departmental records that possess archival value, as well as the acquisition of nongovernment records that promote an understanding of the historical development of the City of Toronto. Appendix 1 provides appraisal criteria for the review of records to determine archival value, and Appendix 2 lists a glossary of archival terms used throughout this report. Funding Sources, Financial Implications and Impact Statement: Implementation of this policy may have an impact on the future budgets of the archives program. Any budget impli-

194 Appendix 5 cations will be addressed as part of the multi-year business plan for the archives program and through the annual budget process. Recommendations: It is recommended that: (1) the following mandate be adopted for the Archives program operated by the City Clerk’s Division: “The City of Toronto Archives preserves and provides access to records of enduring value regardless of media or format, that provide evidence of the decisions, policies, and activities of the City of Toronto, its predecessor municipalities, and its agencies, boards, and commissions which do not have their own archival programs. The Archives also acquires, preserves, and provides access to nongovernment records that make a significant contribution to an understanding of the development of the City, its natural and built environment, and the people who lived, worked, or had an impact upon Toronto.” (2) records of the City of Toronto and its predecessor municipalities that possess archival value shall be transferred to the custody and control of the City Clerk’s Division when the records have reached the end of their inactive period of retention according to schedules set out in municipal bylaws, or in the case of unscheduled records, when a review by staff of the City Clerk’s Division has demonstrated that the records possess archival significance according to the appraisal criteria set out in Appendix 1 and the records are no longer required to support operational requirements of the City’s departments; (3) personal papers of former Members of Council that are deemed to possess archival value according to the appraisal criteria set out in Appendix 1 shall be acquired as a donation to the City, subject to approval by the Director, Corporate Records Systems and City Archivist, in accordance with the policies set out in this report, and to the terms of an agreement satisfactory to the City Clerk and City Solicitor;

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(4) Members and former Members of Council shall be permitted to store in the City’s Records Centre, at no cost, inactive records created as a Member of Council during the Members’ terms of office plus three years from the date of leaving office, under the same policies and procedures applicable to departmental records; (5) Members and former Members of Council storing inactive records in the City’s Records Centre shall control access and use of such records; (6) in the case of agencies, boards, and commissions and other special purpose bodies (that do not provide archival services), records that possess archival value according to retention schedules passed by Council or the appraisal criteria in Appendix 1, shall be transferred to the custody and control, for archival purposes, of the City of Toronto Archives, subject to legal limitations and to the terms of an agreement satisfactory to the City Clerk and City Solicitor; (7) with respect to formal access requests pursuant to the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act for records of special purpose bodies managed by the City of Toronto Archives, responding to such requests shall be the responsibility of the special purpose body that is a separate institution for the purposes of this Act; (8) non-government records and collections of documents that meet the terms of the Archives’ mandate and are deemed to possess archival value according to the appraisal criteria set out in Appendix 1 shall be acquired as a donation to the City, subject to approval by the Director, Corporate Records Systems and City Archivist in accordance with the policies set out in this report, and to the terms of an agreement satisfactory to the City Clerk and City Solicitor; (9) non-government records and collections of documents that meet the terms of the Archives’ mandate and are deemed to possess archival value according to the appraisal criteria set out in Appendix 1, but are available for acquisition only through sale, may be purchased by the City Clerk’s Division, subject to funds being designated and approved in the annual budget process;

196 Appendix 5 (10) authority be granted to enter into agreements: (a) with former Members of Council in accordance with the policy under Recommendation No. (3) above; (b) with local boards and special purpose bodies of the City of Toronto in accordance with the policy under Recommendation No. (6) above; and (c) with persons or corporations in accordance with the policy under Recommendation No. (8) above; (11) non-government records and collections of documents may be loaned to the City by persons or organizations on a temporary basis for the purposes of copying or display, but material of this nature shall not be acquired as a permanent loan to the Archives, or placed on deposit with the Archives without the transfer of ownership to the City; (12) the City Clerk shall submit to Council an annual report for the City of Toronto Archives which will describe the activities of the program, including a list of the acquisitions made under the terms of this policy; (13) the City of Toronto Archives shall be located at 255 Spadina Road, which shall be the sole storage facility for the City’s archival holdings unless, in the opinion of the Director, Corporate Records Systems and City Archivist, storage in other facilities is necessary in order to preserve the records; (14) the Director, Corporate Records Systems and City Archivist shall be authorized to provide temporary storage at the City of Toronto Archives for records that may meet the terms of the Archives’ mandate but are at risk of loss or destruction, pending a review and determination of the final disposition of this material at the earliest possible opportunity; (15) archival records and collections of documents transferred to the City of Toronto Archives shall not circulate beyond the building, unless removal of this material is required as evidence in litigation or to support pressing operational needs of the City, or in order to preserve, reproduce, or temporarily display the material in a secure facility that meets archival standards, subject to the approval of the Director, Corporate Records Systems and City Archivist; and

