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Placing records continuum theory and practice

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Abstract

This article provides an overview of evolving Australian records continuum theory and the records continuum model, which is interpreted as both a metaphor and a new world-view, representing a paradigm shift in Kuhn's sense. It is based on a distillation of research findings drawn from discourse, literary warrant and historical analysis, as well as case studies, participant observation and reflection. The article traces the emergence in Australia in the 1990s of a community of practice which has taken continuum rather than life cycle based perspectives, and adopted postcustodial approaches to recordkeeping and archiving. It “places” the evolution of records continuum theory and practice in Australia in the context of a larger international discourse that was reconceptualizing traditional theory, and “reinventing” records and archives practice.

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References

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  8. An example of the misunderstandings that can arise is provided by Verne Harris' use of the term “record-keeping” in his critique of what he labels the “record-keeping paradigm” in the broader “record-keeping discourse” in his paper at the ICA Congress in Seville in September 2000. As is evident from discussion of his paper during December 2000 on the Aus-archivists Listserv, many Australian readers interpreted the term as referring to the whole of what in Australia is identified as recordkeeping theory and practice, including the records continuum model. A clarification from Harris, posted to the Listserv on 12 December, indicates that he was using the term much more narrowly. Unfortunately, the paper itself did not directly address records continuum concepts or the records continuum model — a significant omission given its subject matter. See: Verne Harris, “Law, Evidence and Electronic Records: A Strategic Perspective from the Global Periphery”, available via http://www.archivists.org.au/. The Aus-archivists Listserv archive is available at http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/asa.

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  25. Glenda Acland, “Managing the Record Rather than the Relic,” op. cit., 19 1991: 58–59, and 62.

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  26. For an early manifestation of the custody vs distributed custody position, see: David Bearman, “An Indefensible Bastion: Archives as a Repository in the Electronic Age”; and Kenneth Thibodeau, “To Be or Not to Be: Archives for Electronic Records”; both in David Bearman (ed.),Archival Management of Electronic Records (Pittsburgh: Archives and Museum Informatics, 1991), pp. 14–24 and 1–13 respectively. For a later manifestation, with Duranti and Eastwood arguing for custody as a fundamental archival tenet, and Roberts and O'Shea putting a postcustodial position, see the following articles inArchives and Manuscripts 24(2) (November 1996): Luciana Duranti, “Archives as a Place”, pp. 242–255; Terry Eastwood, “Should Creating Agencies Keep Electronic Records Indefinitely”, pp. 256–267; Greg O'Shea and David Roberts, “Living in a Digital World: Recognizing the Electronic and Postcustodial Realities”, pp. 286–311; Adrian Cunnngham, “Commentary: Journey to the End of the Night: Custody and the Dawning of a New Era on the Archival Threshold”, pp. 312–321.

  27. As referenced in endnote 3, Verne Harris recently launched a major critique of what he terms the “record-keeping paradigm”, a stream in the broader “record-keeping discourse”. He refers in particular to:

  28. Frank Upward, “Structuring the Records Continuum: Part Two Structuration Theory and Recordkeeping”,Archives and Manuscripts 25(1) (May 1997): 10–35; Frank Upward, “Structuring the Records Continuum: Part One”,Archives and Manuscripts 24(2) (November 1996): 268–285; Frank Upward, “In Search of the Continuum: Ian Maclean's ‘Australian Experience’ Essays on Recordkeeping”, in McKemmish and Piggott, op. cit. pp. 110–130.

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  29. Thomas Kuhn,The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago University of Chicago Press, 1962).

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  30. Upward, “Modelling the Continuum as Paradigm Shift in Recordkeeping and Archiving Processes, and Beyond — A Personal Reflection”, op. cit.Records Management Journal (December 2000).

