What is past is prologue: A history of archival ideas since 1898, and the future paradigm shift

Archivaria

Volumn 43, Issue , 1996, Pages 17-63

  Cook, Terry ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA   (Canada)

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EID: 84880442157     PISSN: 03186954     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (88)

1. This article has a long history and owes much to many colleagues, whom I want to acknowledge here in order to make clear my gratitude, and which history will make clear the provenance of a paper already cited in various existing versions. The paper was first commissioned in 1993 as the third plenary address to be delivered at the Thirteenth International Congress on Archives to be held in Beijing, China, in September 1996. After several drafts greatly benefitted from comments by colleagues (see below), a very long paper was finalized in May 1995, which was distributed to delegates at the Congress in English and Chinese. To reduce translation costs into the other ICA official languages (Spanish, German, Russian, and French) for Congress distribution, a second version was produced in December 1995, approximately one-half the length of its predecessor, and this second, much tighter version forms the core of the present article, but with some additions from the first and with significant updating and refocusing, many more extensive explanatory endnotes, and especially overall rewriting to make the article more "Canadian, " by setting Canadian archival traditions and contributions within the original broader international context. A brief third version highlighting only the key themes of the paper, approximately one-seventh the length of the original paper's text, was also prepared for actual delivery in Beijing, and that summary forms part of the conclusion of this article. The ICA will pro forma publish a significantly different version of the paper without any of these changes. I consider this version in Archivaria to be the definitive text. In writing the original version of the paper, I received the formal advice of twenty-eight archivists in six countries. I wish to thank sincerely these colleagues who took the time to comment (often very extensively) on my earlier drafts. Their criticisms have much improved the content of this version of the paper, as well as its predecessors, and I hope that none are distressed by the many changes subsequently introduced. Any errors that remain are my full responsibility. The readers were from Australia (Glenda Acland, Sue McKemmish, and Angela Slatter), China (Han Yumei), the Netherlands (Jan van den Broek and F.C.J. [Eric] Ketelaar), South Africa (Verne Harris), the United States (David Bearman, Richard Cox, Margaret Hedstrom, Jim O'Toole, and Helen Samuels), and Canada (Barbara Craig, Gordon Dodds, Luciana Duranti, Tom Nesmith, Hugh Taylor, and Ian Wilson).
2. Jean-Pierre Wallot, "Building a Living Memory for the History of Our Present: Perspectives on Archival Appraisal, " Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 2 (1991), pp. 263-82, with citations from p. 282.
3. Jacques Le Goff, History and Memory, translated by Steven Rendall and Elizabeth Claman (New York, 1992), pp. xvi-xvii, 59-60, andpassim. On medieval archives and their purposes, see Patrick J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton, 1994), pp. 86-87, 177, and especially chapter 3: "Archival Memory and the Destruction of the Past" and passim; and Rosamond McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge, 1989).
4. For women and archives, see Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-Seventy (New York and Oxford, 1993), passim, but especially chapter 11: "The Search for Women's History;"
5. see also Anke Voss-Hubbard, "'No Documents-No History': Mary Ritter Beard and the Early History of Women's Archives, "AmericanArchivist 58 (Winter 1995), pp. 16-30.
6. Barbara L. Craig, "Outward Visions, Inward Glance: Archives History and Professional Identity, " Archival Issues 17 (1992), p. 121. The fullest argument for archivists researching, writing, and reading their own history, including the many benefits this will have for daily practice and professional well-being, is Richard J. Cox, "On the Value of Archival History in the United States" (originally 1988), in Richard J. Cox, American Archival Analysis: The Recent Development of the Archival Profession in the United States (Metuchen, N.J., 1990), pp. 182-200. Lamentably few have followed Cox's sound advice, and oddly so considering the historical training of most archivists.
7. The best short summaties in English are Michel Duchein, "The History of European Archives and the Development of the Archival Profession in Europe, " American Archivist 55 (Winter 1992), pp. 14-24.