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(16) the appropriate City officials be authorized and directed to give effect thereto including, the introduction into Council of any necessary bills to implement the policy under Recommendation No. (6) above and a bill under paragraph 24 of section 207 of the Municipal Act to implement the policy in Recommendation No. (8). Council Reference/Background/History: On September 12, 1960, Council of the former City of Toronto approved the appointment of an Archivist to head the municipality’s records management program. Among other duties, the Archivist was responsible for maintaining “a records storage unit or archive” to keep all inactive records of civic departments, records that required permanent storage, and records of historical value. The report designated the archive as the repository for all departmental records with long-term significance, and this mandate was broadened over time as the archive acquired nongovernment records. The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto initiated its archival program in 1985 with the appointment of its Director of Records and Metropolitan Archivist. Collection development guidelines were adopted by Council at its meeting of October 9–10, 1991, and the report established acquisition priorities for the newly constructed Metropolitan Toronto Archives and Records Centre at 255 Spadina Road. This facility was designated as the sole repository for departmental records of the municipality. Inactive and archival records of local boards and special purpose bodies could be stored in the building at no cost to ensure efficient records management practices and the preservation of documentary heritage, subject to an agreement satisfactory to the Metropolitan Clerk and Metropolitan Solicitor. Records of former Members of Council, private individuals, and non-government organizations could be acquired if they were deemed by the Metropolitan Archivist to possess archival significance to the municipality and its citizens, and were subject to an agreement satisfactory to the Metropolitan Clerk and Metropolitan Solicitor. Donations of non-government records in

198 Appendix 5 excess of ten cubic feet required the approval of Council. Other former municipalities have given less emphasis to the issue of archival records. York employed an Archivist during the mid1970s, but did not develop a sustained program devoted to the care of archival records. East York and Etobicoke introduced some archival services to records centre operations during the 1980s on a very limited scale. Scarborough debated the formation of a city archive in the mid-1990s as part of its bicentennial celebrations, but the program did not take root. North York’s Council approved the establishment of an archive on July 7, 1986, but the program was not funded until 1997, when it was slated to operate the newly renovated Dempsey Store on Beecroft Road. By the end of 1997, however, only the former Toronto and Metropolitan Toronto archival programs had acquisition policies approved by their respective Council. Discussion: Records are created by individuals and organizations as a natural part of their activities in order to capture information as evidence of transactions, issues, or events. Records are preserved by their creators because they serve a need to recall this information in the future to support personal or business-related uses. Records with significant long-term informational and evidential value are retained as archives, and they become the collective memory of our society. In the case of the City of Toronto, this memory is shaped by the work of Archivists who review the records of the City, its special purpose bodies, and non-government sources in order to preserve and make accessible Toronto’s documentary heritage. This activity must be guided by an acquisition policy that provides direction to the corporation in order to ensure the preservation of records required for legal, fiscal, evidential, and cultural reasons, as well as assists staff as they develop archival holdings in a planned, systematic, and efficient manner. The policy should address the following issues: Mandate: This statement provides a formal identity for the program, and is used to bring attention to this municipal function through

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corporate publications and national directories of archives and libraries. It identifies the focus of the City’s acquisition program for the benefit of staff, the public, and other archival programs in order to promote the identification and transfer of significant records to the Archives, and to alert potential researchers to the nature of information held by the Archives. Records of the City of Toronto and Predecessor Municipalities: Only a small percentage of records created each year by municipalities possess long-term value. Before records can be destroyed, however, the Municipal Act requires that the City enact a bylaw establishing retention periods based on a review of administrative, fiscal, legal, and archival criteria. In the case of the Archives, the review is carried out using appraisal criteria that are set out in Appendix 1 in order to identify those records of Council and its departments that possess significant informational and evidential value. Each of the former municipalities passed records retention bylaws, but these bylaws did not cover the full extent of records created by the municipalities prior to amalgamation in 1998. It is also apparent that a rigorous review to determine the archival value of records was not a regular part of retention scheduling in the former municipalities. As a result, procedures must be in place to ensure the preservation of both scheduled and unscheduled records that provide the best evidence of the decisions, policies, and transactions of the City and its predecessor municipalities. Subsection 73 (1) of the Municipal Act requires Council to appoint a Clerk who shall “keep the books, records and accounts of the council,” and shall “preserve and file all accounts acted upon by the council.” Subsection 74 (1) also requires the Clerk to provide public access to the records, books, and documents under the Clerk’s control during all reasonable hours, and to furnish copies within a reasonable period of time. These responsibilities apply not only to the records of the current Council, but also to the Councils and Committees of the predecessor municipalities.

