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Abstract
The profession of digital archivist is crystallising, fundamentally challenging traditional archival roles. The very nature of digital records also challenges the sustainability of archival systems and collections. Records that used to stay stable for decades in an analogue world now risk being lost or damaged within moments of creation. How should archivists react to these changes? Archivists have to lift ourselves out of our analogue environment and focus more effort on forging a new path, to reposition archives, archival institutions and archival practitioners more strategically for the future. To do this, archivists must resist the temptation to think that we and we alone – as people, as archivists or as today’s archivists as opposed to yesterday’s archivists – can come up with the ultimate solution to the world’s recordkeeping problems. Archivists must keep innovating, absolutely. But we also need to be agile and flexible, remembering that anything we come up with today will be superseded at some point in the future – increasingly, in the very near future. Archivists need to forge links with archives, systems and people in order to come up with approaches to records and archives care that remain usable now and flexible well into the future.
Acknowledgements
This article is an edited version of my closing keynote presentation to the Australian Society of Archivists conference in Parramatta, Australia, on 20 October 2016, on the theme of Forging Links: People, Systems, Archives. More information about the conference, including videotapes of conference presentations, can be found on the ASA’s website at <https://www.archivists.org.au/learning-publications/2016-conference>, accessed 28 December 2016. My thanks go to the two anonymous peer reviewers whose comments helped strengthen this piece. I also offer deep thanks to Sebastian Gurciullo, who went above and beyond the call in his role as editor of Archives & Manuscripts. Sebastian offered valuable editorial improvements, insightful suggestions about content and tone, and welcome encouragement to stretch the boundaries of the piece while still respecting the need to publish the text largely as presented. I took his advice in all instances, including by adding comments on events in both the archival and political worlds in late 2016 and early 2017.
Notes
1. I have written extensively about both the concept of total archives in Canada, the challenges of the fonds concept and the origins of the series system in Australia. See particularly the following publications: ‘Discharging Our Debt: The Evolution of the Total Archives Concept in English Canada’, Archivaria, vol. 46, Fall 1998, pp. 103–46; ‘The Spirit of Total Archives: Seeking a Sustainable Archival System’, Archivaria, vol. 47, Spring 1999, pp. 46–65, ‘The Death of the Fonds and the Resurrection of Provenance: Archival Context in Space and Time’, Archivaria, vol. 53, Spring 2002, pp. 1–15 and ‘The Legacy of Peter Scott from an International Perspective’, in Adrian Cunningham (ed.), Arrangement and Description of Archives amid Administrative and Technological Change: Essays and Reflections by and about Peter J Scott, Australian Society of Archivists, Brisbane, 2010, pp. 312–45.
2. One of many interesting studies of the struggles with implementing EDRMS tools is a recent case study by Peta Ifould and Pauline Joseph, ‘User Difficulties Working with a Business Classification Scheme: A Case Study’, Records Management Journal, vol. 26, no. 1, 2016, pp. 21–37.
3. For more on discussions of custodial and post-custodial approaches, see Millar, ‘The Death of the Fonds’ and Millar ‘The Legacy of Peter Scott’. The custodial approach to archival description was standardised through tools such as: Canadian Committee for Archival Description, Rules for Archival Description or RAD, Bureau of Canadian Archivists, Ottawa, 1990; the International Council on Archives Committee on Descriptive Standards, General International Standard Archival Description or ISAD(G), International Council on Archives (ICA), Ottawa, 1994, 2000; and the Society of American Archives, DACS: Describing Archives: A Content Standard, Society of American Archivists, Chicago, 2004, 2013. The Australians developed a function-oriented approach to description, articulated in Australian Society of Archivists Committee on Descriptive Standards, Describing Archives in Context: A Guide to the Australasian Practice, Australian Society of Archivists, Canberra, 2007. In 2016, the ICA issued a draft conceptual model for archival description, aimed at reconciling these different approaches: International Council on Archives Experts Group on Archival Description, Records in Contexts (RiC): A Conceptual Model for Archival Description, International Council on Archives, Consultation Draft v0.1, September 2016, available at <http://www.ica.org/sites/default/files/RiC-CM-0.1.pdf>, accessed 7 May 2017. It is designed to present what its authors call a ‘multidimensional’ approach. While the draft model does present a more flexible approach to description, critics of the draft have expressed concern that, while the model might replace the previous ‘once-and-done’ solutions, it does not include the adaptability needed to ensure it does not fall victim to obsolescence, as society keeps changing the ways in which records and archives are created, preserved, described and used.