8. Duchein, "History of European Archives, " p. 19.
9. S. Muller, J.A. Feith, and R. Fruin, Manual for the Arrangement and Description of Archives (1898), translation (1940) of the 2nd ed. by Arthur H. Leavitt (New York, reissued 1968), pp. 13-20, 33-35, 52-59. The story of the Manual is best told in English in Marjorie Rabe Barritt, "Coming to America: Dutch Archivistiek and American Archival Practice, " Archival Issues 18 (1993), pp. 43-54. I have used the 1940 translations of the terms found in the Manual itself, rather than Banitt's modernization of them. More recently, see Cornelis Dekker, "La Bible archivistique nierlandaise et ce qu'il en est advenu, " in Bucci, Archival Science on the Threshold, pp. 69-79.
10. The best source of biographical information on the Dutch trio, including their not entirely happy interpersonal relations, is Eric Ketelaar, "Muller, Feith et Fruin, " Archives et bibliotheques de Belgique 57, nos. 1-2 (1986), pp. 255-68.
11. Cited by Frank Upward, who also makes this critical point, in his "In Search of the Continuum: Ian Maclean's 'Australian Experience' Essays on Recordkeeping, " in Sue McKemmish and Michael Piggott, eds., The Records Continuum: Ian Maclean and Australian Archives First 50 Years (Clayton, 1994), pp. 110-30.
12. Muller, Feith, and F N Manual, p. 9 (authors' original preface). The Dutch themselves led the way in recognizing new administrative realities affecting record-keeping and thus in recasting or expanding the original rules.
13. Ernst Posner, "Some Aspects of Archival Development Since the French Revolution, " in Ken Munden, ed., Archives and the Public Interest: Selected Essays by Ernst Posner (Washington, 1967), p. 31.
14. Cited in Barritt, "Coming to America, " Archival Issues, p. 52.
15. "Memoir of Sir Hilary Jenkinson, " in J. Conway Davies, Studies Presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson, C.B.E., LL.D., F.S.A. (London, 1957). This "Memoir" is the best biographical sketch of Jenkinson, which can be supplemented by Richard Stapleton, "Jenkinson and Schellenberg: A Comparison, " Archivaria 17 (Winter 1983-84), pp. 75-85.
16. Hilary Jenkinson, A Manual of Archive Administration (London, 1968, a reissue of the revised second edition of 1937), pp. 149-55, 190.
17. F. Gerald Ham, Selecting and Appraising Archives and Manuscripts (Chicago, 1993), p. 9. Even archivists very friendly towards Jenkinson opposed his views on appraisal.
18. See Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the USSR: Moscow and Leningrad (Princeton, 1972), pp. 2340.
19. Jenkinson, Manual of Archive Administration, pp. 101-2. Jenkinson's sense of breadth in arrangement still survives in British archival practice. Although his "archive group" is now termed simply the "group, " it retains Jenkinson's broad definition. Conversely, the term "archive group" itself relates to even broader thematic categories. See Michael Cook, The Management of Information from Archives (Aldershot, 1986). pp. 85-87, and Chapter 5 generally, especially the examples on p. 92. The context of Jenkinson's ideas and their impact (and weaknesses) are nicely analyzed in Michael Roper, "The Development of the Principles of Provenance and Respect for Original Order in the Public Record Office, " in Barbara L. Craig, ed., The Archival Imagination: Essays in Honour of Hugh A. Taylor (Ottawa, 1992), pp. 134-49.
20. See, for example, the unabashed Jenk'insonianism of the Australians, perhaps represented best in Sue McKemmish, "Introducing Archives and Archival Programs, " in Judith Ellis, ed., Keeping Archives, 2nd ed. (Port Melbourne, 1993), pp. 1-24.
21. For the Italian scene and Casanova's work, see Bucci, "The Evolution of Archival Science, " pp. 17-43. The quotations are pp. 34-35, and from his "Introduction, " p. 11.
22. The figures are taken from James Gregory Bradsher, "An Administrative History of the Disposal of Federal Records, 1789-1949, "Provenance 3 (Fall 1985), pp. 1-21. I have made the rounded conversions from imperial to metric measurements.
23. Margaret Cross Norton, "Records Disposal, " in Thornton W. Mitchell, ed., Norton on Archives: The Writings of Margaret Cross Norton on Archives and Records Management (Chicago, 1975), p. 232, and "The Archivist and Records Management" in the same volume.