200 Appendix 5 The functions of preservation and access form the core of archival services, and in most Canadian municipalities, the Clerk has been given responsibility for the management of municipal archives in keeping with the role of maintaining an open and accountable government. The Clerk’s responsibilities have also been expanded beyond the documents and accounts of Council to include the records of departments in order to provide a consistent corporate approach to record-keeping practices. The recommended policy regarding the management of corporate records from predecessor municipalities is consistent with the approach taken during previous municipal amalgamations between 1883 and 1966, and is designed to make economical use of existing resources while providing efficient and effective reference services for Members of Council, staff, and the public. Personal Papers of Members of Council: The personal papers created by Members of Council form an important complement to departmental records of the City. These records reflect individual concerns and priorities, and correspondence from constituents offer a unique perspective on local issues. The newsletters and submissions from communitybased organizations that are kept in Members’ files are often the only material from these organizations that eventually finds its way to a public archive. While the personal papers of the Members may possess significant archival value, many of these records duplicate information already in the Archives. As a result, acquisition of these papers should be based on the procedure and criteria set out in Appendix 1, with final approval under the policies set out in this report resting with the Director, Corporate Records Systems and City Archivist. The appraisal review and possible negotiations regarding a donation agreement should take place only after a Member has left municipal office. Donation of personal papers to the Archives can result in financial benefit to the donor through the issue of a tax receipt by the Finance Department. In order to promote the preservation of these papers and the effi-

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cient operation of the Members’ offices, Members of Council should be permitted to store their inactive records in the City’s records centres during their term of office, as well as for a period of three years after they leave office in order to make a decision regarding the disposition of their records. The Member or former Member will retain control or custody of these inactive records during this period. This makes it clear that by offering this storage service it is not the City’s intent that these personal records are records of the City for purposes of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Records of Special Purpose Bodies: Several of Toronto’s most important municipal functions, such as law enforcement and public transit, are carried out by agencies, boards, commissions and other special purpose bodies that receive most if not all of their funding from Council. The Municipal Act provides a measure of accountability in this arrangement by requiring local boards and commissions to submit retention schedules to Council and the City Auditor for approval, to ensure that records will survive to provide evidence of the decisions and activities of these special purpose bodies. Some boards, such as the Toronto District Board of Education and the Board of Governors of Exhibition Place, have established archival programs to manage records that possess enduring value to these organizations. These programs provide an important and valued service to their boards and the public, and they should remain in place so long as these organizations can justify continuation of this function. Most other agencies, boards, and commissions have either abandoned archival services in favour of transferring records to municipal archives, or have never put into place arrangements for the long-term care of archival records. The Toronto Transit Commission, for instance, transferred its historical photographs to the Metro Archives in 1992, and a large volume of written records were transferred during subsequent years. The records of the Toronto Police Service created between 1849 and 1961

202 Appendix 5 were divided between the archives of the former City of Toronto and Metro, and will be brought together once again as a result of municipal amalgamation. The services offered by the City Clerk’s Division provide corporate efficiencies in the management of the archival records of special purpose bodies in terms of staff expertise, available technologies, and a purpose-built archival facility. This approach is in keeping with the draft legislation for a new Municipal Act, which will allow special purpose bodies that have ownership and control of their records to enter into an agreement for archival services with a local or regional archive, subject to approval by Council. Responsibility for responding to formal access request made under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, however, will remain with the special purpose body that initially created the records. In view of past practices that have been efficient and economical, as well as the current direction of provincial policy-making, the City of Toronto Archives should become the sole repository for the archival records of special purpose bodies that do not operate their own archival program. This arrangement should be subject to an agreement with the City that ensures that the transfer of records will be accompanied by funds or access to staff resources that will prevent this additional responsibility from becoming an onerous burden upon the City Clerk’s Division. Non-Government Records: The former City of Toronto has acquired the records of persons and organizations since the 1960s, and this practice was more recently adopted by Metro and North York. The approach is known as “total archives,” and it has been adopted by most municipal and provincial archives, as well as by the National Archives of Canada. Government and non-government records are acquired by these archival programs in order to provide a balanced and comprehensive account of the subjects featured in the mandates of these programs. Non-government records often become the most frequently used holdings in these archives,

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particularly in terms of photographs, maps, fire insurance plans, and the papers of prominent individuals or corporations. The decision to acquire non-government records must be based on a thorough review of their archival value to ensure that corporate resources are expended only on significant material where the costs of processing, preservation, and access will be justified by the anticipated use of the records. Archivists develop considerable expertise in appraising records based on their knowledge of research trends, and their recommendations are closely reviewed by the Manager, Archival Services. Final approval under the policies set out in this report should rest with the Director, Corporate Records Systems and City Archivist, who will be responsible for maintaining a balance in the allocation of resources between corporate and non-government records. Accountability for activities in this area will come through the submission to Council of an annual report for the City of Toronto Archives, which will give an account of acquisitions made during the year. Acquisition Process: While corporate records are transferred to the Archives through the City’s standard operating procedures, the acquisition of records from former Members of Council, special purpose bodies, and non-government sources must be governed by donation agreements that clearly establish the City’s title to these records, as well as the rights and obligations of donors and the City in terms of preservation, access, use, and copyright. Acquisition of documents on the basis of a loan from a person or organization should not be permitted, except in situations where the material is borrowed for the purpose of copying, or for use in a temporary exhibit at the Archives or another secure facility. “Permanent” loans or the long-term deposit of material by lenders without formal transfer of title to the City has been used in the past to expand archival holdings, but this approach can leave the Archives in a vulnerable position. Despite the City’s expectation of the permanency of the loan, lenders of archival

