Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Content
Definition
Information Records
Learning Objectives
In the end of this chapter, you should able to:
Define the term for information, data and records Know the basic information about records Indentify the differences between record and archives Outline the (4) principles or records and archives care Explain the principles of records and archives care
What Is Information?
Information is knowledge that human beings perceive through one or more of their senses. It remains intangible until it is represented in a formal manner as data. When represented as data in a document, information can then be stored, communicated and used.
Cont...
Information: Knowledge that is communicated. Document: A unit of recorded information. Data (pl.): The representation of information in a formalised manner suitable for communication, interpretation and processing, generally by a computer system. Note: the term raw data refers to unprocessed information.
Record: A document regardless of form or medium created, received, maintained and used by an organisation (public or private) in the transaction of business, of which it provides evidence.
Forms of Records
Paper egs: correspondence, minutes, reports, memoranda (normally filed systematically), ledgers, registers, notebooks, appointment diaries, maps and plans (cartographic records), architectural and engineering drawings, pictures (iconographic records) or computer printouts.
Non-paper egs: roll microfilm, microfiche or computer output microfiche (COM) formats (microforms); photographs, including prints, negatives, transparencies and x-ray films; sound recordings on disk or tape; as moving images on film or video (audiovisual records);
Microform
Microfilm
Microfiche
electronic - text or images copied on magnetic tape or magnetic or optical disk or held in online databases (electronic records; formerly known as machine-readable records); as three-dimensional models, scientific specimens or other objects; or as combinations of any of the above formats in an electronic form (multimedia).
Magnetic tape
Optical disk
Nature of Records
Static Authoritative Unique Authentic
Cont
One of the dangers today, with the advent of sophisticated information technologies such as computers, is that information can be extracted from the record that originally conveyed it and taken out of its context. An electronic version of the minutes can be altered and could replace the original version without anyone noticing the difference. Similarly, new versions of the minutes could be made using electronic technologies, just as in the examples earlier, and as a result no copy can be guaranteed to be authentic.
Categories of Records
Records are created by all sorts of people and institutions. Individuals, families, businesses, associations and groups, political parties and governments all create and use records every day. So, records can be categorised into two categories: Public Records Private Records
Categories of Records
a. Public records: Records created or received and maintained in any public sector agency. b. Private records: Records created, received and maintained by non-governmental organisations, families or individuals relating to their private and public affairs.
Archival institution: The agency responsible for selecting, acquiring, preserving, and making available archives. Also known as an archival agency, archival facility or archives; sometimes referred to as an archival repository. Archival repository: A building or part of a building in which archives are preserved and made available for consultation. Also known as an archives.
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Typical users in national and other archival institutions include
government representatives requiring information about government activities professional or academic researchers from a wide range of disciplines journalists amateur researchers genealogists members of the public others wishing to have some contact with the primary sources of their national culture and tradition anyone with an urgent problem that can only be solved by referring to records. Equally, corporate, organisational or local archival institutions hold records of research use to a wide variety of people.
Cont
The care of records and archives is governed by four important concepts introduced here.
These are (1) that records must be kept together according to the agency responsible for their creation or accumulation, in the original order established at the time of their creation; (2) that records follow a life cycle; (3) that the care of records should follow a continuum; and (4) that records can be organised according to hierarchical levels in order to reflect the nature of their creation. These principles and concepts are known as
the principle of respect des fonds the life-cycle concept the continuum concept the principle of levels of arrangement and description.
Life-cycle concept: A concept that draws an analogy between the life of a biological organism, which is born, lives and dies, and that of a record, which is created, is used for so long as it has continuing value and is then disposed of by destruction or by transfer to an archival institution.
Cont
The effective management of records throughout their life cycle is a key issue in civil service reform.
Without it, vast quantities of inactive records clog up expensive office space, and it is virtually impossible to retrieve important administrative, financial and legal information.
Such a situation undermines the accountability of the state and endangers the rights of the citizen
Cont
Continuum concept: A consistent and coherent process of records management throughout the life of records, from the development of record-keeping systems through the creation and preservation of records, to their retention and use as archives.
2 intellectual control
3 access 4physical control
Cont
From this principle a unified model has been developed. The model reflects the pattern of a continuum. Four actions continue or recur throughout the life of a record and cut across the traditional boundary between records management and archival administration. There are
the creation or acquisition of the record
its placement within a logical, documented system that governs its arrangement and facilitates its retrieval throughout its life
Cont
its appraisal for continuing value, recorded in a disposal schedule and given effect at the due time by appropriate disposal action
its maintenance and use, that is, whether it is maintained in the creating office, a records office, a records centre or an archival repository, and whether the use is by its creator or a successor in function or by a third party, such as a researcher or other member of the public.
Control
Appraisal
Office/File
Official Access
Official Access
Disposal
Responsibility
Cont..