24. Ham, Selecting and Appraising Archives, p. 7. Schellenberg's fullest statement of his oft-cited principles is 'The Appraisal of Modem Public Records, " National Archives Bulletin 8 (Washington, 1956), pp. 146. An extract is available in Maygene F. Daniels and Timothy Walch, eds., A Modem Archives Reader: Basic Readings on Archival Theory and Practice (Washington, 1984), pp. 57-70.
25. Ham, Selecting and Appraising Archives, p. 7. Schellenberg's fullest statement of his oft-cited principles is 'The Appraisal of Modem Public Records, " National Archives Bulletin 8 (Washington, 1956), pp. 146. An extract is available in Maygene F. Daniels and Timothy Walch, eds., A Modem Archives Reader: Basic Readings on Archival Theory and Practice (Washington, 1984), pp. 57-70.
26. Ham, Selecting and Appraising Archives, p. 7. Schellenberg's fullest statement of his oft-cited principles is 'The Appraisal of Modem Public Records, " National Archives Bulletin 8 (Washington, 1956), pp. 146. An extract is available in Maygene F. Daniels and Timothy Walch, eds., A Modem Archives Reader: Basic Readings on Archival Theory and Practice (Washington, 1984), pp. 57-70.
27. For an analysis of Schellenberg's personal evolution, especially regarding private archives and archival relations with librarians, see Richard C. Berner, Archival Theory and Practice in the United States: A Historical Analysis (Seattle and London, 1983), pp. 47-64, and passim.
28. The Australians have been most articulate in objecting to the Schellenbergian distinction between "records" and "archives" as one that distracts from their common, unifying purpose as "archival documents" at any point in their life along the records continuum. See, for example, McKemmish and Upward, Archival Documents, pp. 1, 22, and passim.
29. Schellenberg, Management of Archives, pp. 162ff. For a parallel American statement at the time, and an influential source of thinking on this topic, see Oliver W. Holmes, "Archival Arrangement-Five Different Operations at Five Different Levels, " American Archivist 27 (January 1964), pp. 21-41, and especially pp. 25-27.
30. A growing number of critics strongly advocate the end of the record group and a return to a more strict adherence to provenance rather than to Schellenberg's practical compromise. The first objections were raised by Australian Peter Scott in "The Record Group Concept: A Case for Abandonment, " American Archivist 29 (October 1966), p. 502, and passim; and more recently David A. Bearman and Richard H. Lytle, "The Power of the Principle of Provenance, " Archivaria 21 (Winter 1985-86), p. 20.
31. Cited in McCoy, National Archives, p. 180. The biographical details for Schellenberg may be found in "In Memoriam: T.R. Schellenberg, " American Archivist 33 (April 1970), pp. 19C 202.
32. Barbara L. Craig, "What are the Clients? Who are the Products? The Future of Archival Public Services in Perspective, " Archivaria 31 (Winter 199&91), pp. 139-40, where she speculates on the impact of contemporary social mores on the development of archival ideas.
33. Meyer H. Fishbein, "A Viewpoint on Appraisal of National Records, " American Archivist 33 (April 1970), p. 175.
34. Maynard J. Brichford, Archives and Manuscripts: Appraisal & Accessioning (Chicago, 1977), p. 13. Despite growing protests against this approach to archives, it continues, with explicit acknowledgement of Schellenberg's influence.
35. F. Gerald Ham, "The Archival Edge, " in Daniels and Walch, Modern Archives Reader, pp. 328-29.
36. For this reason especially, I have pointedly criticized the use-defined approach to archives: see Terry Cook, "Viewing the World Upside Down: Reflections on the Theoretical Underpinnings of Archival Public Programming, " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990-91), pp. 123-34.
37. That this utilitarian content-based approach would radically diminish, if not deny, the value of any archival theory, is best revealed in John Roberts, "Archival Theory: Much Ado About Shelving, " American Archivist 50 (Winter 1987), pp. 66-74.