204 Appendix 5 material have changed their minds in the past, particularly when ownership of the material changes hands due to a death in the family, or when a lender wishes to capitalize on the market value of the material. Return of the material to the lender can result in the loss of a significant investment by the City in terms of staff time and supplies. If the material had been previously used to support research in the past, its withdrawal would make it unavailable for future consultation and would seriously jeopardize the reputation of the Archives and the City among the research community. Documents have been purchased by the City in previous years, and this practice should continue within the limits of the City Clerk’s annual budget in order to fill significant gaps in the archival holdings, subject to a review of the material using the appraisal criteria set out in Appendix 1. Preservation and Access: Archival records are unique and irreplaceable, and they must be stored in an environment that promotes their long-term preservation. Paper-based and magnetic media are extremely vulnerable to fluctuations of temperature and relative humidity, and the Canadian Conservation Institute has set out rigorous standards for the storage of archival records. Many of the City’s acquisitions of non-government records have been certified as nationally significant by the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board, which requires compliance with national standards for long-term storage in order to maintain the City’s Category A designation. Public access also requires a secure environment, where constant monitoring and strict adherence to procedures will help to prevent the disappearance of important corporate assets. In order to meet these demanding standards, the City’s archival records will be stored at 255 Spadina Road. This building, which was opened to the public in January 1992 as the Metropolitan Toronto Archives and Records Centre, contains sophisticated environmental systems that cleanse pollutants from the air, and maintain an extremely stable temperature and

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relative humidity. These features slow the deterioration of paperbased records, and inhibit the growth of mould and mildew that can damage the integrity of paper fibres and pose health problems for staff and researchers. The building is among the finest facilities for the preservation of archival records in Canada, and it would be extremely expensive to replicate this storage environment in other municipal buildings. Consolidation of archival records at this location should also provide more effective reference service, as the records of several former municipalities are linked by function and overlapping areas of responsibility. Researchers will be able to visit a single location to identify and access records that are relevant to their inquiries, instead of being directed to several facilities throughout the City. The building’s Research Hall is a bright and well-appointed room that conveys a sense of openness in government, and it helps to make use of archival records a very positive experience that reflects well on the City. Some records may require off-site storage due to mediaspecific requirements. A good example is cellulose-based negative photographic and moving image film stock, which is susceptible to a condition known as “vinegar syndrome” that can result in the entire loss of image. This condition can be arrested only through storage at temperatures less than 0 degrees Celsius, which is also required for the long-term storage of colour transparencies and negatives that are prone to information loss as the organic dyes break down over time. In these cases, arrangements will be made to store the records with public or private-sector service providers equipped with the machinery needed to create the appropriate environment. Unlike inactive corporate records, which may be retrieved from storage at the request of the department responsible for creating or accumulating the records, archival records do not circulate among operating departments in order to promote the preservation of the records, to ensure the integrity of file contents by avoiding the rearrangement or removal of individual documents, and to provide ready access for other staff or the public who expect to find the records at the Archives. Archival records

206 Appendix 5 should not be removed from the building unless they are required in matters of litigation, require conservation treatments or copying, or if requested for use in short-term exhibits by the City or other heritage organizations which can demonstrate the ability to display the material in an environment that is stable and secure. Conclusions: This report provides recommendations for a policy that will govern the development of Toronto’s collective memory through the acquisition of records possessing archival value from City departments and special purpose bodies, predecessor municipalities, former Members of Council, and individuals and corporations who have played a role in the City’s development. It proposes a policy to govern the process of acquiring records for the City of Toronto Archives. The report recommends the consolidation of the City’s archival holdings at 255 Spadina Road due to its excellent storage and research facilities, except in cases where specialized storage is needed to ensure the preservation of certain records. The report seeks authority from Council to implement this policy, and to enter into donation agreements for the acquisition of non-government records and the records of special purpose bodies. It concludes with appendices that set out appraisal criteria to determine the archival value of records, and a glossary of terms use throughout the report. Contact Name: Michael Moir Director, Corporate Records Systems and City Archivist tel: 392–9673 fax: 392–9685 e-mail: [email protected] Appendix 1 Appraisal Criteria for the Determination of Archival Value The decision-making process that leads to selection of gov-

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ernment and non-government records for acquisition by the City of Toronto Archives involves a physical review of the records by an Archivist, followed by a report with recommendations for the consideration and approval of the Manager, Archival Services, and the City Archivist. The report provides information on the extent, scope, and content of the records, as well as the functions and activities that led to creation of the records. A recommendation to acquire or not to acquire records is based on an assessment using the following appraisal criteria. Sample questions are provided to illustrate the application of these criteria: (A) Potential to support Research (Evidential and Informational Value) (i) Does the information contained in the records promote an understanding of issues that are unique to an organization, an event, a community, or to the city as a whole? (ii) Do the records provide evidence of the key functions and transactions of their creators, and is this evidence reliable in terms of the integrity of record-keeping practices? (iii) Do the records contain material that reflect the views and activities of individuals who have played a significant role in the development of Toronto, or who are representative of groups that have participated in the city’s cultural, economic, or political life? (iv) Do the records reflect changes in attitudes, policies, or programs over time? (v) Can the information in the records be found elsewhere in a more synthesized format? (vi) Has the individual or organization become identified with a particular concern (such as equity issues, housing, policing, or transit) in the minds of the public? Is this role well reflected in the records? (vii) Do the records possess aesthetic qualities that may support the study of art, or show the development of technology? (B) Relationship of Records to the Acquisition Policy of the City of Toronto Archives:

