The impact of digital technology on archival science

Archival science is to be regarded as a system. The properties of that system can be investigated and integrated. The methodology to do so has been tested in two research projects which are presented in this article as examples of the way in which the view of archival science as a system supports the development of new knowledge and as a demonstration of the stability of archival theory. This article presupposes that the archival discipline is also a “science”. Many have argued against the idea on the basis of a common perception that a science is a type of study entirely objective by virtue of the rigorous manner in which it is carried out and the restricted range of topics to which it applies. In fact, the activity of science is based upon a complex framework of assumptions that make it possible for the landscape of the scientific endeavour to be redrawn over time, and, while striving towards objectivity, considers it to be an unattainable ideal.     

档案学的本质特征与可持续发展

作者指出了影响档案学学科发展的主要因素;论证了档案、档案工作或档案规律不能成为档案学的学科研究对象;分析了图书馆学、情报科学与档案学的根本差异,指出能够凸显档案学本质特征的学科研究对象是:信息资源的档案化管理与人类记忆的长期保存。作者论述了信息化环境给档案学发展带来的机遇,以及档案学可持续发展的努力方向。     

A first introduction to archival science

This first introduction, written for educational purposes, is meant to be a concise basic text in which the core concepts of archival science are coherently defined and explained, in a non-polemical way and departing from a de-institutionalised point of view. It is not intended to support or reject any single theory, but to provide an overview. It should be read as a synthesis of a variety of shared ideas and views, not as a manifesto of a new approach to archival science. If there is anything new to it, it might be located in the coherent and integrated presentation. In this primer of archival science annotation has been avoided. The first of several versions of this First Introduction was written in August 1995. It was meant to meet the need of the Netherlands Archiefschool for a basic text on archival science which could support its different programs for archival education and training. After ample discussion with the archival science teachers of the Archiefschool, it was introduced in the 1995/1996 courses. From then on, it has been used in almost all courses and classes on archival science on the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate levels and in several training and retraining programs of the Archiefschool. The design of the first version has been maintained in all subsequent versions, including this last one. Still, the text has frequently been adapted as a result of discussions with students and colleagues, in and outside the school. This first English version can almost be deemed as a collective product. Of the numerous colleagues who were engaged in this discussion and contributed to the text, special mention has to be made of Peter Horsman, Hans Scheurkogel, Hans Hofman, Eric Ketelaar, Herman Coppens and Kent Hayworth, who commented the English version. For the final text and all imperfections that may still cling to it I am, of course, responsible. An earlier version in Dutch has been published as: Theo thomassen, “Een korte introductie in de archivistiek”, in: P.J. Horsman, F.C.J. Ketelaar en T.H.P.M. Thomassen (red.),Naar een nieuw paradigma in de archivistiek ('s-Gravenhage, 1999), pp. 11–20.     

Conceptual Analysis: A Method for Understanding Information as Evidence, and Evidence as Information

The utility of conceptual analysis for archival science is assessed by means of an exploratory evaluation in which the concept of evidence is analyzed. Usage of the term “evidence” in the philosophies of science, law, and history is briefly reviewed; candidates for necessary conditions of evidentiariness are identified and examined; and taxonomies are built of evidentiariness and of archival inference. Correspondences are shown to exist between the concepts of evidentiariness and relevance, and between the domains of archival science and social epistemology, thereby pointing in promising directions for further research. The tentative conclusion is reached that conceptual analysis may profitably be used to improve understanding of archival concepts.     

中国档案学之建立——基于学科制度视角的中国档案学发展史

中国的档案学是在特定的历史环境下,从实践工作中总结、产生的,至今已有七十多年的历史。作为一门独立学科,档案学不仅用自身的理论、结构和功能在科学领域中体现自身价值,同时,也通过指导实践工作,在社会领域中对推动社会发展产生了举足轻重的作用。本文试图以学科制度的视角,从知识生产层面和学科制度结构两方面探寻中国档案学之建立,力求追溯学科的传承和发展,历史地呈现其学术延续的脉势,明确档案学作为一项社会建制在科学领域和社会领域的价值。     

ICPSR meets OAIS: applying the OAIS reference model to the social science archive context

This paper reviews the archival process at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), a repository of digital social science data, and maps ICPSR’s Ingest and Access operations to the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model. The paper also assesses ICPSR’s conformance with the archival responsibilities of “trusted” OAIS repositories, with the proviso that audit criteria for archival certification are still under development. The ICPSR to OAIS mapping exercise has benefits for the larger social science archiving community because it provides an interpretation of the reference model in the quantitative social science environment and points to preservation-related issues that may be salient for other social science archives. Building on the archives’ long tradition of shared norms and cooperation, we may ultimately be able to design a federated system of trusted social science repositories that provides access to the global heritage.

