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Abstract
Looking back over a career that has lasted 40 years (so far) the author reflects on developments in his own thinking and the influences involved. Not least amongst these are: the British public records tradition which predominated at UCL when he studied there; the American historical manuscripts tradition which was in the process of aligning with strands of postmodernism when he held visiting fellowships in the USA; the reconfiguration of Records Management in sub-Saharan Africa in response to public sector reform in which he was involved as an advisor; and the experience of teaching postgraduate students in Britain and overseas. The author’s publications have appeared in a wide range of journals and as monographs, some of them published overseas. Here he draws together the common strands that connect them. Finally he argues that hermeneutic techniques and the concept of fiduciarity deserve to be given serious consideration in debates about archive and records theory.
Acknowledgements
The author’s thinking has developed as a result of many fruitful interactions with colleagues and students over a long period of time. He would like to give particular thanks to Dr Susan Stewart and Dr Ian G. Anderson who read and commented on earlier versions of this work. More broadly, the collegiate intellectual life of the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute, most especially the weekly research seminar series, has proved beneficial. Within HATII particular acknowledgement is due to Dr James Currall, Dr James Girdwood, Professor Michael Moss, Professor Andrew Prescott and Professor Seamus Ross. Professor John McColl of the University of Glasgow’s Department of Statistics and Dr Hamish Maxwell-Stewart now of the University of Tasmania are due credit for the development of the author’s knowledge of statistical methods. Visiting research fellowships at Balliol College, Oxford, the University of Malawi and at Michigan and Stanford universities in the USA have provided a beneficial broadening of intellectual horizons. These would not have been possible without the support of the Fulbright Commission, Leverhulme Trust, Scotland-Malawi Partnership and Snell Foundation. The author should like to acknowledge the contribution of journal editors including Dr Jenny Bunn. Last but not least, the author would like to thank Richard A Storey formerly of the Modern Records Centre at Warwick University who helped to stimulate the author’s thinking during a fruitful working partnership lasting more than a decade.
Notes
1. The term orality denotes a society or culture in which there is a strong pre-disposition to conduct the business of life on the basis of verbal rather than written communication.
2. Galbraith, Studies in the Public Records; and Heussler, British Tanganyika.
3. Tough and Tough, ‘Accountability and Records Appraisal’; Tough, Electronic Records Management in Malawi; Tough, ‘Accountability, Open Government and Record Keeping’; Tough, ‘Archives in Sub-Saharan Africa Half a Century after Independence’; Tough, ‘Record Keeping and Accountability’.
4. Meredith, The State of Africa, 687.
5. Tyacke, ‘Culture and Politics of Archives’, 20.
6. Ibid., 15.
7. Ibid., 18.
8. Van Zyl, ‘Psychoanalysis and the Archive: Derrida’s Archive Fever’, 39.
9. Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression.
10. Derrida, ‘Archive Fever (A seminar by Jacques Derrida, University of the Witwatersrand, August 1998, Transcribed by Verne Harris)’, 38.
11. Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, 20.
12. Foucault, Madness and Civilisation: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason.
13. Byatt, Possession, 302.
14. Parry-Jones, The Trade in Lunacy: A Study of Private Madhouses in England in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.
15. Raffel, Matters of Fact. A Sociological Enquiry.
16. Maxwell-Stewart and Tough, Selecting Clinical Records for Long-term Preservation.
17. Cameron, Laing, and McGhie, ‘Patient and Nurse: Effects of Environmental Change in the Care of Chronic Schizophrenics’; and Laing, The Facts of Life.
18. Abrahamson, ‘Laing and Long-stay Patients: Discrepant Accounts of the Refractory Ward and “Rumpus Room” at Gartnavel Royal Hospital’.
19. The case notes of this patient are now held in the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Archives. They are awaiting cataloguing.