208 Appendix 5 (i) Do the records meet the requirements of the mandate and other terms of the acquisition policy as approved by Council? (C) Related Records at the City of Toronto Archives: (i) To what extent is the information found in the records duplicated by the content of other archival holdings previously acquired by the City of Toronto? (ii) Do the records provide a unique perspective on municipal issues? Do they supplement or fill gaps in corporate records? (D) Associated Records held by Other Archives: (i) Is there another archival program that acquires records of this nature, can provide public access, and can ensure preservation of the records? (ii) Are other records created by a particular individual or organization held by another archival repository? (iii) Does this other repository have a greater or more compelling interest in these records? (E) Public Access to the Records: (i) In the case of government records, which are governed by the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, to what extent are their contents exempt from public access? (ii) Is access to the records limited by other legislation, such as the Vital Statistics Act? (iii) Do non-government records contain information from individuals and organizations that was provided with an expectation of confidentiality? Do the records contain personal identifiers, or information associated with third parties, solicitor-client privilege, other issues that could limit the public’s access to these records due to ethical concerns? (iv) Does the period of closure required to protect privacy warrant the acquisition of these records? (F) Physical Condition: (i) Are the records clean, dry, and well maintained, or have they been stored in locations where they were susceptible to mould, mildew, and insect infestations?

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(ii) Are the records in a format that will be accessible in the future? Can the information on the records be converted to another storage format more suitable for preservation and access? These questions become particularly important when appraising electronic files, as well as video and audiocassettes. (G) Availability of Creator-Generated Finding Aids: (i) Is there a logical and consistent file plan or index that can be used to expedite processing or assist in providing public access to the records? (ii) Are the records clearly labelled, with titles and dates that accurately reflect their contents? (H) Future Donations: (i) Can the City of Toronto Archives anticipate accruals to the initial donation? (I) Cost Considerations for Archival Processing: (i) How much will it cost to preserve and provide access to the records? (ii) Does the record’s potential to support research justify the expenditures associated with the costs of archival processing, physical preservation, and provision of public access (including the production of reference copies if necessary to safeguard original records)? (iii) Has the donor requested any services, such as copies of the records or special access privileges, that may influence the cost of managing these records?

210 Appendix 5 Appendix 2 Glossary of Archival Terms Note: Words appearing in uppercase characters are defined in the Glossary. Acquisition: (1) An addition to the holdings of an archive (2). (2) The activity of transferring physical custody and legal ownership of documents to an archive (2) by means of donation or purchase of non-government records, or transfer of inactive records from municipal departments or agencies, boards, and commissions of the municipality. Appraisal The process of determining the value and thus the disposition of records based upon a consideration of their administrative, legal, fiscal and archival value. Archival Value The evidential value and informational value of records which are determined during appraisal, and justify their preservation as archives (1). Archive (1) The records created, accumulated, and used by a person or organization in the course of the conduct of affairs, and preserved because of their continuing archival value. (2) The program responsible for selecting, acquiring, preserving, and making available records possessing archival value. (3) The building or part of a building where holdings are stored; also referred to as an archival repository. Archivist A person trained, experienced, and engaged in the administration of archives (2), including the following activities: appraisal, acquisition, arrangement, processing, description, reference services, and outreach. Collection An artificial accumulation of documents of any provenance brought together on the basis of some common characteristic, such as way of acquisition, subject, language, medium, type of document, or name of collector, which may be managed and described as a unit under a common title. Conservation The component of preservation that deals with the physical or chemical treatment of records.

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Copyright The right vested by law in the author of a document and the author’s heirs or assignees to publish or reproduce the document or to authorize publication or reproduction thereof. Disposition The actions taken with regard to inactive records as determined by their appraisal pursuant to legislation, regulation, or administrative procedure. Actions include destruction, or designation as archives (1) or as permanent records. Document A unit of recorded information regardless of form or media. Evidential value The importance of records for providing evidence of the origins, structure, functions, policies, and operations of the creator of the records. Holdings The whole of the documents held by an archive (2). Inactive records Records that are no longer required to conduct the current business of their creator, but must remain the responsibility of their creator due to administrative, fiscal, or legal requirements. Informational value The usefulness of documents for research based on the information the documents contain. This information often has uses not envisaged or intended by the creators of the documents. Preservation All processes and operations involved in the stabilization and protection of documents against damage or deterioration and in the treatment of damaged or deteriorated records to ensure their long-term use. Preservation may also include the transfer of information to another medium to maintain access to the contents of documents. Processing The activity of properly storing archives (1) to enhance the preservation of the documents. Provenance The person(s) or office(s) of origin of the records; the person(s), family (families), or corporate body (bodies) that created and/or accumulated and used records in the conduct of personal or business life. Record A document made or received in the course of the conduct of the affairs of a person or organization, and preserved by that person or organization for the purposes of future reference.