38. Oddo Bucci makes the same observation, in "Evolution of Archival Science, " p. 35, and ff.
39. Abraham Lincoln's memorable phrase was first given an archival twist by Eric Ketelaar.
40. Hans Booms, "Society and the Formation of a Documentary Heritage: Issues in the Appraisal of Archival Sources, " Archivaria 24 (Summer 1987), (original 1972: translation by Hermina Joldersma and Richard Klumpenhouwer), p. 104. On the lack of legitimacy provided by Hegelian models based on a prediction of historical trends in society, or by the Schellenbergian dream of "a futurology of research interests, " or by Marxist or other models using alleged "objective laws for social development, " all of which models ignore the very "existential conditions of human existence, " as well as the impossibility of ever knowing accurately what "society" is or means, see p. 100, and passim (pp. 69-107). For an amplification of Booms' views that records reflect or embody an "image" of society, see the work of his Bundesarchiv colleague, Siegfried Biittner, as described in Terry Cook, The Archival Appraisal of Records Containing Personal Information: A RAMP Study With Guidelines (Paris, 1991), pp. iv-v, 35-37.
41. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
42. See Cook, Archival Appraisal of Records.
43. For the actual approach, see Terry Cook, "An Appraisal Methodology: Guidelines for Perfoming An Archival Appraisal, " (December 1991).
44. T.K. Bikson and E.F. Frinking, Preserving the Present: Toward Viable Electronic Records (The Hague, 1993), pp. 33-34.
45. The original statement is Helen Willa Samuels, "Who Controls The Past, " American Archivist 49 (Spring 1986), pp. 109-24. A later article updates the theme, and contains additional crossreferences.
46. For critiques, see David Bearman, Archival Methods, (Pittsburgh, 1989), pp. 13-15.
47. Helen Willa Samuels, Varsity Letters: Documenting Modem Colleges and Universities (Metuchen, N.J., and London, 1992). p. 15, and passim. See also her overview of both documentation strategies and institutional functional analyses in Helen W. Samuels, "Improving our Disposition: Documentation Strategy, " Archivaria 33 (Winter 1991-92), pp. 125-40. Curiously, Samuels publicly launched (and later published in this latter essay) her new approach at the same 1991 conference of the Association of Canadian Archivists in Banff at which Hans Booms made the significant modification of his own ideas, in part because of his concern that his older documentation plan of assessing public opinion might be confused with Samuels's older documentation strategies, with which he disagreed! Both of these major thinkers on appraisal matters, therefore, unbeknownst to each other, added significant new dimensions to their ideas, and moved in the same provenance-based, functions-driven direction for the same reason at the same time, in exact step with the new Canadian macroappraisal approach. For Booms on Samuels, see his "-berlieferungsbildung, " p. 32. For Sarnuels's own rejection of the American tradition of defining value through use and for her insistence on the centrality of provenance, see Varsity Letters, pp. 8, 13, and 16. For another, complementary approach to developing strategic plans for appraisal, see Joan D. Krizack, Documentation Planning for the U.S. Health Care System (Baltimore, 1994).
48. The best analysis is Wilfred I. Smith, '"Total Archives': The Canadian Experience" (originally 1986), in Nesmith, Canadian Archival Studies, pp. 133-50. For a supportive but critical view, see Terry Cook, "The Tyranny of the Medium: A Comment on 'Total Archives', "Archivaria 9 (Winter 1979-80), pp. 14149.
49. See Ian E. Wilson, "Reflections on Archival Strategies, " American Archivist 58 (Fall 1995), pp. 414-29.
50. Hugh A. Taylor, "Transformation in the Archives: Technological Adjustment or Paradigm Shift, "Archivaria 25 (Winter 1987-88). pp. 15, 18,24.
51. Tom Nesmith, "Introduction: Archival Studies in English-Speaking Canada and the North American Rediscovery of Provenance, " in Nesmith, Canadian Archival Studies, pp. 1-28.
52. Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. (Part IV), " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990). p. 14.
53. Terry Cook, "From Information to Knowledge: An Intellectual Paradigm for Archives, " Archivaria 19 (Winter 1984-85), pp. 46,49.
54. Nesmith, "Introduction, " p. 18. His book (Canadian Archival Studies) was also designed, in part, to showcase the rich variety of this exploration and rediscovery of provenance, based on the study and analysis of records and records creators.