20. Blouin, ‘Archivists, Mediation and Constructs of Social Memory’, 102. Blouin was instrumental in organizing a series of seminars which resulted in the publication of Blouin and Rosenburg (eds.), Archives, Documentation and Institutions of Social Memory. This work in turn has been followed by Blouin and Rosenburg, Processing the Past. Contesting Authority in History and Archives. The author regards the earliest article as the seminal work.
21. Blouin, ‘Archivists, Mediation and Constructs of Social Memory’, 104.
22. Ibid., 105. These arguments are further developed in Steedman, ‘“Something She called a Fever”: Michelet, Derrida and Dust (Or, in the Archives with Michelet and Derrida)’.
23. Ibid., 106.
24. Ibid., 107. These arguments are further developed in Schwartz, ‘Records of Simple Truth and Precision’, 73–5.
25. Blouin, ‘Archivists, Mediation and Constructs of Social Memory’, 108.
26. Ibid., 109.
27. Ibid., 108.
28. Rosenburg, ‘Politics in the (Russian) Archives: The “Objectivity Question” Trust and the Limitations of Law’, 81.
29. Stoler, ‘Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance’, 86.
30. Gann, ‘Archives and the Study of Society’.
31. Stoler, “Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance”, 92.
32. Derrida, ‘Archive fever (A seminar by Jacques Derrida, University of the Witwatersrand, August 1998, Transcribed by Verne Harris)’, 48.
33. Lemieux, ‘Toward a “Third order” Archival Interface’, 53–93.
34. Faulks, Human Traces.
35. Gospel of St Matthew, chapter 13, verse 31.
36. Book of Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 19.
37. I am grateful to Bob Johnstone for his exposition of these issues in a sermon preached at Mearns Kirk, near Glasgow, 18 Jan 2015.
38. The author should like to acknowledge the influence that James Girdwood’s research seminar contributions have had on his thinking.
39. Tough and Lihoma, ‘Development of Record Keeping Systems in the British Empire/Commonwealth, 1870s–1960s’; Tough, ‘Oral Culture, Written Records and Understanding the Twentieth-century Colonial Archive’; and Tough, ‘Archives in sub-Saharan Africa Half a Century after Independence’.
40. Tough, ‘Archives in Sub-Saharan Africa Half a Century after Independence’.
41. Duranti and Rogers, ‘Trust in Records and Data Online’, 203–14.
42. The author should like to acknowledge the influence that Michael Moss’s research seminar contributions have had on his thinking.
43. Post-action filing is the practice of waiting until business transactions are completed before putting away the records generated. It stands in contrast to pre-action workflow where records are processed and contextualized before being distributed for action to be taken.
44. Tough, ‘Records and the Transition to the Digital’.
45. Tough, Electronic Records Management in Malawi; Tough, ‘Records and the Transition to the Digital’; and Moss and Tough, ‘Metadata, Controlled Vocabulary and Directories’.
46. Tough, ‘Record Keeping and Accountability’.
47. Tough, Electronic Records Management in Malawi.
48. Tough, ‘Accountability, Open Government and Record Keeping’.
49. Tough and Tough, ‘Accountability and Records Appraisal’.
50. Maxwell-Stewart and Tough, Selecting Clinical Records for Long-term Preservation.
51. Lemieux, “Let the Ghosts Speak: An Empirical Exploration of the ‘Nature’ of the Record”, 108.
52. Tough and Lihoma, ‘Development of Record Keeping Systems in the British Empire/Commonwealth, 1870s–1960s’.
53. Tough, ‘Oral Culture, Written Records and Understanding the Twentieth-century Colonial Archive’.
54. Tough and Tough, ‘Accountability and Records Appraisal’; Tough, Electronic Records Management in Malawi; and Tough, ‘Accountability, Open Government and Record Keeping’.
55. Tough, Electronic Records Management in Malawi.
56. Bantin, Understanding Data and Information Systems for Recordkeeping.
57. Moss and Tough, ‘Metadata, Controlled Vocabulary and Directories: Electronic Document Management and Standards for Records Management’.
58. Bailey, Managing the Crowd. Rethinking Records Management for the Web 2.0 World.