212 Appendix 5 Sources Bellardo, Lewis J. and Lynn Lady Bellardo, A Glossary for Archivists, Manuscript Curators, and Records Managers (Chicago, 1992). Pederson, Ann, ed. Keeping Archives (Sydney, 1987). Rules for Archival Description (Ottawa, 1990). (as quoted in City of Toronto Archives Mandate Report, June 30, 1999)

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Appendix 6

Appraisal report form: City of Toronto Archives City Clerk’s Office

City of Toronto Archives 255 Spadina Road Toronto ON M5R 2V3 Tel: 416 – 397–0778 Fax: 416 – 392–9685

Subject of Appraisal: Enter the title of the potential donation, including the nature of the archival unit (‘Records of’ or ‘Collection of’) and the name of the individual or organization responsible for creating the records. End data entry with a period.

Background of Appraisal: Indicate the circumstances that led to the preparation of the appraisal report.

214 Appendix 6 Physical Description of Records: Express the extent of the appraised material according to the appropriate rules in RAD. End data entry with a period.

Dates of Creation: Enter date range of appraised material according to the appropriate rules in RAD. End data entry with a period.

Administrative History [Biographical Sketch] of [Name of Creator or Collector]: Enter information in block paragraph format. Include sufficient information to allow the Manager, Archival Services and the Director, Corporate Records Systems & City Archivist to understand the context that led to the creation of the records or collection. Information in this field will also be used for the preparation of accession, descriptive, and name authority records in GENCAT during subsequent processing of the donation, if acquired by the City.

Custodial History This section is optional, and should be used only in situations where the donor of the material is not the creator or collector of the material. Use this section to explain how the material came into the possession of the donor, or the nature of the relationship between the donor and the creator/collector. Information entered in this section may be used for the preparation of accession and descriptive records in GENCAT during subsequent processing of the donation, if acquired by the City. Enter information in block paragraph format.

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Scope and Content of the Records: Enter information in block paragraph format. Include sufficient information to allow the Manager, Archival Services and the Director, Corporate Records Systems & City Archivist to understand the nature of the material included in the potential donation. Information in this field will also be used for the preparation of accession and descriptive records in GENCAT during subsequent processing of the donation, if acquired by the City.

Findings of the Appraisal: a) Evidential and Informational Value: Enter information regarding the archival value of the appraised material in a block paragraph format.

b) Relationship of Records to the Acquisition Policy of the City of Toronto Archives: Introduce the section with the following standard text: Under the terms of Report No. 2 (4) of the Administration Committee, which was adopted by City Council at its meeting of July 27, 28, 29 and 30, 1999, the Director, Corporate Records Systems & City Archivist has authority to accept the donation of nongovernment records deemed to possess archival value where such records make a significant contribution to an understanding of the development of the City, its natural and built environment, and the people who lived, worked, or had an impact upon Toronto. Enter additional text that explains how the potential donation meets or does not meet the terms of the acquisition policy.

216 Appendix 6 c) Related Records at the City of Toronto Archives: Identify related records previously acquired by the Archives. d) Associated Records held by Other Archives: Identify material created or collected by the same individual or organization that is held by another archival program. e) Restrictions on Public Access and Use: Identify issues that may limit access due to privacy concerns raised by the donor or the Archivist during the appraisal, as well as factors that may affect the subsequent use of the material, such as retention of copyright by the donor or a requirement for the donor’s consent before material is used in exhibits. f) Physical Condition: Identify issues associated with the physical condition or format of the material that may affect the ability of the City to preserve and provide public access to the donation. g) Creator-Generated Finding Aids: Identify any lists, indices, file plans, or other finding aids that may facilitate or expedite processing. h) Future Donations: Identify the potential for accruals to this donation in terms of extent, and the scope and content of the material. i) Cost Considerations for Archival Processing: Identify costs associated with processing, description, and preservation, including staff time, supplies, conservation treatments, and the production of reference copies if appropriate.

Appendix 6 217 1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 61 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 71111

Other Issues: This section is optional. Identify other issues that may affect the decision to acquire the appraised material, such as the donor’s request for monetary appraisal that may influence project management timelines, or a request to provide copies of the material that may add to the cost of acquisition.

Recommendations: It is recommended that: (1) conclude the report with a recommendation to acquire or not to acquire the appraised material; and (2) any recommendations regarding related activities such as sampling, selection, preservation copying, or referring this material to another archival program, if appropriate.