55. Bearman and Lytle, "The Power of the Principle of Provenance, " pp. 14-27, especially p. 14 for the quotation and footnote 1 for their sensitivity to the positive Canadian influences in receiving their work.
56. See Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science, " Archivaria 28 (Summer 1989), pp. 7-27, for a general statement in the first of a series of six articles, and especially "Part V, " Archivaria 32 (Summer 1991), for an explicit enunciation of the overall diplomatic method and approach, as opposed to its component parts outlined in the four earlier articles.
57. For a flavour, see Heather MacNeil, "Weaving Provenancial and Documentary Relations, " Archivaria 34 (Summer 1992), pp. 192-98.
58. This point is made explicitly by one of the few published case studies of applying diplomatics, whose author notes "that it will be necessary to employ other tools of the archivist's trade in order to corroborate the discoveries of diplomatics and to address questions left unanswered by diplomatics. " Among such tools are the "History" of administration, law, and organizational culture (ideas, societal forces, etc.) and "Archival Theory, " which I presume would encompass the wider provenance-based insights that the history of the record approach offers into the juridical context of creation. See Turner, "Experimenting with New Tools, " p. 101. With billions of records to appraise, modem archivists should reverse Turner's formula, simply because no one can possibly undertake modern appraisal by performing diplomatic analyses on individual documents (which in some electronic and audio-visual environments do not even exist at the time of appraisal). Her formula would then read "that diplomatics can be usefully employed to corroborate the discoveries and answer any questions left unanswered by the functions-based, provenance-driven macroappraisal. " Diplomatics becomes, then, not unlike Rick Brown's suggested use of an archival hermeneutic, a means to corroborate macroappraisal analyses and hypotheses.
59. This point about recognizing, celebrating, and merging the two traditions, rather than either ignoring or denigrating the other tradition, has also been made by Heather MacNeil, in "Archival Theory and Practice: Between Two Paradigms, " pp. 17-18.
60. The danger has been suggested by Joan M. Schwartz, in "'We make our tools and our tools make us': Lessons from Photographs for the Practice, Politics, and Poetics of Diplomatics. " There is nothing, in my view, in the application of diplomatics or neo-Jenkinsonian methods that inherently favours institutional over private archives, or indeed the administrative over the cultural perspective on archives. It is more a question of emphasis and lack of balance. The examples used by the principal authors involved and the history of the evolution of these methods certainly lead in these directions, as does the assumption of either positive institutional compliance with the related archival perspectives, or at least strong juridical and societal sanctions being readily imposed for non-compliance. Neither assumption is true for many late twentieth-century North American institutions, and are almost completely irrelevant for the targeting and appraisal of papers and related media of private individuals, and many private associations and groups. From these unrealistic practical assumptions comes the danger rather than from any logical fault in the ideas or theory.
61. See Luciana Duranti, "Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science, " Archivaria 28 (Summer 1989), pp. 7-27, for a general statement in the first of a series of six articles, and especially "Part V, " Archivaria 32 (Summer 1991), for an explicit enunciation of the overall diplomatic method and approach, as opposed to its component parts outlined in the four earlier articles.
62. Bureau of Canadian Archivists, Working Group on Archival Descriptive Standards, Toward Descriptive Standards: Report and Recommendations of the Canadian Working Group on Archival Descriptive Standards (Ottawa, 1985).
63. The two best articles on the substance of graduate education are Terry Eastwood, "Nurturing Archival Education in the University, "AmericanArchivist 51 (Summer 1988). pp. 228-52.
64. The European re-examination of provenance is often in the context of the electronic record or the voluminous records of large organizations. For examples, see Claes Granstrom, "Will Archival Theory Be Sufficient in the Future?, " pp. 159-67.
65. The best exposition of the Australian Series System (including a significant reconceptualization and updating of Scott's ideas) is in Piggott and McKemrnish, The Records Continuum, especially the essays by Sue McKemmish and Chris Hurley. For his own statement, see Scott, "The Record Group Concept, " pp. 493-504.