档案学革命发生与否的范式论分析

档案学革命是否已经发生?档案学界分歧的焦点是档案学正处于常规科学时期,还是科学革命时期?运用范式论分析并质疑了"现阶段档案学已经完成了科学革命"的观点,指出当前档案学正处于常规科学向科学革命转变的时期。     

Introducing critical race theory to archival discourse: Getting the conversation started

This article introduces the application of Critical Race Theory (CRT) to archival discourse in order to demonstrate how such a critical and analytical approach can help identify and raise social and professional consciousness of implicit racial bias. To demonstrate the potential of CRT, the paper discusses how the terminology and methodological structures of CRT might be applied to some aspects of archival theory and practice. The paper concludes that CRT can contribute to a diversified archival epistemology that can influence the creation of collective and institutional memories that impact underrepresented and disenfranchised populations and the development of their identities. This article opens with the title of West's classic monograph as the launching point because of its dual literary context, which frames ‘race matters’ as topic and affirmation. In this instance it is the affirmative statement that is the context confirming that race is worthy of the importance and focus this article stresses. See West (2001).     

Building an Infrastructure for Archival Research

This article chronicles the rapid expansion since 1990 of research within archival science and characterizes contemporary archival research culture. It examines the role and state of key factors that have led to the development of the existing research infrastructure, such as growth in doctoral education, forums for presenting and publishing research, the numbers and size of graduate archival education programs, availability of diverse funding for research, transdisciplinary and international research collaborations, and application of innovative research methods and tools appropriate for investigating increasingly complex and wide-ranging research questions. An Appendix articulates and names archival research methods, including those derived and adapted from other disciplines, with a view to adding to the “literary warrant” for archival research methods, promoting the rigorous application of research design and methods, and providing sources for the teaching of research methods for professional and research careers. The article concludes with recommendations about how to sustain and extend the emerging research front.     

A marshall in love. Remembering and forgetting queer pasts in the Finnish archives

This article analyses the formation of the queer archives in Finland. In Finland, the close links between the civil society and the state affect the archiving of social movements’ history. One of the publicly funded private central archives, the Labour Archives (Työväen Arkisto), has taken responsibility of preserving the documents of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) past. This includes documents of activism and associations as well as personal archives and narratives. The article presents the position of the Finnish LGBT collection within the Finnish archival sector and evaluates it in the light of archival theory. The Finnish model of queer archives offers an example of preserving queer pasts in a social history archive that is neither strictly a mainstream archival institution nor an independent activist archive. The article describes the development of queer history and the need to find sources telling about queer lives and discusses the role of the archival institutions and archival science in remembering and forgetting queer pasts. The article reflects also how the archival policies and archival practices affect which pasts are officially remembered and which are forgotten.     

档案规范控制理论与国际应用案例研究

档案规范控制是档案知识管理的重要内容,关系到档案资源体系与利用体系等的建设。本文分别从档案专业视角与概念逻辑视角解析了档案规范控制的概念,并分析了档案规范记录嵌入集成式与专门独立式检索系统典型应用案例,最终为我国档案规范控制的标准化及其标准体系构建提出了多项建议,如包括：构建我国档案规范记录概念模型;制定我国档案规范记录需求规范;制定我国档案规范记录著录规则;制定我国档案规范记录编码标准,加强规范记录的共享,并推进档案规范记录的本体应用等。     

学科制度理论与中国档案学史研究

学科制度是一种结合知识生产与专门人才培养的整合性制度。本文将学科制度理论引入中国档案学史的研究,试图用结构化方法阐明其对于中国档案学学科传承与创新的重要意义,明确档案学学科作为一项社会建制在社会科学领域和社会领域的价值,以期对档案学学科自身完善和发展有所启发。     

Ten years of archival science

This article reviews how the journal Archival Science––International Journal on Recorded Information in the first 10 years has endeavoured to be integrated, interdisciplinary, and intercultural in promoting the development of archival science as an autonomous scientific discipline.     

Archival science and postmodernism: new formulations for old concepts

Process rather than product, becoming rather than being, dynamic rather than static, context rather than text, reflecting time and place rather than universal absolutes—these have become the postmodern watchwords for analyzing and understanding science, society, organizations, and business activity, among others. They should likewise become the watchwords for archival science in the new century, and thus the foundation for a new conceptual paradigm for the profession. Postmodernism is not the only reason for reformulating the main precepts of archival science. Significant changes in the purpose of archives as institutions and the nature of records are other factors which, combined with postmodern insights, form the basis of the new perception of archives as documents, institutions, and profession in society. This essay explores the nature of postmodernism and archival science, and suggest links between the two. It outlines two broad changes in archival thinking that underpin the archival paradigm shift, before suggesting new formulations for most traditional archival concepts.     

