Doing what's possible with what we've got: Using the world wide web to integrate archival functions

American Archivist

Volumn 61, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 106-122

  Piché, Jean Stéphen ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 75649150041     PISSN: 03609081     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.17723/aarc.61.1.3j164456811r68l5     Document Type: Article

References (34)

1. For an overview of archives and the Internet see David Wallace, "The Internet: Basic Navigation and Resources," Archives and Museum Informatics 8 (Spring 1994): 13-23.
2. In the Canadian context see the two-part article by Bennett McCardle, "An Introduction to the Internet," Off the Record 11 (Sept. and Oct. 1994): 1-5
3. and Off the Record 11 (Nov. and Dec. 1994): 2-5.
4. For a list of Canadian archival websites consult . For a review of archival websites see William Landis, "Archival Outreach On the World Wide Web," Archival Issues 20 no. 2 (1995): 129-47.
5. David Bearman, "Documenting Documentation," Archivaria 34 (Summer 1992): 33-49
6. also published in Bearman, Electronic Evidence: Strategies for Managing Records in Contemporary Organizations (Pittsburgh: Archives and Museum Informatics, 1994), 232-37.
7. See also David Wallace, "Metadata and the Archival Management of Electronic Records: A Review," Archivaria 36 (Spring 1993): 88-95
8. and Margaret Hedstrom, "Descriptive Practices for Electronic Records: Deciding What is Essential and Imagining What is Possible," Archivaria 36 (Autumn 1993): 53-63.
9. Glossaries of Internet terms exist on the WWW. See, for example, and B This complies with the spirit of the initial Rules for Archival Description (RAD) recommendations for exchange of information between archival institutions: to undertake the necessary research to recommend mechanisms for the inter-institutional exchange of archival information" (Bureau of Canadian Archivists, Towards Descriptive Standards: Report and Recommendations of the Canadian Working Group on Archival Descriptive Standards [Ottawa, 1985], 72-73).
10. See .
11. Enhancement of access to descriptive components is already underway. The adoption by the National Archives of Canada of a new control standard for description will have the effect of standardizing archival descriptive information in a database format, which will greatly facilitate linkages between upper levels of description and enhance the search capabilities, eventually using the Web to integrate those levels of description. This site could be greatly improved if all levels of descriptions would be standardized in a database structure. However, this is not the case, which is why, given the wide variety of detailed finding aids in use at the National Archives of Canada, options such as Encoded Archival Description (EAD) cannot be readily implemented with great success, at least not for the time being. EAD is a Document Type Definition (DTD) or a subset of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). EAD is a set of rules for defining and expressing the logical structure of an archival finding aid that allows software products to control searching, retrieval, and structured display of those finding aids. The rules themselves are applied by tags embedded in the electronic finding aid. As for accessing electronic records themselves through the WWW, strategies using data warehousing and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) tools may prove to be more relevant in the future. Such tools permit "access to analytical content such as time series and trend analysis views and summary-level information, as well as insight into multiple dimensions." See Rich Carickhoff, "A New Face of OLAP," 10 DBMS (January 1997): 24-34. This article is also available on the Web at .
12. For a summary of the macro-appraisal approach see Terry Cook, "Mind Over Matter: Towards a New Theory of Archival Appraisal," in The Archival Imagination: Essays in Honour of Hugh A. Taylor, edited by Barbara L. Craig (Ottawa: Association of Canadian Archivists, 1992), 38-70.
13. The project in the Records Disposition Division of the National Archives of Canada was conceptualized by director Terry Cook and is being implemented by Danny Moore and Carl Bouchard. "See Jean-Stephen Piche, "Macro-Appraisal and Duplication of Information: Federal Real Property Management Records," Archivaria 39 (Spring 1995): 41-50. 1 This expression is from a conversation with Terry Cook