This division of activities into records management and archival phases, with the consequent division of responsibility between the records manager (or registrar) and the archivist, is seen by some as artificial and restrictive. The several stages are not really seen as distinct and separate. Consider the following tasks, for example.
Acquisition in the archives phase is the mirror image of disposal in the records management phase. Reference and use in the archives phase are essentially the same tasks as maintenance and use in the records management phase. Arrangement and description in the archives phase is vitally dependent on classification in the records management phase.
Cont
The continuum approach means the end of the traditional demarcation between the functions of the records manager (or registrar) and the archivist. A person responsible for care of records at a particular phase in their life cycle will certainly need specific knowledge and expertise. However, input will be needed from others who have been or will be responsible for records at other phases of the life cycle. The registrar, records manager, records centre manager and archivist will all still perform their own duties, but their work will be undertaken within an integrated structure, with no rigid boundaries to limit professional collaboration and development.
Cont
This collaboration between records and archives managers is most successful if the archival institution can be restructured to serve as a records and archives institution, A records and archives institution would establish a new records service for the whole of the government, corporation or organisation that would include staff working in records offices (registries), records centres and archival repositories.
It would also develop an appropriate scheme of service and job descriptions for all records staff, and it would develop training schemes to prepare staff at all the necessary levels to provide efficient records services throughout the life cycle.
Cont
Where records management and archival activities are not integrated, records managers and archivists find that they are often duplicating each others work or, worse, undoing or redoing tasks that could have been completed more efficiently had the two phases been considered part of a unified whole. Throughout these modules, the term life cycle is used when discussing the record; the term continuum is used when discussing the management of the record according to the continuum concept.
Terminology:
Respect des fonds: Respect for the creator of the records or archives, involving the maintenance of provenance and original order. Provenance: The organisation or individual that created or received, maintained and used records while they were still current. Original order: The order in which documents were created, arranged and maintained by the office of origin.
These principles require that archivists and records managers observe the following guidelines:
1. The records of separate agencies or organisations must be managed separately, even if the agencies in question were involved with similar activities or were managed by the same people. Do not combine the records of two agencies or organisations. Similarly, the private records of individuals must not be integrated, even if the individuals were related or experienced the same events.
2.
Cont
3. Records must be maintained according to their original order: that is according to the filing, classification and retrieval methods established by the organisation as part of an efficient records management programme. 4. Records offices and records centres must create, maintain and store records according to logical and well-structured records management procedures. 5. Archival institutions must not change the original order in which records were received, as that order reflects the way in which the records were created and used.
Cont
When records are received in an identifiable order, the archival institution should not reorganise records by subject, date or medium of material. In order to ensure records are retain their administrative use and archival value, records and archives managers must be significantly involved with the record-creating process itself, rather than be passive recipients of records that may no longer be authentic or reliable.
Cont
Records and archives managers must also become more involved with and understand the processes that lead to the creation of records. It is not sufficient to study the record and its physical nature and characteristics. Records professionals must understand the business functions, activities and working practices that cause documents to be made, used and maintained. Records and archives managers must be involved with records care from the beginning, when records are created, through all stages of the life cycle, in order to provide a continuum of care.
Cont
Central to the activities of arrangement and description is the understanding that records can be arranged and described according to levels. These levels place records into categories according to hierarchy, allowing records to be managed as groups rather than individual items. The terms used to distinguish the different levels of records and archives can be confusing. For example, in addition to item, terms that have been used to refer to an assembly of related documents include file, unit, piece, file unit or unit of handling. And item may also be used to refer to the single documents that make up such an assembly. For the purpose of clarity, the following terms, with their definitions, will be used in this study programme.
Cont
Group: The primary division in the arrangement of records and archives at the level of the independent originating organisation. Also known as archives group, fonds, record group.
Subgroup: A discrete subdivision in the arrangement of archives below the level of the group, usually the archives of a subordinate administrative unit with its own record-keeping system.
Series: The level of arrangement of the files and other records of an organisation or individual that brings together those relating to the same function or activity or having a common form or some other relationship arising from their creation, receipt or use. Also known as a file series, records series or class.
File (1): An organized physical assembly (usually within a folder) of documents grouped together for current use or in the process of archival arrangement because they relate to the same subject, activity or transaction. Note: A file is usually the basic unit within a record series. Item: The basic physical unit of arrangement and description within a series. Also known as a piece.
Note that the term file is also used when discussing computerisation, as follows: File (2): A logical assembly of data stored within a computer system. Note: In word-processing systems it is the intellectual representation of a physical document.
The term institution is used as a level of description to refer to the institution holding the records being described, such as the National Archives or the Corporate Archives. Figure 4 illustrates the concept of levels of arrangement. Note that Figure 4 identifies both the item and the file. The term item is used most often in the archival environment, when discussing the physical units of arrangement. The term file is often used in the records office or records centre, as that is the unit of management in those environments.
item