  31. Ibid. Upward, “Modelling the Continuum as Paradigm Shift in Recordkeeping and Archiving Processes, and Beyond — A Personal Reflection”, op. cit.Records Management Journal (December 2000). The starting point for the model referenced in the quote can be found in: David Bearman,Electronic Evidence: Strategies for Managing Records in Contemporary Organization (Pittsburgh: Archives and Museum Informatics, 1994), p. 43.

  32. Eric Ketelaar, “The Difference Best Postponed? Cultures and Comparative Archival Science”,Archivaria 44 (Fall 1997): 142–147.

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  33. Tom Nesmith, “Still Fuzzy, But More Accurate: Some Thoughts on the “Ghosts” of Archival Theory”,Archivaria 47 (Spring 1999): 136–150, points in particular to writings of the post-modernists on information, the “archaeology of knowledge”, the “archive”, and communication processes (“inscription, transmission, contextualization, and interpretation”), and to the influence of their ideas on the thinking of Brien Brothman, Richard Brown, and Theresa Rowat (p. 143 and endnote 7, p. 149). He could have added Bernadine Dodge, Verne Harris, and, with particular reference to evolving records continuum thinking, Frank Upward. Brown identified the relevance of European structuration theory, especially Giddens' writings, to recordkeeping in: “Modelling Acquisition Strategy at the National Archives of Canada: Issues and Perspectives for Government Records”, paper delivered at the Association of Canadian Archivists Annual Conference, Banff, 24 May 1991. According to Giddens, structuration is concerned with “conditions governing the continuity of transmutation of structures and therefore the reproduction of social systems”; see:The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984).

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  34. Terry Cook, “What Is Past Is Prologue: A History of Archival Ideas Since 1898, and the Future Paradigm Shift”,Archivaria 43 (Spring 1997): 20.

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  35. For extended discussion of positivist, post-positivist, and interpretivist research paradigms, see Kirsty Williamson,Research Methods for Students and Professionals: Information Management and Systems (Wagga Wagga NSW: CSU, 2000), especially Chapter 2, “The Two Traditions of Research” (Kirsty Williamson with Frada Burstein and Sue McKemmish), and Chapter 9, “Ethnography” (Solveiga Saule). The quote from Geertz (cited on p. 167 of the Williamson text) comes from: Clifford Geertz,The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973). In pursuing Geertz' goal, ethnographers have focused on interpreting events, communities, social groupings, and behaviours in their rich and varied contexts. Interpretivists also have a very different approach from that of the positivists to the interpretation and meanings of documentary evidence. The positivist vs interpretivist dichotomy is itself being challenged in evolving worldviews which move beyond the notion that positivism and interpretivism are in binary opposition, and seek to balance the creative tension between them, as suggested by Verne Harris in his paper to the ICA Congress in Seville, “Law, Evidence and Electronic Records: A Strategic Perspective from the Global Periphery” (September 2000), available via http://www.archivists,org.au: ... there is extreme danger in a reason which gives no space to mystery, in the archon unchallenged by the anarchontic, in a globalising allowed to destroy the local, the indigenous. Equally there is a danger in the mystery which gives no space to reason, the anarchontic without archontic rein, in the local excluding the global. In other words, I am arguing against the binary opposition and the either/or. It is in the both/and, the holding of these apparent opposites in creative tension, that there isliberation. For instance, a liberation for the indigenous in being open to engagement with the dynamics of globalisation. A liberation for the global in respecting the indigenous.

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  36. Preben Mortensen, “The Place of Theory in Archival Practice”,Archivaria 47 (Spring 1999): 1–26; quote from p. 2. Mortensen's article argues that: “when the positivist conception of science is abandoned, new forms of archival theory emerge” (p. 1). Mortensen discusses criticisms of positivism, particularly by Hanson, Rose, Kuhn, and other writers in the field of the history and philosophy of science, and Kuhn's insights into the nature of paradigms and paradigm shifts. He goes on to explore the symbiotic relationship between theory and practice, and puts forward the view that theories are better understood as “reflections on or criticism of practice” that display “sensitivity to context and history” (pp. 20 and 21).