66. See Chris Hurley, "What, If Anything, Is A Function, " Archives and Manuscripts 21 (November 1993). pp. 208-20.
67. The best summary of the fonds concept is by one of the leading archival thinkers of Europe: see Michel Duchein, "Theoretical Principles and Practical Problems of Respect des fonds in Archival Science, " Archivaria 16 (Summer 1983). pp. 64-82 (originally 1977). For these maximalist-minimalist distinctions, see Cook, "Concept of the Archival Fonds, " pp. 54-57.
68. Indeed, the rethinking of descriptive paradigms for archives in a postcustodial framework by North Americans is explicitly due to Scott's inspiration: see Max J. Evans, "Authority Control: An Alternative to the Record Group Concept, " American Archivist 49 (Summer 1986), pp. 25. 1-53,256,259, andpassim; Bearman and Lytle, "Power of the Principle of Provenance, " p. 20.
69. For the Australian interpretation and implementation of the records continuum instead of the life cycle approach, see many of the authors (especially Frank Upward) in McKemmish and Piggott, Records Continuum. For France, and its long-standing "prC-archivage" work within the government ministries which also reflects the continuum concept, see Jean Favier, ed., La Pratique archivistique franpise (Paris, 1993). The Canadian case has been stated in Atherton, "From Life Cycle to Continuum. "
70. McKemmish and Upward, Archival Documents, pp. 1,22, and passim.
71. Glenda Acland, "Managing the Record Rather Than the Relic, " pp. 57-63. She has been one of the key movers towards an accountability framework.
72. See the revealing title of Acland's "Archivist-Keeper, Undertaker or Auditor?, " in which she argues for the last role.
73. Upward and McKemmish, "Somewhere Beyond Custody, " pp. 14546, and Frank Upward in Archival Documents, p. 43.
74. For an interesting attempt to break out of this mode, see Sue McKemmish, "Evidence of Me, " Archives and Manuscripts 24 (May 1996), pp. 2845.
75. Regarding the latter, a great number of strategies and practices have evolved, or at least are being recommended to archivists, to deal with electronic records, although there is no space to discuss them in this essay devoted to conceptual discourse rather than practical methodologies which is not to say that those methodologies do not generate their own controversies, such as whether archives need acquire physically all electronic records in order to ensure their authenticity or the appropriate linkage of creator metadata and archival contextualized authority files. The best single source for strategic approaches to electronic records remains Margaret Hedstrom, ed., Electronic Records Management Program Strategies (Pittsburgh, 1993), which offers case studies, with analyses of critical factors of success and failure, of electronic records programmes at international (2), national (4), state (4), and university (1) levels, with an overall assessment, and an extensive (59 pages) annotated bibliography compiled by Richard Cox for readers to continue their explorations. See also David Bearman, "Archival Strategies, " paper discussed at the SAA 1994 conference, and forthcoming in the American Archivist.
76. For a sample, see David Bearman's works cited throughout these notes.
77. Cook, "Easy to Byte, Harder to Chew: The Second Generation of Electronic Records Archives, " pp. 203-8.
78. For a stimulating discussion, see Sue McKemmish, "Are Records Ever Actual?, " in McKemmish and Piggott, The Records Continuum, pp. 187-203.
79. This is the provocative argument of David Bearman and Margaret Hedstrom in "Reinventing Archives for Electronic Records, " pp. 82-98, especially p. 97. Bearman's other key articles on strategic reorientation, differing tactics suitable for varying organizational cultures, and risk management is "Archival Data Management to Achieve Organizational Accountability for Electronic Records, " in McKemmish and Upward, Archival Documents, pp. 215-27.
80. David Bearman, "Multisensory Data and Its Management, " in Cynthia Durance, ed., Management of Recorded Information: Converging Disciplines (Miinchen, 1990), p. 111.
81. For a more detailed critique of the biases of electronic records archiving as it has been evolving, as well as an analysis of its strengths in affirming archival relevance in protecting evidence in context, see Teny Cook, "The Impact of David Bearman on Modem Archival Thinking: An Essay of Personal Reflection and Critique, " Archives and Museum Informatics 11 (1997), pp. 15-37.
