Putting the parts of the whole together: Systematic arrangement of archives

Archivaria

Volumn 50, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 93-116

  Eastwood, Terry ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA   (Canada)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 18844430957     PISSN: 03186954     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. The terms "archival document(s)" and "record(s)" may be taken as synonyms.
2. C. Hurley, "The Australian ('Series') System: An Exposition," in Sue McKemmish and Michael Piggott, eds., The Records Continuum: Ian MacLean and Australian Archives First Fifty Years (Clayton, 1994), p. 169.
3. Bureau of Canadian Archivists, Planning Committee on Descriptive Standards, Rules for Archival Description (Ottawa, 1990-96). On pages xiii-xvi, the chairperson of the committee, Kent Haworth, discusses the axioms on which the rules were based.
4. Bob Krawczyk, "Cross Reference Heaven: The Abandonment of the Fonds as the Primary Level of Arrangement for Ontario Government Records," Archivaria 48 (Fall 1999), p. 132.
5. Terry Cook, "The Concept of the Archival Fonds: Theory, Description, and Provenance in the Post-Custodial Era," in Terry Eastwood, ed., The Archival Fonds: From Theory to Practice/Le fonds d'archives: de la théorie à la pratique (Ottawa, 1992), p. 58.
6. In Lewis J. Bellardo and Lynn Lady Bellardo, comps., A Glossary for Archivists, Manuscript Curators, and Records Managers (Chicago, 1992), administrative control is characterized as "the use of documentation to manage holdings ... without reference to the information they hold." By contrast, intellectual control is "the acquisition and creation of documentation required to access the informational content of records." The definitions given here are offered as more explicit acknowledgement of the nature of the two activities.
7. Terry Eastwood, The Archival Fonds, p. 4.
8. Oliver W. Holmes, "Archival Arrangement - Five Different Operations at Five Different Levels," American Archivist 27 (January 1964), pp. 21-41
9. Carl Vincent, "The Record Group - A Concept in Evolution," Archivaria 3 (Winter 1976-77), pp. 3-15
10. S. Muller, J.A. Feith, and R. Fruin, Manual for the Arrangement and Description of Archives, Arthur H. Leavitt, trans. (New York, 1940)
11. Hilary Jenkinson, A Manual of Archive Administration (London, 1965)
12. Michel Duchein, "Theoretical Principles and Practical Problems of Respect des fonds in Archival Science," Archivaria 16 (Summer 1983), pp. 64-82
13. P.J Scott, et. al., "Archives and Administrative Change: Some Methods and Approaches," published in five parts in Archives and Manuscripts 7 (August 1978), pp. 115-27
14. 7 (April 1979), pp. 151-65
15. 8 (June 1980), pp. 41-53
16. 8 (December 1980), pp. 51-69
17. 9 (September 1981), pp. 3-18.
18. 9 Hurley, "Australian ('Series') System," p. 159 takes a different view of the role of rules from that taken here. He says "it will be seen, then, that the conceptual model [of the series system] itself imposes no hard and fast 'rules' about how descriptive entities are defined and related. This must be worked out in the rule base devised for each application." If rules in this context are taken to mean principled statements used to guide the identifications made during arrangement, there is no reason why they need be "hard and fast," that is inflexible. It is also perhaps misleading to speak of defining and relating "descriptive entities." It is not the needs of archival control and description that dictate what entities need to be identified, but, rather, it is argued here, it is questions of the way organizations structure themselves and form their records into aggregations that are at issue. In fact, almost all of the writing on the Australian series system has been about the identification of archives, not about developing rules for description, which is why I make so much reference to Australian writers.
19. Mark Wagland and Russell Kelly, "The Series System - A Revolution in Archival Control," in The Records Continuum, p. 133.
20. Each component will normally be identified with one aggregation. The exception is for socalled multiple-provenance series, which are discussed below.
21. Wagland and Kelly, "The Series System," p. 140.
22. Muller, Feith, and Fruin, Manual, p. 6.
23. Scott, "Archives and Administrative Change," Part 2, p. 151.
