Archival Traditions Research Articles

A nordic archival tradition

This paper reviews the historical roots of the Danish-Norwegian and the Swedish-Finnish archival traditions, which form a basis for the cooperation between the archives in the Nordic countries.

Records Management and Archives in Korea : Its Development and Prospects

After almost one century of discontinuity in the archival tradition of Chosun dynasty, Korea entered the new age of records and archival management by legislating and executing the basic laws (The Records and Archives Management of Public Agencies Ad of 1999). Annals of Chosun dynasty recorded major historical facts of the five hundred years of national affairs. The Annals are major accomplishment in human history and rare in the world. It was possible because the Annals were composed of collected, selected and complied records of primary sources written and compiled by generations of historians, As important public records are needed to be preserved in original forms in modern archives, we had to develop and establish a modern archival system to appraise and select important national records for archival preservation. However, the colonialization of Korea deprived us of the opportunity to do the task, and our fine archival tradition was not succeeded. A centralized archival system began to develop since the establishment of GARS under the Ministry of Government Administration in 1969. GARS built a modem repository in Pusan in 1984 succeeding to the tradition of History Archives of Chosun dynasty. In 1998, GARS moved its headquarter to Taejon Government Complex and acquired state-of-the-art audio visual archives preservation facilities. From 1996, GARS introduced an automated archival management system to remedy the manual registration and management system complementing the preservation microfilming. Digitization of the holdings was the key project to provided the digital images of archives to users. To do this, the GARS purchased new computer/server systems and developed application softwares. Parallel to this direction, GARS drastically renovated its manpower composition toward a high level of professionalization by recruiting more archivists with historical and library science backgrounds. Conservators and computer system operators were also recruited. The new archival laws has been in effect from January 1, 2000. The new laws made following new changes in the field of records and archival administration in Korea. First, the laws regulate the records and archives of all public agencies including the Legislature, the Judiciary, the Administration, the constitutional institutions, Army, Navy, Air Force, and National Intelligence Service. A nation-wide unified records and archives management system became available. Second, public archives and records centers are to be established according to the level of the agency; a central archives at national level, special archives for the National Assembly and the Judiciary, local government archives for metropolitan cities and provinces, records center or special records center for administrative agencies. A records manager will be responsible for the records management of each administrative divisions. Third, the records in the public agencies are registered in the computer system as they are produced. Therefore, the records are traceable and will be searched or retrieved easily through internet or computer network. Fourth, qualified records managers and archivists who are professionally trained in the field of records management and archival science will be assigned mandatorily to guarantee the professional management of records and archives. Fifth, the illegal treatment of public records and archives constitutes a punishable crime. In the future, the public records find archival management will develop along with Korean government's 'Electronic Government Project.' Following changes are in prospect. First, public agencies will digitize paper records, audio-visual records, and publications as well as electronic documents, thus promoting administrative efficiency and productivity. Second, the National Assembly already established its Special Archives. The judiciary and the National Intelligence Service will follow it. More archives will be established at city and provincial levels. Third, the more our society develop into a knowledge-based information society, the more the records management function will become one of the important national government functions. As more universities, academic associations, and civil societies participate in promoting archival awareness and in establishing archival science, and more people realize the importance of the records and archives management up to the level of national public campaign, the records and archival management in Korea will develop significantly distinguishable from present practice.

Dang'an: Contemporary Chinese Archives

Western scholars who have worked with records of imperial and Nationalist China are perhaps not so familiar with post-1949 archives.' This article introduces archives management in the People's Republic of China (PRC).2 For more than 2,000 years, Chinese written language has linked people who have locally different oral languages. This lends archives a political significance often taken for granted in China. There is profound respect for the antiquity of records (on bone, stone, bronze, bamboo, wood and silk as well as on paper), a respect that dignifies contemporary archives and archivists. Long archival traditions affect modern archives management and use of archives by scholars. Ordering history by imperial reigns and year within reigns persists in preference for chronological order rather than division into functional series. Court compilation of official histories survives as today's archivists compile and publish selected documents of historical events. During the 19th century, Western methods and forms of record-keeping were introduced and amalgamated with imperial methods of preservation and categorization, and may still be found in Chinese archives today. Soviet, German and American methods were absorbed partially during the 20th century. Archives work after 1949 was preoccupied with trying to pull together, restore and make useful the surviving remnants of a beleaguered past, and to build a systematic record of the present for useful social reference. The effort was aborted for a decade during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Since 1978, however, archive maintenance and management has received renewed attention and priority from central, provincial and local governments. Conditions and access are changing, although perhaps more slowly and inconsistently than seems tolerable to Western users. Only just rehabilitated and rejuvenated in the 1980s, the archival profession now faces reform of governmental and economic structures and the