14. Helen Willa Samuels, Varsity Letters: Documenting Modem Colleges and Universities (Metuchen, N.J. and London: The Society of American Archivists and Scarecrow Press, 1992), 3-7.
15. Such an analysis is, however, difficult to undertake in practice because of the difficulty of finding the tools to perform the analysis. According to Margaret Hedstrom, such analysis involves leaving the structures and resorting to a higher level of understanding by undertaking broad research and consulting commissions, reports, audits, reports of lobby groups, etc. See Margaret Hedstrom, "New Appraisal Techniques: The Effect of Theory on Practice," Provenance! (Fall 1989): 11.
16. B The WWW would also be helpful in representing other archival concepts that require cross-institutional analysis, such as "ambiance" (the relationships that define the broader functional and cross-functional context of provenance) as defined by Chris Hurley. See "Ambiant Functions- Abandoned Children to the Zoos," Archivaria 40 (Fall 1995): 27. The same would likely apply to most archival strategies or methodologies currently present in the archival literature such as macroappraisal, documentation strategies, archival hermeneutics, diplomatics, and so on.
17. Bearman, "Documenting Documentation," 234.
18. This expression is from Richard Brown and it refers to archival hermeneutics. See Richard Brown, "Macro-Appraisal Theory and the Context of the Public Records Creator," Archivaria 40 (Fall 1995): 123.
19. See also Richard Brown, "Records Acquisition Strategy and Its Theoretical Foundation: The Case for a Concept of Archival Hermeneutics," Archivaria 33 (Winter 1991-92): 48-52.
20. Hans Booms, "Society and the Formation of a Documentary Heritage: Issues in the Appraisal of Archival Sources," Archivaria 24 (Summer 1987): 105.
21. See also Brien Brothman, "Orders of Value: Probing the Theoretical Terms of Archival Practice," Archivaria 32 (Summer 1991): 80-85
22. Bureau of Canadian Archivists, Towards Descriptive Standards, 60-65.
23. Also see Dan Cantrall, "From MARC to Mosaic: Progressing Data Interchangeability at the Oregon State Archives," Archives and Museum Informatics 8 (Spring 1994): 4-12. This article explores a methodology to migrate database MARC formats to Internet use.
24. Such a system exists on the Australian Archives World Wide Web site.
25. This view is expressed in recent archival literature. For discussion of the "need to share data across organizational boundaries," see, for example, Hedstrom, "Descriptive Practices for Electronic Records," 59.
26. The URL is
27. Avra Michelson and Jeff Rothenberg, "Scholarly Communication and Information Technology: Exploring the Impact of Changes in the Research Process on Archives," American Archivist 55 (Spring 1992): 245-46.
28. "The ultimate user is the person who causes a computation to be performed and who uses the results of the computation. . . .[Computing becomes] an integral part of a researcher's thought process-and therefore of the research itself." 1 Michelson and Rothenberg, "Scholarly Communication and Information Technology," 260. The steps in the use of technology in scholarly communication include: 1) identifying sources, 2) communicating with colleagues, 3) interpreting and analyzing data, 4) disseminating research findings, and 5) developing curriculums and aid instruction.'
29. Terry Cook, "From Information to Knowledge: An Intellectual Paradigm for Archives," Archivaria 19 (Winter 1984-85): 47, 49.
30. Cook returned to this theme within the debate over whether to serve researchers through context-based knowledge derived from archival provenance knowledge or through "fast food" content-based information without context: Terry Cook, "Viewing the World Upside Down: Reflections on the Theoretical Underpinnings of Archival Public Programming," Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990-91): 123-35.
31. " Heather MacNeil, "Weaving Provenancial and Documentary Relations," Archivaria 34 (Summer 1992): 197. Others, beginning with Peter Scott in Australia and followed by David Bearman, Margaret Hedstrom, and Helen Samuels in the United States, Chris Hurley in Australia, and Terry Cook and Tom Nesmith in Canada, have been making the kind of cross-functional integration and interrelationships of archival and research knowledge that MacNeil articulates here.
32. Margaret Hedstrom, "Descriptive Practices for Electronic Records," 53-63.