Prepared by:

___________________________ Archivist

___________ Date

Approved by: ___________________________ Manager, Archival Services

___________ Date

Approved by: ___________________________ Director, Corporate Records Systems & City Archivist

___________ Date

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 61 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 71111

Index

accountability corporate, 26–7, 50, 55, 117, 122–3 for appraisal decisions, 114, 119–20, 125–7 public, 15, 105, 145 Acland, Glenda, 39, 147 acquisition mandates, 45–51 acquisition policy, 161 City of Toronto Archives, 189–91 Adams, Thomas R., 141 appraisal, 161 and acquisition, 2, 37–8, 44–56, 60, 71–2, 154 and description, 44, 60 and reference, 44 as a social function, 7–12 community role in, 96–8 constraints, 100–7 goals, 51 history, 59–78 methodology, 162 monitoring decisions, 50, 99, 102, 106

policy, 162 research and evaluation, 111–13 situational, 99–107 strategy, 162 theory, 73, 82–86, 152, 162 tools and techniques, 51, 71–2, 92–4, 155–6 See also documentation strategy, functional analysis, macroappraisal, Minnesota Method appraisal reports, 92–3, 119–120 City of Toronto Archives, 213–17 archival theory, 163 archives and other disciplines, 149 in society, 67–70, 148 non-government, 67–9 placement within organizations, 34, 38, 41–2, 49 social construction of, 140, 145–6, 156 Archives New Zealand, 22

220 Index archivists and history, 33–5, 62, 66, 85, 105–6 and records managers, 70, 71 in organizations, 20, 32–7, 49, 96, 146 in society, 67–70, 134–6 in the United Kingdom, 61–3, 73 in the United States, 66–7 Association of Canadian Archivists (website), 127 Atherton, Jay, 30, 39 audio-visual records, 6, 165–86 Australian records management standard, 114, 124 Babbie, E. 146 Bailey, Catherine, 153 Bantin, Philip, 57 Barker, Nicolas, 141 Bearman, David, 22 Beaven, Brian P. N., 108, 153 Becker, Carl, 7, 8, 21 Boles, Frank, 41, 128, 152 Bradsher, James G., 108 Brichford, Maynard, 107 Brothman, Brien, 79, 144, 150, 156 Brown, Gerald F., 23, 38 Buckland, Michael, 108 Burke, Frank, 151 Canadian Council of Archives (CCA), 6, 187 Cantwell, John D., 78 Cappon, Lester, 151 Carruthers, Mary, 140 case files, 155 Choo, Chun Wei, 144 City of Toronto Archives, 6 acquisition mandate, 189–91

acquisition policy, 193–211 appraisal report, 213–17 Clanchy, Michael, 143 communications, 141 Concordia University Archives, 6, 165–86 Conneen, Sheila, 57 Connor, Tom, 156 continuum model, 30–31, 53, 115, 148 Cook, Terry, 56, 57, 108, 148, 149, 152, 155, 156 development of macroappraisal, 87 Côté, Louis, 187 Cox, Richard, 109, 143, 145, 148, 158 Craig, Barbara L., 57, 78, 79, 138, 151, 159 Cressy, David, 142 Cunningham, Adrian, 79, 147, 157 Daniels-Howell, Todd J., 91, 108 Darnton, Robert, 141 Dearstyne, Bruce, 57, 148 Delaney, Janine, 158 Dietel, J. Edwin, 22 digital records See electronic records documentation of appraisal decisions, 15, 103–4, 159 of archive mandates and procedures, 115–122, 125–7 documentation strategy, 89–90, 94, 96–7, 153 Dodge, Bernadine, 146, 151 Dojka, John, 57 Draaisma, Douwe, 143 Duranti, Luciana, 39, 78, 147, 152

Index 221 1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 61 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 71111

Eastwood, Terry, 107, 127, 138, 144, 149, 151 electronic records and appraisal, 74–8 and changing technologies, 89 and privacy, 26, 29 fragility of, 10–11, 14, 46 lack of commonalities, 102 personal, 75–6, 157–8 See also records systems electronic systems, 54–5 See also records systems Eliot, T. S., 1 Ellis, Judith, 147 Endelman, Judith E., 108 Enron, 122 Ericson, Tim, 108, 109 ethics, 125–7, 159

Hackman, Larry, 90, 108 Ham, F. Gerald, 59, 68–9, 78, 84, 107, 148 Hanson, Stan, 154 Harris, Verne, 21, 79, 107, 144, 146, 158 Heald, Carolyn, 146 Healey, Susan, 39 Hedstrom, Margaret, 57 history of the record, 105–6, 149–50 Hobart, Michael E., 141 Hobbs, Catherine, 158 Holocaust, 122 Horsman, Peter, 150 Hull, Felix, 127 Hutton, P., 143 Hyry, Tom, 158

Fleckner, John, 108, 155 Flynn, S. J. A., 39 Foote, Kenneth R., 21 Foster, Janet, 128 Frost, Eldon, 78 functional analysis and documentation strategy, 90 and macro-appraisal, 87 as a framework for appraisal, 72–3, 153 vs. records assessments, 94–5

information systems See records systems International Records Management Trust (IRMT), 39, 145 InterPARES I Task Force on Appraisal, 31, 39, 99, 102, 115, 154 InterPARES II Project, 157 ISO 15489 (Records Management standard), 93, 114, 124, 145

goal of acquisition, 163 goal of appraisal, 163 Goody, Jack, 140 government records-keeping, 76 in the United Kingdom, 62–4 in the United States, 65–7 Grafton, Anthony, 140 Greene, Mark A., 91, 108, 152 Grigg Committee on Departmental Records (UK, 1954), 74