4. One of the most accessible recent works on adaptive software development is James A Highsmith, Adaptive Software Development: A Collaborative Approach to Managing Complex Systems, Dorset House Publishing, New York, 2013.
5. Peter van Garderen, ‘Decentralized Autonomous Collections’, 11 April 2016, available at <http://vangarderen.net/about/>, accessed 28 December 2016.
6. See Greg Rolan, ‘Towards Archive 2.0: Issues in Archival Systems Interoperability’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 43, no. 1, March 2015, p. 42.
7. The home page for the Trove website is at <http://trove.nla.gov.au/> and information about Trove’s origins and operations is summarised at <http://trove.nla.gov.au/general/about>, accessed 28 December 2016. The website for the Recordkeeping Roundtable can be seen at <https://rkroundtable.org/>, accessed 28 December 2016.
8. Fricker has offered his perspective on the disruptive influence of digital technologies on the role and future of archives in many presentations and publications to archivists and to the general public. A cogent overview of his ideas can be found in an interview with David Fricker, ‘Your Story, Our History’, The CEO Magazine, September 2015, available at http://www.theceomagazine.com/business/david-fricker/, accessed 1 January 2017.
9. See Verne Harris, ‘The Archival Sliver: Power, Memory, and Archives in South Africa’, Archival Science, vol. 2, no. 1, 2002, pp. 63–86.
10. The story of efforts to raise awareness of the need for sustained funding for Trove is documented most comprehensively in the Twitter feed for Trove at @TroveAustralia and through the hashtag #fundtrove. The news of additional funding for Trove was announced on 19 December 2016 on the ABC news website, under the headline ‘National Library of Australia’s Trove Service gets $16.4 Million in Funding in MYEFO Update’, available at <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-20/national-library-of-australia-gets-funding-for-trove-in-myefo/8136738>, accessed 28 December 2016. This headline cites budget numbers in Australian dollars.
11. The events surrounding budget cuts in Canada are outlined in my 2014 article ‘Coming up with Plan B: Considering the Future of Canadian Archives’, Archivaria, vol. 77, Spring 2014, pp. 103–40. Unless otherwise noted, budget numbers in this article are given in Canadian dollars.
12. Library and Archives Canada, ‘Financial Statements – 2015–16 Departmental Performance Report’, available at <http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/about-us/departmental-performance-reports/departmental-performance-report-2015-2016/Pages/2015-16-financial-statements.aspx>, accessed 28 December 2016; Library and Archives Canada, ‘The Documentary Heritage Communities Program (DCHP)’, available at <http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/services/documentary-heritage-communities-program/Pages/dhcp-portal.aspx>, accessed 28 December 2016.
13. News about the increase in the CBC’s budget was highlighted by the broadcasting corporation itself, in the news item by CBC reporter Sandra Abma, ‘Government to Invest $1.9B in the Arts over the Next Five Years – Including $675 Million for CBC’, 22 March 2016, available at <http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/arts-federal-budget-canada-council-heritage-1.3501480>, accessed 28 December 2016.
14. The phrase ‘alternative facts’ made its appearance in January 2017, only days after American President Donald Trump’s inauguration, when his counsellor Kellyanne Conway was challenged by a member of the press about the size of the crowd at his inauguration. Conway suggested that the facts being presented by the media could be countered by ‘alternative facts’ presented by White House officials. An analysis of this story was written by Rebecca Sinderbrand, ‘How Kellyanne Conway Ushered in the Era of “alternative facts”’, The Washington Post, 22 January 2017, available at <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/22/how-kellyanne-conway-ushered-in-the-era-of-alternative-facts/?utm_term=.1cb087528e8d>, accessed 20 February 2017.
15. As of February 2017, the news stories scrutinising Donald Trump’s performance as president are coming so thick and fast it is impossible to keep track of them all. One useful overview article is Michael Shear, ‘“Unbelievable Turmoil”: Trump’s First Month Leaves Washington Reeling’, New York Times, 14 February 2017, available at <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/trump-white-house.html>, accessed 20 February 2017.