Archival Oneness in the Midst of Diversity: A Personal Perspective

Archival traditions and practices, together with each archivist's particular situation, not only vary greatly around the world, but within countries and types of institutions within those countries as well. These diverse traditions provide only a limited basis for shared identities between archivists, but they are ultimately linked by the common practice of each archivist of adapting universal archival principles to fit his or her institution's own circumstances. The International Council on Archives provides a forum to encourage international cooperation among archivists and opportunities for those in similar institutions and regions to strengthen their common identities and associations with each other, and to share their approaches to common issues and goals. Several factors account for the advancement of the ICA's goals and for the limitation of its achievements as well. Overall, however, underlying both the similar and diverse ways of dealing with archival issues is the role of archives to provide evidence of the cultural context of societies. The solutions to the challenges facing archivists today should not divide us along theoretical lines, but strive to enable all archivists to work together in fulfilling this cultural role.

Access in the Time of Salinger: Fair Use and the Papers of Katherine Anne Porter

Manuscripts curators who wish to microfilm or otherwise duplicate a collection for preservation and access commonly confront a problem: multiple copyrights represented in a collection. It is practically impossible to obtain permission from the numerous parties who may hold such copyrights. What are the limits of fair use in such a case, particularly considering the restrictive environment after Salinger v. Random House, Inc.? Archival tradition and practice offer some answers more hopeful for preservation and access to materials, but the law still limits. To best serve the research community, archivists must lobby to have more liberal policies codified into law. The Papers of Katherine Anne Porter, a collection held by Archives and Manuscripts at the University of Maryland at College Park Libraries, is used as an example.

A guide to the post independence ministerial records in the National Archives of Ghana, 1920-1988

Intellectual access to archival sources in the National Archives of Ghana in recent times has been the focus of many prominent historians and academics both local and foreign. Many researchers (Gareth Austin, 1986; Adam Jones, 1987) have documented the inadequacy of search tools, the lack of physical control, and the deteriorating valuable sources in this Archive which was one of the pioneering institutions in Africa. Out of desperation some have even prepared summary guides to some of the holdings they have used or are familiar with (Gareth Austin, 1986)Though the archival tradition in Ghana spans a period of five decades, there is no comprehensive guide to the total holdings of the Archives. This inadequacy has for a long time eclipsed the real value of the contents of the Archives.

Archives in Japan: The State of the Art

Although Japan has a long history, its archival traditions are still developing. The author gives a brief history of Japanese recordkeeping and its archival institutions. She also discusses archival legislation and the Japan Society of Archives Institutions. The article includes a translation of the Japanese archives law and an annotated bibliography of English-language articles on Japanese archives.

The American Catholic Archival Tradition

The American Catholic Archival Tradition

Notes on a Projected Corpus of Twelfth-Century Decretal Letters

Medieval historians, diplomatists, and canonists alike will welcome the news from Gottingen that Professor W. Holtzmann is preparing the critical edition of a corpus of papal decretals of the twelfth century. It is altogether fitting that this project should be undertaken by a scholar universally recognized as the foremost authority on the decretal collections; and also that he should have decided to detach it from the G6ttingen Academy's monumental enterprise, as designed and directed for over forty years by the late Paul Kehr, which has as its ultimate goal a complete edition of the twenty thousand odd papal letters extant from the earliest times to the accession of Innocent III-an enterprise which we may not hope to see completed within this generation. Professor Holtzmann, in the course of his connection with the general Papeturlcundenuierks, has come to realize that the decretal letters of the twelfth century offer both an historical interest and a critical problem of their own. The first is easily seen by their paramount significance, especially since the pontificate of Alexander III, for the development of Canon law in doctrine and its consolidation in practice; the second consists in the peculiarities connected with their being transmitted in collections made by canonists for the use of canonists. The purpose of such collections, i.e. the intention to serve, broadly speaking, the needs of schools and courts, entailed certain well-known textual developments, resulting in a sharp contrast with any kind of archival tradition: neglect of formal elements of the individual letter, especially of its protocol and eschatocol; abbreviation of its juridically irrelevant portions; dissection, at least in the systematic collections, of slecretals dealing with divers matters in order to distribute their contents under several titles, etc.