Translating the Universal Declaration on Archives: working with archival traditions and languages across the world

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Archives record decisions, actions and memories. Archives are a unique and irreplaceable heritage passed from one generation to another. Archives are managed from creation to preserve their value and meaning. They are authoritative sources of information underpinning accountable and transparent administrative actions. They play an essential role in the development of societies by safeguarding and contributing to individual and community memory. Open access to archives enriches our knowledge of human society, promotes democracy, protects citizens’ rights and enhances the quality of life. (from the UDA, first paragraph)

• The UDA states in this paragraph that ‘archives record decisions, actions and memories.’ The UDA uses the word ‘archives’ to include records which will not be preserved for future generations if their evidence does not have long-term value. The word ‘record’ is an English verb meaning to capture text, images or sounds to preserve the facts for future reference and provide evidence of decisions and activities. In English word ‘memories’ are incidents remembered from the past which occur in our consciousness but which when captured as text, image or sound become records and potentially archives. The UDA states that ‘open access’ is given to archives. This means archives are used, in a context of accountability and transparency, to verify actions, decisions, events and memories, to monitor the activity of administrators and elected representatives and officials and to support citizen and human rights.

Question 1: Does the concept of archives managed from creation and potentially not preserved for future generations apply easily to archival concepts in your culture? Or in other words: What are ‘archives’ in your culture?

Question 2: Do you have words in your language for the concept of ‘records’ or ‘to record’ or ‘recordkeeping’?

Question 3: Can you explain the impact of your language and culture on the concept of recordkeeping? Or in other words: What is ‘recordkeeping’ in your language and culture?

Question 4: What is the impact of your language and culture on the concept of ‘memories’? Or in other words: What are ‘memories’ in your culture?

Question 5: Can you explain the concept of ‘open access’ in your language and culture? Or in other words: What is ‘open access’ in your culture?

• The UDA also defines ‘the role of archivists as trained professionals with initial and continuing education, serving their societies by supporting the creation of records and by selecting, maintaining and making these records available for use’. This means that, in the UDA, an archivist is a professional responsible for managing archives and this includes the records management profession.

Question 6: Please explain the role of an archivist in your country.

Question 7: How do archivists, in your country, ensure objectivity and impartiality, when acquiring, selecting and making available, and is this possible?

• We would like to know whether you had to make any very difficult translation decisions. If you needed to choose between two or more possible words in your language to translate any of the English words or concepts listed in Questions 1–7, we would like to understand, from the following questions, How you decided which words to use and What were the reasons for your decision?

Question 8 a: Did you check for recent and/or historical usage in the professional literature in your language?

Question 8 b: Has a dictionary of archival terminology been published in your language?

Question 8 c: If there is a dictionary, which (if any) of the words and concepts you needed when translating the UDA were NOT covered?

Question 8 d: Can you provide references to dictionaries and wordlists you used, if they are publicly available?

Question 8 e: Are there word lists and definitions provided by national archival institutions, the national standards organisation, professional associations or similar bodies?

Question 8 f: Did you discuss the problem with colleagues? How did these discussions help you?

Question 8 g: Did you use any non archival dictionaries, such as Linguee, Reverso, Wordreference, and so on? If yes, which ones?

Question 8 h: If none of the above was helpful, what influenced your final decision?

Question 8 i: Do you have any other comments about how you resolved difficult translation issues to share with us?

Question 9: What was the most difficult problem you experienced when translating these concepts into your language?

Question 10: Were there any other words or concepts used in the UDA that were difficult to translate into your language? Did you have to be creative to find a solution?