82. On the issue of metadata and archival description, see Heather MacNeil, "Metadata Strategies and Archival Description: Comparing Apples to Oranges, " Archivaria 39 (Spring 1995), pp. 22-32.
83. See James M. O'Toole, "On the Idea of Permanence, " American Archivist 52 (Winter 1989), pp. 1G25, for an important analysis. O'Toole is also exploring the continuing relevance of the usually unquestioned concept of "uniqueness" in archival theory and practice, in a forthcoming article.
84. For a discussion of these categories and related circumstances that permit an archives to leave records with their creators for an open-ended period of time without threat, see Teny Cook, "Leaving Archival Electronic Records in Institutions: Policy and Monitoring Arrangements at the National Archives of Canada, " Archives and Museum Informatics 9 (1995), pp. 14149. The footnotes in that article refer readers to the original 1990 debate, subsequently published in David Bearman, ed., Archival Management of Electronic Records (Pittsburgh, 1991), between David Bearman and Ken Thibodeau, moderated by Margaret Hedstrom, on the advantages and disadvantages of this strategy, a debate enjoined again by the contrasting conclusions of the projects at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of British Columbia on electronic records, and articulated anew by Luciana Duranti, Teny Eastwood, Frank Upward, and Greg O'Shea and David Roberts, in a special theme issue of Archives and Manuscripts 24 (November 1996).
85. For a very provocative analysis of archivists' understanding and assumptions-many being false and misleading-about "order" and about the nature of their own work in establishing, recreating, and defending original and other "orders, " as well as the first major postmodemist analysis of the archival enterprise, see Brien Brothman, "Orders of Value: Probing the Theoretical Terms of Archival Practice, " Archivaria 32 (Summer 1991), pp. 78-100.
86. The "postcustodial" term was first coined by F. Gerald Ham, in "Archival Strategies for the Postcustodial Era, " American Archivist 44 (Summer 1981), pp. 207-16. Ham broached many of the same ideas without the label even earlier, in his ground-breaking "The Archival Edge, " American Archivist 38 (January 1975). pp. 5-13, reprinted in Daniels and Walch, Modem Archives Reader, pp. 326-35. While the term "postcustodial" appears increasingly in archival literature, and certainly implicitly lies behind much recent thinking around electronic records and documentation strategies, its implications for the profession and for actual daily practice by the archivist have not been directly or systematically addressed by many writers-always with the already noted, although somewhat different, exception of the work of Australians Ian Maclean and Peter Scott decades ago and all of David Bearman's work. For more recent Australian discussion, see McKemmish and Upward, "Somewhere Beyond Custody, " especially pp. 13741, and their own essays and introductory pieces throughout their volume Archival Documents, as well as Frank Upward's work on the records continuum (notes 8 and 20 above). For an example of postcustodial appraisal thinking combined with actual work experience, see Greg O'Shea, "The Medium is not the Message: Appraisal of Electronic Records by Australian Archives, " Archives and Manuscripts 22 (May 1994), pp. 68-93. Outside Australia, for suggested practical applications for appraisal and description of postcustodial thinking, see again Cook's "Mind Over Matter: Towards a New Theory of Archival Appraisal, " and "Concept of the Archival Fonds;" and Hedstrom and Bearman, "Reinventing Archives. " The fullest explicitly postcustodial analysis to date is Cook, "Electronic Records, Paper Minds: The Revolution in Information Management and Archives in the Postcustodial and Postmodemist Era. " I wish to underline here that "postcustodial" does not mean "non-custodial. " The postcustodial paradigm is a overarching conceptual mindset for the archivist applicable whether the records are transferred to the custodial care of an archives leji for some time in an distributed or non-custodial arrangement with their creator.
87. On this point and explicitly criticizing "postcustodial" assumptions that can, admittedly, be asserted too blithely as a radical break from the past rather than a difference of emphasis, see the fine essay by Heather MacNeil, "Archival Theory and Practice: Between Two Paradigms, " pp. 1617. She argues for good reasons that the substance of archives centred around "the protection and safeguarding of evidence" should be retained, even if our means and strategies to accomplish this end may have to change fundamentally. That has been also my perspective for some time and in this article.
88. Carruthers, Book of Memory, p. 260.