Jenkinson, Sir, Hilary, 59, 78 contrasted with Schellenberg, 67 views on archives and archivists, 61–4, 73–4 views on records creators, 76, 77, 84 Jones, Ray, 150 Keller-Cohen, D., 142 Kimball, Greg, 151

222 Index knowledge management, 144–5 Kolish, Evelyn, 155 Kornegay, V., 21 Krizack, Joan, 90, 108 Kula, Sam, 155 Lambert, James, 187 Lemieux, Victoria, 38, 145 Lipstadt, Deborah, 143 literacy, 139–40 Little, Stephen, 22 MacKenzie, George, 128 MacNeil, Heather, 150, 154 macro-appraisal, 87–9, 94–97, 117, 152–3, 163 Marrelli, Nancy, 6, 165 Mason, Philip P., 127 McCall, Nancy, 90, 108 McDonald, John, 57 McIntosh, Robert, 143 McKemmish, Sue, 21, 78, 148, 158 McKittrick, R., 143 media, 156–7 See also audio-visual records, electronic records memory, 33, 73, 139–40, 143–4 Menne-Haritz, Angelika, 107 meta-data, 77 Methven, Patricia, 128 Millar, Laura, 148, 150 micro-appraisal, 88, 93, 94–6, 163 Minnesota Historical Society, 91, 123 Minnesota Method, 91, 94, 123 Mix, Lisa, 90, 108 monetary appraisal, 5, 154 National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 39, 60, 65–7

National Archives of Australia, 79 National Archives of Canada, 66, 79, 87–8, 108, 117, 152–3 Nazi gold scandal, 122–3 Nesmith, Tom, 107, 148, 150 Nolte, William, 128 O’Toole, James, 21, 39, 56, 128, 143 Oanuf, Rachel, 158 office automation systems See electronic systems Ong, Walter, 140 organizations culture, 25–6, 41–2 goals, 42–44 records-keeping, 23–30, 49–50, 149–50 types of, 25 Papenfuse, Edward C., 108 Paul, Karen D., 57 Pedersen, Ann, 148 peer review, 97, 119 Pellew, Jill, 150 Pentland, B.T., 21, 142 personal records, 10–12, 73, 142, 157–9 electronic, 75–6, 157–8 policies and procedures, 27–8, 33, 75–6, 116–27 Pollard, Riva A., 159 Posner, Ernst, 143 post-modernism, 85, 106, 113, 137, 156 programme management, 147–8 Public Records Acts (UK), 61, 74 Public Record Office (UK), 60–2, 65, 128

Index 223 1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 61 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 71111

Quintas, Paul, 22 Rapport, Leonard, 109 re-appraisal, 98–9, 104, 106, 125, 159, 164 records creators, 49–51 role in appraisal, 61–3, 76, 84 records management standards, 93–114, 124, 145 records managers, 14, 28–9 and archivists, 70, 71 records professionals, 18–20 records retention schedules, 71–2, 92, 97 records systems and new technologies, 53, 106 as documentary artefacts, 135–6, 149–50 decentralized, 64–5 design of, 31–2, 35 in organizations, 15–17 lack of commonalities, 102 managing, 74–6 registries, 63–4 vs. information systems, 17–18 Reed, Barbara, 41, 57, 147 research methods, 146 retro-appraisal, 164 See also re-appraisal Robek, Mary F., 23, 38 Roberts, John, 107, 151 Rogers, Rosemary, 128 Russell, Bill, 149 sampling, 155–56 Samuels, Helen, 90, 108 Sayers, Jane E., 129, 143 Schaeffer, Roy, 39, 81, 111, 138 Scheinberg, Ellen, 155 Schellenberg, Theodore R., 59, 78 and historical users of archives, 84

and information values of records, 95 extension of ideas by Ham, 68 views on archives and appraisal, 66–7, 74 Schiffman, Zachary S., 141 Schwartz, Joan, 154, 156 Schwirtlich, Anne Marie, 147 Scott, F. R., 21 selection, 164 Shepherd, Elizabeth, 145 Sink, Robert, 128 standards, 93, 114, 123, 124, 146–7 Stapleton, Richard, 78 State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 68 Stephens, David O., 23, 38 Suchman, L. 142 Taylor, Hugh, 151 technology impact on records, 53, 62 See also records systems Thomas, Rosalind, 140, 143 Toronto Archives See City of Toronto Archives Trace, Ciaran, 142 Upward, Frank, 30, 39, 78 use of records, 49–50, 60, 95, 139–43 values of records, 2, 66, 82–4 corporate, 12–16, 24, 52 criteria, 95–6, 114 evidential, 33–4 research, 66, 74, 95, 154 social, 7–9, 122–3, 135–6, 139 Van Maanen, J., 21, 142

224 Index Wallace, David, 145 Walters, Tyler O., 57, 154 Warnow-Blewett, Joan, 90, 108 warrants for records-keeping, 15–17 Whorley, Tywanna, 78

Wilson, Bruce, 153 Wilsted, Thomas, 128 Yakel, Beth, 142 Yates, JoAnne, 149 Yeo, Geoffrey, 145 Young, Julia Marks, 128