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  37. For discussion of the records continuum as a “spacetime” model, and a critique of the life cycle's separation of space and time, and the imposition thereby of a “temporally linear view” of recordkeeping and archiving, see: Frank Upward, “Modelling the Continuum as Paradigm Shift in Recordkeeping and Archiving Processes, and Beyond — A Personal Reflection”, July 2000 draft ofRecords Management Journal article. In this draft, Upward argues that the theoretical shift between life cycle models and continuum ones represents a true paradigm shift: In life cycle models there is a theoretical assumption that the best approach to the management of records is a stage based one, and that the stages match recurring events in the life history of the records. The stages might be as elementary as creation, maintenance and disposition. Records endure through these stages as if each one is sharing a common, natural and recurring pattern. In the continuum approach, records continue through space-time and the stages blur and relate to each other according to the contingencies of the situation. In the process records are stretched into new shapes and forms. Note: This paragraph does not appear in the final version of the article.

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  42. For a reading of Derrida's ideas on archiving of particular relevance to the way in which archival descriptive practice involves acts “which essentially impose limits on possibilities, are a form of exclusion or forgetting”, see Brian Brothman, “Declining Derrida: Integrity, Tensegrity, and the Preservation of Archives from Deconstruction”,Archivaria 48 (Fall 1999): 64–88.

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  43. Terry Cook, “Beyond the Screen: The Records Continuum and Archival Cultural Heritage”, presented at the Australian Society of Archivists National Conference,Beyond the Screen: Capturing Corporate and Social Memory, Melbourne, August 2000, available via http://www.archivists.org.au/.

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  45. Chris Hurley, “The Making and Keeping of Records: (1) What Are Finding Aids For?”Archives and Manuscripts 26(1) (May 1998): 57–77.

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  46. Luc Sante, “The Contents of Pockets”,Granta 41 (Autumn 1992): 140.

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  47. There are parallels here with the major shift in the way historians view their role in constructing collective memory. For example, Australian historian Paula Hamilton has written insightfully about the role of historians in helping to organise and later dismantle “structures of forgetting”: One of the most powerful myths that dominates the Australian historical landscape is that this is a new country (the corollary of Britain as theold country) and that we have ashort history. Indeed, travellers to Australia from the nineteenth century onwards would often comment that they perceived it as a placewithout history. The idea of an historicaltabula rasa is of course a settler story, a British migrant story, told by several generations of English and European migrants to each other. Memories of invasion and death of indigenous peoples could more easily be erased, or at least attenuated, by the migrant experience... But in the last thirty years there has been a huge shift in our understanding of what constitutes anAustralian past, aspects of which are now fairly well outlined. We have begun to perceive organised structures of forgetting in relation to the Aboriginal people, structures which the historians both helped to erect, and many years later, to break down. (P. Hamilton, “The Knife Edge: Debates About Memory and History”, in K. Darian-Smith and P. Hamilton (eds).,Memory and History in Twentieth-century Australia (Melbourne: OUP, 1994), pp. 13–14.) Hamilton could equally well be referring to the role of records managers, archivists and other information management professionals. As in other areas of Australian life, the reconciliation movement is profoundly challenging our ideas about who we are and what we do. Archival practice in Australia has been questioned by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, in particular in relation to the accessibility of records that contain essential evidence of identity, family links, and land claims (see for example, R. Baird, “Researching the Displaced Children”, inArchives at the Centre: Proceedings of the Australian Society of Archivists Conference, Alice Springs, 24–25 May 1996 (Canberra: ASA, 1997), pp. 14–19). There have been some significant responses, including theAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protocols for Libraries, Archives, and Information Services (compiled by Alex Byrne, Alana Garwood, Heather Moorcroft, and Alan Barnes for the ATSI Library and Information Resource Network, 1995), the National Archives of Australia exhibition,Between Two Worlds and a number of projects to re-describe and re-index records relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Reflecting the predominant view of the time — and neatly encapsulating the aims of the Australian government policy which removed children of white fathers from their Aboriginal mothers and extended families in order to assimilate them into the white community — the name indexing schemes in records and archives systems have used the European names of Aboriginal children and places, thus masking identity and kinship/country ties, and limiting access to these vital records. Reflecting the reconciliation movement of our time, iterative descriptive practices add context and build new structures of remembering and forgetting. However, the response of the archival community in Australia has largely been a strategic, policy driven one. Potentially theProtocols and the issues that underlie them profoundly challenge aspects of archival principles and practice, including archival collection, description, and access policies, but as yet, this has not been widely recognised or addressed in the literature. The development of theProtocols was driven by the need to access essential evidence of identity and family links, native title claims, and Aboriginal culture, history and languages. They only begin to address accessibility, use, description, and classification practices, as well as policies on intellectual property, the treatment of secret and sacred materials, the management of archival materials relating to ATSI peoples in culturally sensitive ways, the education and training of ATSI peoples for professional practice, and the repatriation of records to ATSI communities. For a review of theProtocols, see Judy English-Ellis, “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protocols for Archives: A Review Commentary”,Archives and Manuscripts 24(1) (May 1996): 146–153.