Archival theory in Italy today

Archival theory in Italy has a long tradition, going back as far as the second half of the nineteenth century, and with roots in the 17th and 18th centuries. Central theme in the theory is themetodo storico, the principle of provenance, for the first time expressed in the late 19th century by Bonaini and Bongi. In the following decades archivists like Casanova and Cencetti were among the leading authors. Elio Lodolini assigned himself the task to synthesize ideas and notions, within a clear distinctions between records (registratura) and archives. One of the overall characteristics of the rich Italian literature is the stressing of the cultural value of archives. I have twice treated before the theme of archival theory in Italy from the fifties up to the nineties. The first time on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of theScuola speciale per Archivisti e Bibliotecari dell'Università degli Studi “La Sapienza” di Roma in 1989, when there was an international round table on archival science in the State Archives of Rome. My essay,Italian archival science today, has been published in the proceedings of the meeting (cfr. Donato Tamblé,L'archivistica in Italia oggi, inStudi sull'archivistica, by Roma: Elio Lodolini, 1992). Some years later, in 1993, I published a book on contemporary Italian archival theory (Donato Tamblé,La teoria archivistica italiana contemporanea (1950–1990). Profilo storico-critico (Roma, 1993) which was the sequel to the volume of Elio Lodolini on Italian archival history — (Lineamenti di storia dell'archivistica italiana (Roma, 1991). The purpose of my book was that of locating and identifying the scientific object of archival science as it developed and was clarified in the thinking and in the lucubration of the contemporary Italian Archivists.     

后保管时代与档案学理论逻辑起点的认识和概念重建——后保管时代档案学基础理论适应性问题研究之二

本文认为,要认识后保管时代对档案学的影响,就要说明原有档案学逻辑起点存在着其逻辑极限,超出了这个极限,档案学理论就面临着体系上的重新构架;同时,理解后保管时代的档案学理论体系应具有的共同概念基础,如文件的构成要素、多维的文件运动,系统论与工程管理思想,三位一体的理论框架体系等.当然,从目前看,档案学界对于这种挑战也有一个适应过程,已基本上从仓促应战过渡到了从容应对的阶段.     

Archival theory in Italy today

Archival theory in Italy has a long tradition, going back as far as the second half of the nineteenth century, and with roots in the 17th and 18th centuries. Central theme in the theory is themetodo storico, the principle of provenance, for the first time expressed in the late 19th century by Bonaini and Bongi. In the following decades archivists like Casanova and Cencetti were among the leading authors. Elio Lodolini assigned himself the task to synthesize ideas and notions, within a clear distinctions between records (registratura) and archives. One of the overall characteristics of the rich Italian literature is the stressing of the cultural value of archives. I have twice treated before the theme of archival theory in Italy from the fifties up to the nineties. The first time on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of theScuola speciale per Archivisti e Bibliotecari dell'Università degli Studi “La Sapienza” di Roma in 1989, when there was an international round table on archival science in the State Archives of Rome. My essay,Italian archival science today, has been published in the proceedings of the meeting (cfr. Donato Tamblé,L'archivistica in Italia oggi, inStudi sull'archivistica, by Roma: Elio Lodolini, 1992). Some years later, in 1993, I published a book on contemporary Italian archival theory (Donato Tamblé,La teoria archivistica italiana contemporanea (1950–1990). Profilo storico-critico (Roma, 1993) which was the sequel to the volume of Elio Lodolini on Italian archival history — (Lineamenti di storia dell'archivistica italiana (Roma, 1991). The purpose of my book was that of locating and identifying the scientific object of archival science as it developed and was clarified in the thinking and in the lucubration of the contemporary Italian Archivists.     

关于全国档案学专业高等教育发展情况调查的统计与分析(下)

本文根据教育部高等学校档案学学科教学指导委员会所做的全国档案学专业高等教育发展情况调查所收集的数据整理而成,主要包括档案学专业基本情况、档案学专业教师基本情况、档案学专业教师科研情况、档案学专业课程建设基本情况、档案学专业招生与就业情况五个方面的内容。     

对图书馆学与档案学专业本科教育整合的思考

当前,图书馆学与档案学专业本科教育面临着诸多的尴尬与困境,两者的整合是大势所趋。图书馆学与档案学专业基于课程整合的本科教育整合是一种初级层次的整合,在新的社会实践背景下,需要被基于学科整合的本科教育整合所代替。其主要思路就是在图书馆学、情报学与档案学三个二级学科的基础上,整合一个新的上位类学科——信息资源管理学。