24. I say this to make it clear that it is the actual administrative facts of the matter, and not classification for the purpose of creating vocabularies of function, that is at issue. Chris Hurley, "What, If Anything, is a Function?" Archives and Manuscripts 21, no. 2, pp. 208-20 discusses the scientific and linguistic difficulties of determining what a function is for the purposes of classification and description of archives.
25. Lewis J. Bellardo and Lynn Lady Bellardo, comps., A Glossary for Archivists, Manuscript Curators, and Records Managers (Chicago, 1992) defines competence as "the sphere of responsibility entrusted to a given office or person." It defines mandate as "the authority vested in an agency," and adds that "a mandate is fulfilled by means of functions."
26. It hardly seems necessary to spell out that the principle of provenance associates records with their creator or creating entity, that is, the entity that made or received them in the (we can say, natural) course of its activities. On this score, Scott, "Archives and Administrative Change," Part 3, p. 45 says: "While all three concepts, 'creating', 'transferring' and 'controlling', have valid connotations and applications to archival work, it remains our view that, for basic arrangement, description and reference, the 'creating' agency is pre-eminent." Quite so. It is important to know which entity transferred the records and which controls "withdrawal and use" of them, if different from the creator, but these are facts of custody, access, and so on, which, though they may have effects which complicate identification, do not determine provenance.
27. Scott, "Part 3," pp. 50-51.
28. Wagland and Kelly, "The Series System," p. 140.
29. Hurley, "Australian 'Series' System," p. 161.
30. Ibid., pp. 161-62.
31. P.J. Scott, "The Record Group Concept: The Case for Abandonment," American Archivist 29 (October 1966), pp. 493-504. Hurley says: "I suspect that Peter Scott came to regret the use of the word 'abandonment' in his seminal 1966 article. He sometimes spoke wistfully of how we had not lost the fonds, as critics supposed, but recreated it 'on paper', using our Inventories and other products of the system." Hurley, "Australian 'Series' System," p. 165.
32. Mario D. Fenyo, "The Record Group Concept: A Critique American Archivist 29 (April 1966), p. 233, quoting Section 4 of Memorandum A-142 (28 February 1941) that announced the new policy.
33. Duchein, "Theoretical Principles," p. 70.
34. Scott, "Archives and Administrative Change," Part 3, p. 50.
35. Ibid., pp. 48 and 50.
36. Jane Parkinson, "Accountability in Archival Science" (M.A.S. Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1993), p. 13. As a footnote to the sentence quoted, the author cites the O.E.D. definition of the verb "delegate": "to commit [authority, powers, etc.] to agent."
37. Duchein, "Theoretical Principles," p. 71.
38. Scott, "Archives and Administrative Change," Part 3, p. 48.
39. Hurley, "Australian ('Series') System," p. 162.
40. Ibid., p. 163.
41. James S. Coleman, Foundations of Social Theory (Cambridge, MA, 1990), pp. 66-67.
42. Parkinson, "Accountability in Archival Science," pp. 7-8, usefully distinguishes the various meanings of a concept she says is shrouded in "ambiguity and confusion." In constitutional law, accountability refers to "the conventions and procedures that govern the relations between people and their representatives, representatives and their delegates." In public administration, it means "systems for efficient, effective, responsive, and responsible decisionmaking." In accounting, it has come to refer to "provision of [fiscal] information for decisionmaking rather than for stewardship."
43. Duchein, "Theoretical Principles," p. 70.
44. Krawczyk, "Cross Reference Heaven," p. 136.
45. Ibid., p. 151, n. 16.
46. Krawczyk, "Cross Reference Heaven," p. 137.
47. Terry Eastwood, "R.E. Gosnell, E.O.S. Scholefield, and the Founding of the Provincial Archives of British Columbia," in Tom Nesmith, ed., Canadian Archiva Studies and the Rediscovery of Provenance (Metuchen, N.J., & London, 1993), p. 114.
48. Ian Wilson, "A Noble Dream: The Origins of the Public Archives of Canada," in Tom Nesmith, ed., Canadian Archival Studies, p. 63.
49. Hurley, "Australian ('Series') System," p. 167.
50. Hurley, "The Australian ('Series') System," p. 160.
51. Duchein, "Theoretical Principles," p. 81.