  48. Terry Cook, “Beyond the Screen”, op. cit. The Records Continuum and Archival Cultural Heritage”, presented at the Australian Society of Archivists National Conference,Beyond the Screen: Capturing Corporate and Social Memory, Melbourne, August 2000, available via http://www.archivists.org.au/.

  49. For example: Brien Brothman, “Declining Derrida: Integrity, Tensegrity, and the Preservation of Archives from Deconstruction”,Archivaria 48 (Fall 1999): 64–89; Brien Brothman, “The Limits of Limits: Derridean Deconstruction and the Archival Institution”,Archivaria 36 (Autumn 1993): 205–220; Brien Brothman, “Orders of Value: Probing the Theoretical Terms of Archival Practice”,Archivaria 32 (Summer 1991): 78–100; Richard Brown, “Death of a Renaissance Record-Keeper: The Murder of Tomasso da Tortona in Ferrara, 1385”,Archivaria 44 (Fall 1997): 1–43; Richard Brown, “The Value of ‘Narrativity’ in the Appraisal of Historical Documents: Foundation for a Theory of Archival Hermeneutics”,Archivaria 32 (Summer 1991); Cook, “What Is Past Is Prologue”, op. cit.; Harris, “Law, Evidence and Electronic Recordkeeping”, op. cit.; Verne Harris, “Claiming Less, Delivering More: A Critique of Positivist Formulations on Archives in South Africa,”Archivaria 44 (Fall 1997): 132–141; Eric Ketelaar, “Archivalisation and Archiving”,Archives and Manuscripts 27(1) (May 1999): 54–61; Eric Ketelaar, “The Difference Best Postponed? Cultures and Comparative Archival Science”,Archivaria 44 (Fall 1997): 142–147; Tom Nesmith, “Still Fuzzy, But More Accurate”, op. cit., and his series of conference papers referenced in endnote 11 of that article; Upward, “Structuring the Records Continuum: Part One”, and “Structuring the Records Continuum: Part Two”, op. cit. Structuration Theory and Recordkeeping”,Archives and Manuscripts 25(1) (May 1997): 10–35.

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  50. Cook, “Beyond the Screen”, op. cit. The Records Continuum and Archival Cultural Heritage”, presented at the Australian Society of Archivists National Conference,Beyond the Screen: Capturing Corporate and Social Memory, Melbourne, August 2000, available via http://www.archivists.org.au/.

  51. Harris' notion of the archival heartland, explored in “Law, Evidence and Electronic Recordkeeping”, op. cit., has many resonances with this view of the records continuum as place.

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McKemmish, S. Placing records continuum theory and practice. Archival Science 1, 333–359 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02438901

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