16. Each of these contemporary recordkeeping events is documented, with varying levels of authority and accuracy, in a range of popular media sources. Following is a selection of sources that offer some measure of completeness and balance, though it is inevitable, and perhaps ironic, that the interpretation of these news events will change as more and more authoritative documentary sources become available – assuming the archival evidence is preserved and made available. For WikiLeaks, see We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, a 2013 documentary written and directed by Alex Gibney. Also useful is a compilation of news stories and editorials from The New York Times on the topic, available at <http://www.nytimes.com/topic/organization/wikileaks>, accessed 19 February 2017. The Guardian newspaper in the UK outlined the background and context to the Panama Papers leak in Luke Harding, ‘What are the Panama Papers? A Guide to History’s Biggest Data Leak’, 5 April 2016, available at <https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-panama-papers>, accessed 19 February 2017. See also the ongoing coverage on the blog of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, ‘The Panama Papers: Politicians, Criminals and the Rogue Industry that Hides Their Cash’, available at <https://panamapapers.icij.org/>, accessed 19 February 2017. The story of Hillary Clinton’s email controversy was very new at the time of writing in early 2017, but one useful overview is Robert O’Harrow Jr, ‘How Clinton’s Email Scandal Took Root’, The Washington Post, 27 March 2016, available at <https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-clintons-email-scandal-took-root/2016/03/27/ee301168-e162-11e5-846c-10191d1fc4ec_story.html?utm_term=.89a348d263a2>, accessed 19 February 2017. Infelicitous comments made by Donald Trump in conversation with American radio host Billy Bush in 2005 became particularly newsworthy during the American presidential campaign in autumn 2016, see ‘Transcript: Donald Trump’s Comments about Women’, The New York Times, 8 October 2016, available at <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/donald-trump-tape-transcript.html?_r=0>, accessed 19 February 2017.
17. Anne J Gilliland, ‘Permeable Binaries, Societal Grand Challenges, and the Roles of the Twenty-first-century Archival and Recordkeeping Profession’, Archifacts, 2015, available at http://escholarship.org/uc/item/90q5538g?query=gilliland, accessed 25 April 2017. I am grateful to one of the anonymous peer reviewers for directing my attention to this publication.
18. John Hocking, ‘Out of the Box and Into the World’, International Congress on Archives, Seoul, Korea, 6 September 2016, available at <https://www.facebook.com/notes/ica-international-council-on-archives/out-of-the-box-into-the-world-by-mr-john-hocking/1074699459233504?hc_location=ufi>, accessed 28 December 2016.
19. The detailed history of the recycling movement has not yet been written, but a useful overview of the evolution of recycling is Carl A Zimring’s Cash for Your Trash: Scrap Recycling in America, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick NJ, 2009.
20. D Richard Valpy, ‘From Missionaries to Managers: Making the Case for a Canadian Documentary Heritage Commission’, Archivaria, vol. 82, Fall 2016, p. 154.
21. The redefinition of archives is a conversation already underway in Australia. The Australian Society of Archivists conference in Parramatta included a stimulating panel discussion on different definitions of archives, with Michael Jones, Deb Verhoeven and Cassie Findlay, ‘The Ubiquitous Archive: Non-binary Perspectives on Contemporary Humanities Practice’, available at <https://www.archivists.org.au/learning-publications/2016-conference>, accessed 28 December 2016.
22. Seles made these comments in various speeches and on Twitter @archivista13. Also see Anthea Seles, ‘The Transferability of Trusted Digital Repository Standards to an East African Context’, doctoral thesis, Department of Information Studies, University College London, 2016, which was awarded the Digital Preservation Award for ‘the Most Distinguished Student Work in Digital Preservation’ in November 2016.
23. Nicole Martillaro, ‘U of T Heads “Guerrilla Archiving Event” to Preserve Climate Data Ahead of Trump Presidency’, CBC News, 14 December 2016, available at <http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/university-toronto-guerrilla-archiving-event-trump-climate-change-1.3896167>, accessed 19 February 2017.
24. Tom Nesmith, ‘Toward the Archival Stage in the History of Knowledge’, Archivaria, vol. 80, Fall 2015, pp. 119–45.
25. See Valpy, esp. pp. 156–61.
26. Society of American Archivists, ‘SAA Statement on Executive Order Restricting Entry into the United States by Individuals from Seven Muslim-majority Countries’, 31 January 2017, available at <http://www2.archivists.org/statements/saa-statement-on-executive-order-restricting-entry-into-the-united-states-by-individuals->, accessed 19 February 2017.
27. Elizabeth Flock, ‘Why These Librarians Are Protesting Trump’s Executive Orders’, PBS Newshour, 13 February 2017, available at <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/librarians-protesting-trumps-executive-orders/>, accessed 19 February 2017.